South Africa ready to host Aristide but no arrival date yet
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AFP): South Africa
on Monday said it had finalised preparations to host deposed Haitian leader
Jean-Bertrand Aristide but did not give any date for his arrival.
"The department of foreign affairs and sister departments have finalised
preparations for the visit to South Africa by Haiti's deposed president in
line with requests from Caricom, a Caribbean grouping, and the African Union,"
Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said. "We
will receive him and his family as soon as we get an indication of the date on
which he plans to arrive in South Africa and will host him for the duration of
his stay," he said. Junior foreign minister
Aziz Pahad said Aristide "will be able to stay as long he wants, depending on
how the situation normalises in Haiti." On
Monday however, the Afrikaans-language newspaper Beeld reported that Aristide,
currently in Jamaica, was expected here this week with his wife and two
children. The former priest -- who was first
elected in 1990, was ousted in a coup in 1991 only to return to power with US
military backing in 1994 -- has said since his more recent ouster, at the end
of February, that he wanted to come to South Africa.
But he first stayed in the Central African
Republic and then flew to Jamaica, as the South African government let it be
known that it did not want to agree to take him in ahead of the April 14
elections, which President Thabo Mbeki's African National Congress (ANC) won
by a landslide. South Africa's main
opposition Democratic Alliance party has lashed out against allowing Aristide
into the country, casting doubt on his democratic credentials and arguing that
taxpayers should not have to foot the bill to support him.
During his two weeks in the Central African Republic, Aristide made himself
unpopular with his hosts by giving interviews suggesting he was the victim of
a plot hatched by the United States and backed by France. Washington and Paris
have strongly denied the claims.
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