Nigeria grants temporary stay to Aristide while he seeks home

by Ola Awoniyi

Tuesday, March 23, 2004

ABUJA, Nigeria (AFP): Nigeria agreed on Monday to allow Haiti's deposed president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to spend a few weeks in the west African country before moving on to another destination, a senior official said.

President Olusegun Obasanjo's spokeswoman Remi Oyo said in a statement that Nigeria had agreed to a request from Haiti's regional bloc, the Caribbean Economic Community (CARICOM), that Aristide be accorded a "staging post".

"After receiving the CARICOM request, Nigeria undertook widespread consultations with African leaders, the leadership of the African Union, the US government and other concerned authorities," Oyo said.

"Following the concurrence received after these consultations, Nigeria has agreed to grant the request from CARICOM," she said. She gave no indication as to when the Haitian leader would arrive in Nigeria, nor where he would stay.

Aristide arrived in Jamaica on Monday, March 15 from the Central African Republic, to which he had been taken on February 29 after he stepped down from power under escort from US officials in order to flee an armed uprising. 

"CARICOM, under the leadership of Jamaica's Prime Minister Percival Patterson, has requested Nigeria to consider giving former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti 'a staging post' for a few weeks until his movement to another country," Oyo said.

Since leaving Haiti, Aristide has claimed to have been forced out by US and French pressure, and has not recognised the government of his Caribbean nation's new US-backed prime minister, Gerard Latortue.

He was expected to spend 10 weeks in Jamaica, an island state not far from Haiti, but his presence so close to his still unstable country had raised fears that his supporters might be tempted to mount a counterattack.

An angry Latortue froze relations with Jamaica, which has in turn refused to recognize Haiti's new government as it has not been accepted by CARICOM, whose members will meet at St Kitts and Nevis on Thursday and Friday to decide on the issue.

Aristide had said he hoped to move to South Africa, whose President Thabo Mbeki has been an outspoken supporter, but so far Pretoria has been cautious.

Haiti has now returned to relative stability after the deployment of US-led international force -- comprising US, French, Canadian and Chilean troops -- and the installation of Latortue's interim government.

But tensions remain, and the peacekeepers have been involved in several shoot-outs with criminals and armed Aristide supporters. 

Aristide's presence in Nigeria may annoy some of its citizens, where many still question the wisdom of Obasanjo's decision to grant political asylum to Liberia's ousted former president Charles Taylor in August last year.

Taylor's presence, initially welcomed by Washington and many of Nigeria's other allies, has become a burden to Nigeria, with many now calling for the Liberian to be extradited to Sierra Leone to face war crimes charges.

Bayo Onanuga, editor of the weekly magazine The News, said he was surprised by Obasanjo's welcome to a president rejected by many of his own people.

"Do we want to turn our country into a safe haven for despots rejected in their country, and by the world?" he demanded. "Nigerians will oppose this."

Bari Ara-Kpalap, spokesman for a rights group representing the Ogoni ethnic minority, was unsuprised. "If Taylor of Liberia, indicted by a UN human rights tribunal, was granted asylum, why not Aristide?" he asked bitterly.

And a former leading rights activist turned ruling party MP, Abdul Oroh, backed the government's stand. "His asylum in Nigeria will help democracy to grow in Haiti. If Nigeria can help in this direction, why not?" he said.

Aristide embarrassed his earlier Central African hosts with his full-throated condemnations of the alleged "US-French coup," which he said had forced him from power, although he has now toned down his language.

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