20693: Esser: Next stop for Aristide: NIGERIA (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

The Jamaica Observer
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com

March 23, 2004

Next stop for Aristide: NIGERIA
Some Caricom leaders reject Latortue's overtures
by Wire services and Observer reporters

NIGERIA agreed yesterday that it will allow Jean-Bertrand Aristide to
spend time there before heading to another country and it appeared
last night that the overthrown Haitian leader will now leave Jamaica
earlier than initially planned.

Senior foreign ministry officials were unavailable for comment on the
development last night, but political sources close to the Aristide
issue said that Nigeria's decision, at the request of Prime Minister
P J Patterson, seem set to curtail his stay here. Nigeria made it
clear that Patterson acted on behalf of the 15-member Caribbean
Community (Caricom).

"Now that he is reunited with his children, Mr Aristide is a little
bit more settled and is a little bit anxious to settle at his final
place of asylum," said an Observer source. "He is sensitive to his
personal and family security situation in the region."

But there was no specific information last night on when he would
leave Jamaica or arrive in Nigeria and where he would stay in that
west African country.

Aristide left office on February 29 and was taken to the Central
African Republic in what he branded as a "political kidnapping"
orchestrated by the United States and supported by France.

But the Americans say that they only helped him to leave Haiti in the
face of a popular uprising and an advancing rebel militia.

Aristide and his wife, Mildred, arrived in Jamaica on March 15 for
what the Jamaican government said was a humanitarian visit of between
eight and 10 weeks to allow them to reunite with their two young
daughters who were in the United States.

But Jamaica has fallen under pressure from the United States for
granting temporary asylum to Aristide, claiming that his presence
less than 200 miles away from Haiti was potentially destabilising.
Haiti's interim prime minister, Gerard Latortue, installed after
Aristide's ostensible resignation, said Jamaica's decision was an
"unfriendly act".
The Aristides have been staying at a government protocol house, a
sprawling ranch-style bungalow in Lydford, St Ann and so far the
ousted leader has kept his promise to the Jamaican government not to
make political statements or use the island as a launch pad for a
power grab in Haiti.

But it is apparent that the Patterson administration would wish to
defuse the tension of his presence in Jamaica and yesterday, Remi
Oyo, a spokesman for Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo said that Aristide
would spend a few weeks in that country's "staging post" to his final
destination.

"Caricom, under the leadership of Jamaica's Prime Minister Percival
Patterson, has requested Nigeria to consider giving former president
Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti 'a staging post' for a few weeks
until his movement to another country," Oyo said.

Aristide is expected to eventually head for South Africa after that
country's general election next month, which Thabo Mbeki's African
National Congress (ANC) is expected to win.

Caricom, which Haiti joined in 1998, had criticised Aristide's
overthrow and called for investigation into the manner of his
departure from Haiti.

After receiving the request to host Aristide, Nigeria undertook
"widespread consultations with African leaders, the leadership of the
African Union, the US government and other concerned authorities",
Oyo said.

"Following the concurrence received after these consultations,
Nigeria has agreed to grant the request from Caricom," she said.
.