22171: (Craig) NYT: S. Africa Hails Aristide to Live in Exile (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig <hoosier@att.net>

S. Africa Hails Aristide to Live in Exile
May 31, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:05 p.m. ET

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) -- Ousted Haitian President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide was welcomed to South Africa on
Monday in a style reserved for visiting heads of state,
ending a three-month search for what he maintains will be a
``temporary home'' in exile.

Before leaving Jamaica on Sunday, Aristide insisted he was
still the elected president of Haiti and vowed to return.

President Thabo Mbeki embraced Aristide and his wife,
Mildred, as they stepped from the South African
presidential jetliner that brought them, their two young
daughters and their bodyguards to Johannesburg
International Airport.

Mbeki then introduced the couple to a long line of waiting
Cabinet members, diplomats and representatives of the
African Union and U.S. Congressional Black Caucus.

Aristide fled Haiti on Feb. 29 as rebels approached the
capital, Port-au-Prince. He later claimed he was pushed out
by the United States, a charge Washington denies.

In a brief statement in Zulu to reporters Monday, Aristide
thanked South Africa and the African Union for hosting him
and his family.

``Instead of Europe, we are welcome in Africa, our mother
continent, our temporary home until we are back in Haiti,''
he said, switching back to English.

But he added that the situation in Haiti must be normalized
and peace must be restored before he would attempt to
return.

South Africa says Aristide and his entourage can live in
nearby Pretoria, the capital, at government expense until
it is safe for them to return to Haiti.

``South Africa has a responsibility, as an African country
and as part of the international community, to ensure that
democracy and peace prevail in Haiti, and that the people
of Haiti are able to choose who their leaders should be,''
Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said Monday.

While South Africa insists this is only a temporary
arrangement, government officials declined to specify how
long Aristide might remain in the country.

The offer to host Aristide has brought criticism from the
political opposition here, which has protested the cost to
South African tax payers, many of whom are still mired in
poverty a decade after apartheid's end.

Aristide's ``arrival -- and the red-carpet treatment
afforded to him -- illustrates that government is more
concerned with the old boys club of presidents and
politicians than it is with the people of South Africa,''
said Douglas Gibson, an official with the opposition
Democratic Alliance.

Aristide spent his first weeks in exile in Central African
Republic, to which he was flown aboard a U.S.-supplied jet.
He flew to Jamaica with his wife on March 15 to reunite
with their two young daughters.

His return to the Caribbean angered Haiti's new U.S.-backed
interim government, which worried that his presence would
further destabilize Haiti, just 100 miles east of Jamaica.

The 15-member Caribbean Community has refused to recognize
Haiti's new government and has called on the Organization
of American States to investigate the circumstances of
Aristide's departure. South Africa has backed calls for an
independent probe.

Aristide, a slum priest elected on promises to the poor,
began losing support shortly after he won a second term and
his Lavalas Family party swept disputed legislative races
in 2000. International donors suspended millions of dollars
in aid, worsening poverty in the Western Hemisphere's
poorest country and angering Aristide's former supporters.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-South-Africa-Aristide.html?ex=1087028316&ei=1&en=ec224891a73d0236
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company