20476: (Chamberlain) Aristide a mystery to new Jamaican neighbors (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Jane Sutton

     GOLDEN GROVE, Jamaica, March 16 (Reuters) - Six soldiers with
automatic rifles guarded a winding road outside the yellow two-story house
where former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was secluded, a
mystery figure to his new neighbors who were wary of discussing his
presence in Jamaica.
     A day after a helicopter whisked Aristide and his American-born wife,
Mildred, from Kingston's airport to the secluded Lydgate Great House in
cool, steep mountains around the town of Golden Grove for a visit that
could last two months, no one in the neighborhood had seen the exiled
leader.
     Two of the workmen who maintain the surrounding property, owned by a
mining company, stood in the shade of a guard house and said they hoped the
former president from neighboring Haiti did not cause any trouble in
Jamaica.
     "I don't think it's a good idea for him to be in our country," said
one, who did not want to give his name.
     "I don't know if he's a good man," agreed his companion, who also did
not want to be identified.
     Keith Foreman, a civilian supervisor for the government-owned house,
delivered a baked chicken lunch after the camouflaged soldiers checked out
his red pickup truck.
     He did not voice an opinion about Aristide, but was happy to describe
the house, once owned by a bauxite company manager but owned by the
Jamaican government for nearly two decades. Jamaican Prime Minister P.J.
Patterson stays there occasionally, he said.
     GOVERNMENT HOUSE
     The house has four bedrooms, a pool and satellite television, and "a
very good cook," Foreman said.
     Workers spruced up the grounds a bit and did some touch-up painting
before their guest arrived, and still wondered who was footing the bill for
Aristide's stay, he said. "We try to question it but we don't get the
answers," Foreman said.
     Information Minister Burchell Whiteman told a local radio station that
all arrangements for Aristide's visit were made from outside Jamaica but
did not say who made them.
     The Jamaica Defense Force has a training camp near the home and a
heavy security team guarding it. Soldiers piled out of a truck and over the
low stone wall that lined the driveway, scanning the surrounding hillside
for intruders and scaring away the egrets that nibbled bugs on the estate's
lawn.
     "We have no knowledge, we have no idea," one said when asked if
Aristide had ventured out or received any guests.
     Down the hill, noisy children played in the sunny yard of the Golden
Grove primary school. They nodded when asked if they knew who Aristide was,
then went back to their games.
     The school principal said parents questioned whether the children were
in danger, but that children were used to seeing soldiers conduct drills in
the area and paid them no mind.
     "We're not perturbed by their presence," said the principal, a
friendly and matronly woman who did not want to give her name. "We're
reassured."
     As for Aristide, she said: "I'm not worried about his presence here.
We are fine. Life goes on just the same if he's here. And if he's not here,
life goes on."