22163: (Craig) CNN: Aristide Promises Return to Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig <hoosier@att.net>


Aristide promises return to Haiti Sunday, May 30, 2004 Posted: 6:24 PM
EDT (2224 GMT) JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- South Africa's main
opposition party has called the decision to grant Haiti's ousted
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide temporary asylum a "mistake" and
questioned the cost to South African taxpayers. Aristide left Jamaica on
Sunday afternoon with his family and bodyguards, and was due to arrive
in South Africa on Monday. Before leaving he told reporters he would one
day return to Haiti. "It will now be our temporary home until we are
back in Haiti... There is one elected president of Haiti, not two, and
it's me," he said. Aristide has maintained that he was the victim of a
U.S.-orchestrated coup; State Department officials said he fled
voluntarily as rebel forces closed in on his palace. During his absence,
"the level of suffering has dramatically increased in Haiti," Aristide
said, citing recent floods blamed for 2,000 deaths and what he said were
killings sanctioned by the current government. Asked to describe details
of his ouster, Aristide said he had almost finished writing a book about
it that would reveal "the full answer" to what happened. Meanwhile, he
urged those Haitians seeking a return to democracy to be peaceful.
"Facing violence, we don't answer with violence," the former Catholic
priest said. Asked when he would return to Haiti, Aristide said, "We
don't have a date." Still, he said, he was maintaining close ties to
Haitians. "That means, when they are suffering, I suffer too." Aristide
accused the current Haitian leadership of using violence to quell its
critics -- "they kill them or they arrest them or they push them in
hiding" -- and compared the situation in the Caribbean nation to Iraq.
"The issue is: you have pictures from Iraq, and you may not have from
Haiti. But, when you compare these two countries, we feel shocked, and
we suffer." South African President Thabo Mbeki would be at Johannesburg
International Airport to welcome the Aristide party when it arrived
Monday afternoon, the government said in a statement Sunday. "Hosting
Jean-Bertrand Aristide here in South Africa is a mistake, and the South
African government should know it," said Parliament representative
Douglas Gibson, the opposition Democratic Alliance's spokesman on
foreign affairs. "Ordinary South Africans cannot fathom why they must
pay to put up the former Haitian leader along with his delegation. Mr.
Aristide should go home," The Associated Press reported him as saying.
Aristide was given permission to stay in South Africa earlier this month
until the situation in his own volatile country returned to stability.
The South African government said it would accede to a request by the
African Union and the Caribbean Community for Aristide to move to the
country from Jamaica. Aristide left Haiti amid a rebel advance on the
capital, Port-au-Prince on February 29 for the Central African Republic.
>From there he went to Jamaica in mid-March, which offered to let him
stay for up to 10 weeks. France and the United States were consulted
about the move to South Africa and agreed to the arrangement. The South
African government will be responsible for Aristide's residence and
upkeep while he lives in the country with his wife and children,
according to Cabinet spokesman Joel Netshitenzhe -- a move that has
angered opposition groups. "The South African government has still not
explained under what legal authority Mr. Aristide is being granted entry
into our country," Gibson said in a statement. "We need to know whether
other nations will help finance his stay, or whether the South African
taxpayer will be left with the bill." He said the government should have
focused on crises closer to home, including in Zimbabwe and Sudan, and
on its own impoverished people. "Haiti is so far beyond our sphere of
influence, we should have left the matter to other nations," Gibson
said. Jamaica's decision to host Aristide angered Washington and Haiti's
U.S.-back interim government, which said his return to the Caribbean
could destabilize Haiti, just 160 kilometers (100 miles) east of
Jamaica. A caretaker administration is running the impoverished country
pending elections next year. Aristide has recently been staying at a
tightly secured government-owned villa in the rural parish of St. Ann in
Jamaica. CNN Johannesburg Bureau Chief Charlayne Hunter-Gault
contributed to this report.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/africa/05/30/saftrica.aristide/index.html