20293: (Chamberlain) Haiti prime minister opposes Aristide Jamaica stay (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Ibon Villelabeitia

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, March 12 (Reuters) - Haiti's interim prime
minister said on Friday he had told neighboring Jamaica that its plan to
host ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from next week would be "an
unfriendly act."
     Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson said on Thursday that Aristide,
who was forced into exile in Africa on Feb. 29 by an armed revolt and U.S.
pressure to quit, planned to travel to Jamaica on a personal visit that
could last up to 10 weeks.
     Prime Minister Gerard Latortue said he had expressed his concern to
Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson about Aristide visiting the island.
     "I let him know that to have Aristide so close would be an unfriendly
act ... He has pledged that he will try to make Aristide's stay in Jamaica
as short as possible," Latortue told reporters.
     Latortue said Aristide would arrive in Jamaica on Tuesday.
     The planned trip has aroused concern in the revolt-torn country that
having Aristide so close -- 115 miles (180 km) from Haiti's shores -- could
fuel raging discontent in Haiti's slums where the ousted leader enjoyed the
most support.
     Patterson had said Aristide, who is currently in the Central African
Republic, was not seeking political asylum in Jamaica.
     But Latortue said Chile's vice minister of foreign affairs had
indicated the South American nation was willing to grant Aristide a
permanent home.
     "They are agreeable to the idea of granting exile to Aristide in
Chile," Latortue told reporters.
     He did not indicate whether Aristide had sought or would accept asylum
in Chile, one of the nations that has contributed troops to the
stabilization force sent to Haiti under a United Nations mandate after
Aristide fled, leaving a behind a chaotic capital torn by shooting and
looting.
     As Latortue was speaking, his predecessor Yvon Neptune, an Aristide
appointee, gave a resignation speech in which he bitterly decried the
"selfishness of some and the cowardice and baseness of others," who he said
had robbed Haitians "in the space of a few hours of the fruit of several
years of labor."
     An aide said Neptune then left for the airport. It was not clear
whether he was leaving the country for good.
     Latortue, who was named this week to replace Neptune, spoke to
reporters after a five-hour meeting with members of Aristide's Lavalas
Family party and with members of political opposition groups. He called the
talks productive and said all had agreed on the necessity of bringing both
the opposition and Lavalas into the new government cabinet.
     Latortue also said he hoped to attend a meeting of the Caribbean
Community heads of state in St. Kitts on March 25 and 26. Haiti and Jamaica
are members of the 15-nation regional bloc, which had brokered a
power-sharing deal that would have allowed Aristide to remain in office
until his term ended in 2006. The deal fell apart when Aristide's political
foes refused to accept it and the armed rebels closed in.

     (Additional reporting by Michael Christie)