Minister defends South Africa's links with Haiti

Saturday, January 10, 2004

PRETORIA, South Africa (AFP): South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma on Friday defended President Thabo Mbeki's decision to attend the bicentennial of Haiti's slave rebellion and said Pretoria's support was for "the people ... not the government".

South Africa gave Haiti 1.5 million dollars toward the cost of the celebrations of the uprising against Napoleon's troops which saw the Caribbean territory become the world's first black republic.

With opposition to Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide turning violent, Mbeki was the only foreign head of state to attend the New Year celebrations.

Dlamini-Zuma told a press briefing in Pretoria: "I am proud to be part of a government that takes sovereign decisions and does not simply follow the herd."

The minister said South African police had briefly trained Haitian police last year in crowd control.

"I would have thought that as a Haitian activist one would be grateful for the police learning that they should not simply shoot demonstrators," she said.

"Our assistance to Haiti is for the people and not in any way to support the government."

Dlamini-Zuma said the Haitian opposition groups she had met on a visit there in mid-December had not asked for Mbeki to cancel his visit.

"They asked us to intervene with the president to ensure that the opposition groups would be able to demonstrate. This we did successfully."

The minister said she had stayed behind after Mbeki's departure to report to the opposition groups on Aristide's reaction to the messages she had conveyed to him from them.

She was adamant, however, that South Africa would not be playing a mediation role in Haiti.

"That is being done by the regional organisation Caricom which has an observer mission in Haiti right now," said.

The Democratic Alliance, South Africa's main opposition grouping, earlier attacked Mbeki's attendance at the celebrations as a "fiasco", and the small National Action party described it as a great embarrassment for South Africa. 

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