24469: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti's Aristide says will return, praises UN (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Peter Apps

     JOHANNESBURG, March 9 (Reuters) - Ousted Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand
Aristide said on Wednesday he expected to return to his country as
president, but added he did not know when and denied involvement in recent
protests aimed at restoring him.
     He said he was not in direct contact with protesters who have marched
through the capital Port-au-Prince in recent days, but praised U.N.
peacekeepers for protecting them after police killed at least three
protesters last week.
     "I will return. I don't know when but I will," Aristide told reporters
after a lecture at Johannesburg's University of the Witwatersrand. "I am
not involved in organising such things but I pray they will not kill them
while they are demonstrating."
     Aristide was forced into exile in South Africa in February 2004 after
a bloody rebellion by street gangs and ex-soldiers and under pressure from
the United States and France.
     The former theology lecturer told reporters and students the rebellion
was backed by drug dealers, criminals and the U.S. State Department, all of
whom he said wanted to stop him holding democratic elections.
     "They have killed more than 10,000 people in one year," he said.
Government claims he had been involved in orchestrating political violence
in late 2004 were false and aimed at discrediting him, he said.
     An increasing number of political and social groups that opposed
Aristide now express disenchantment with the U.S.-backed interim government
of Prime Minister Gerard Latortue.
     On Monday, police fired on a pro-Aristide demonstration, with
witnesses saying three people were killed.
     Aristide said the protestors -- whose marches have been secured by
U.N. peacekeepers in recent days -- were upset conditions in the troubled
Caribbean state had worsened since his departure.
     Aristide became Haiti's first democratically elected president in
1990, was ousted in a coup but was later reinstated. He said the
constitution banned him from seeking a further term of office in the event
he was able to stand in elections.