Aristide leaves Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti: President Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigned and fled Haiti yesterday, bowing to pressure from a rebellion at home and governments abroad, US and Haitian officials said after hundreds of angry Aristide militants armed with old rifles and pistols converged on the National Palace, the presidential seat in Port-au-Prince. Haiti’s Chief Justice and known supporter of Aristide, Boniface Alexandre, has been sworn in as interim president. Asked why he chose to assume the presidency, Alexandre said “I assume it because the constitution indicates it.” A jet carrying Aristide landed on the island of Antigua for refuelling and was headed to South Africa, local radio stations reported. His prime minister, Yvon Neptune, said at a press conference that the ex-leader resigned to “prevent bloodshed.”

Despite Alexandre’s declaration that he was in charge, the Haitian constitution calls for parliament to approve him as leader and the legislature has not met since early this year when lawmakers’ terms expired. Saying he was reading from a letter signed by Aristide and dated yesterday, Neptune said: “The constitution should not drown in the blood of the Haitian people ... If my resignation is to prevent bloodshed I accept to leave.” In Cap-Haitien, Haiti’s second-largest city in the north that has become a base for the rebels, crowds danced and sang in the streets and a rebel commander said his fighters were ready to disarm once a new government was in place. “Aristide’s gone? Aristide’s out?” rebel fighters in Cap-Haitien yelled with glee, hugging each other. Aristide, Haiti’s first democratically elected president in 200 years of independence, left as the rebels came 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the capital, threatening to attack unless he resigned.

Added pressure came when France, Haiti’s former coloniser, demanded he resign for the good of the 8 million people in the Caribbean nation. The United States then suggested he bow out. The rebels launched the rebellion on February 5 from Gonaives, 110 kilometres (70 miles) northwest of Port-au-Prince. More than 100 people have died in the fighting and reprisal killings. Aristide’s Cabinet minister and close adviser Leslie Voltaire told The Associated Press that Aristide was flying to the Dominican Republic and would seek asylum in Morocco, Taiwan or Panama.

Caricom holds emergency meeting on Haiti

By Clint Chan Tack

FOREIGN AFFAIRS Minister Knowlson Gift said Caricom leaders will meet in an emergency session in Kingston, Jamaica tomorrow to discuss how the regional body can stabilise Haiti in the wake of  President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s flight from the troubled Caribbean nation. Aristide fled Haiti yesterday aboard an Air France jet for an unknown destination after weeks of violence engulfed the country and rebel forces laid siege to the capital city of Port-au-Prince. Scores of Haitians have been killed to date and reports indicate that anti-Aristide forces now wield total control over the Haitian countryside. Minister Gift told Newsday from the moment of Aristide’s departure from Haiti, there has been a flurry of activity across Caricom’s diplomatic channels. “Caricom Heads have been speaking,” he said.

On Friday, Prime Minister Patrick Manning said he had  spoken with five Caricom leaders, including Barbados PM Owen Arthur and Jamaican PM PJ Patterson, about the deteriorating state of affairs in Haiti. Gift said at the emergency meeting of Caricom in Kingston, regional leaders will decide what action Caricom should take on Haiti. Asked if Aristide’s departure signalled the green light to Caricom troops joining a multinational peacekeeping force whose mission would be to maintain order in Haiti, Gift recalled that Prime Minister Manning had not ruled out that option but said such a force would have to be marshalled under the auspices of an international body such as the United Nations or the Organisation of American States and could only enter Haiti on the invitation of the Haitian authorities. Manning said the TT Defence Force was on alert for possible deployment to Haiti and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had spoken to him on Friday about events in Haiti.

The United States currently has a contingent of 50 Marines in Haiti. Gift said there was little more he could say about Haiti since the situation there is “changing by the minute” but indicated that the Prime Minister is likely to brief the national community about the latest developments in Haiti and all related issues before he departs for Jamaica tomorrow. Manning was intimately involved in a Caricom initiative hammered out in Kingston last month to bring peace to Haiti but conceded last week that the initiative “was dead in the water.”

Haiti’s Aristide says he resigned ‘to prevent bloodshed’

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti: Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigned his office as president “to prevent bloodshed,” his premier told a news conference, hours after Haiti’s leader fled the country yesterday. “Today, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide accepted to make a sacrifice once again,” said Prime Minister Yvon Neptune. Saying he was reading from a letter signed by Aristide and dated yesterday, Neptune said: “The constitution should not drown in the blood of the Haitian people ... If my resignation is to prevent bloodshed I accept to leave.”

Pope calls for courage and humility

VATICAN CITY: Pope John Paul II called on Haitians yesterday to be courageous and humble in taking decisions needed for the good of Haiti in a strong appeal made shortly before news broke that the nation’s president had left the country after four weeks of rebellion. The pontiff made no direct reference to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who is a former priest. Even as the rebellion grew bloodier, Aristide had been insisting he would stay in office until his term expires in 2006. US and Haitian officials said early yesterday that Aristide had departed his nation, where four weeks of rebellion have seen more than 100 people killed.

The White House on Saturday had called on Aristide to “re-examine” his position but didn’t call for him to step down. “Worrisome and painful news reaches us from Haiti,” John Paul said in remarks added at the last minute to his traditional Sunday speech to pilgrims and tourists in St Peter’s Square. He spoke about a half-hour before The Associated Press reported Aristide’s departure. “In the face of such a situation, I feel the duty to invite all Haitians to have the courage and the humility to take those decisions which are required for the good of the country,” the pontiff said. “While I encourage the diplomatic efforts of the international community, and ask for generous commitments by humanitarian organisations, I send a special blessing to the beloved Haitian people,” the pope concluded.

No stranger to struggle

Aristide has survived many attempts on his life

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti: President Jean-Bertrand Aris-tide was ousted for the first time only months after he became Haiti’s first democratically elected leader in 1991. Yesterday, he fled his country again, driven out by a bloody rebellion and appeals from the United States and France to resign for the sake of his impoverished Caribbean nation. Given Haiti’s history, Aristide could count himself fortunate to have gotten away safely. Among his predecessors, one president was blown up in the National Palace. Another was poisoned. Nine fled. Six were overthrown. One was dismembered by an angry mob.

Aristide, 50, started out as a Catholic priest in Haiti’s slums. He rose to power on the heels of a 29-year-long family dictatorship led by Francois and Jean-Claude Duvalier, which shattered the country and left most of its people in fear. Born to peasants in the southern town of Port Salut, Aristide saw violence at an early age. When he was a toddler, his father was lynched after he was accused of using black magic to commit evil acts. Roman Catholic priests of the Salesian Order took him in when he was 6, educating him in theology and psychology. He studied in Israel, Canada, Greece and the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. He learned French, Latin, English, German, Spanish and Hebrew, but he was most eloquent in the native Creole that he used to exhort Haitians to rise up against the Duvalier family dictatorship. Jean-Claude Duvalier fled the country in 1986.

The Salesians disowned Aristide in 1988 for allegedly fomenting revolution through his fiery church sermons aimed at empowering Haiti’s poor masses. At the time, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church was at odds with young priests in Latin America who preached that violence to overthrow dictators was justified. Although he wasn’t with the order, Aristide kept preaching and was criticised by clerics for inciting violence and fuelling a class struggle, sometimes divided along racial lines. Aristide’s activism made him a target. In 1988, thugs backed by the army stormed his Saint Jean Bosco church during Mass and shot and hacked to death 12 parishioners, but Aristide escaped. He has also escaped two other assassination attempts. Despite opposition from the army, business leaders, landowners and the United States, Aristide became Haiti’s first freely elected leader in 1990, only to be ousted in a military coup eight months later and forced into exile in the United States.