22229: (Chamberlain) S.Africa says guest Aristide left home penniless (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Manoah Esipisu

     PRETORIA, June 2 (Reuters) - Deposed Haitian President Jean Bertrand
Aristide will stay in South Africa as a government guest because he left
his homeland with nothing, Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma said on
Wednesday.
     Aristide arrived in South Africa in exile on Monday and was given a
red carpet welcome amid opposition protests that South African taxpayers
should not be bankrolling his exile.
     "He is here not as a refugee, he is here as a free person. He is not a
prisoner, he is not under house arrest, he is a free person and will remain
so," Dlamini Zuma told a news conference in the capital Pretoria.
     "The way he left (Haiti), he left without anything and...if you
understand that then you understand that he is our guest."
     She said Aristide was not expected to lead an armed rebellion from
South African exile.
     "I am sure that he is not going to be organising an armed struggle
from here but he can talk to anyone, he is a free man," she said, adding
that the South African government expected Aristide to return home when the
situation there normalised.
     Aristide insists he remains his country's elected leader and has
accused Haiti's new government with harassing and killing his supporters.
     Faced with an armed revolt, Aristide left Haiti on February 29.
     "A leader who cares for his people could not allow a bloodbath, so he
left," Dlamini Zuma said.
     The United States initially arranged for Aristide to be flown to the
Central African Republic. He then travelled to Jamaica to see his children.
South Africa approved his asylum request two weeks ago.
     The asylum offer underlined South Africa's view that Aristide was
unconstitutionally removed from power in a "regime change" sanctioned by
U.S. President George W. Bush -- although officials stressed they had
agreed to host Aristide only after consulting Washington.
     President Thabo Mbeki has been a strong international supporter of
Aristide and was the only foreign president to attend Haiti's official
celebration of its bicentennial earlier this year -- a trip which earned
him brickbats from political opponents and the media at home.