Aristide arrives in Central African Republic after fleeing Haiti

(AFP)

1 March 2004


BANGUI - Haitian president Jean Bertrand Aristide arrived on Monday in the Central African Republic a day after he stepped down under international pressure following a three-week uprising in the poor Caribbean country that left scores dead.

Aristide and his wife were to stay in the Central African Republic for a few days before heading into exile in South Africa, according to an official from the republic’s state protocol department.

The couple arrived at Bangui’s M’Poko airport aboard a Haitian civilian airplane and was greeted by communications minister and government spokesman Parfait M’bay, an AFP correspondent at the airport said.

They were immediately escorted into a VIP area at the airport for talks with M’bay, the minister responsible for foreign affairs Guy Moskit and armed forces chief Antoine Bamdi. The embattled president resigned Sunday under international pressure after mounting trouble and insurrection had left scores dead.

“My resignation will avoid bloodshed,” Aristide, the firebrand former Roman Catholic priest in the Port-au-Prince shanties said in a farewell statement, read by Prime Minister Yvon Neptune...http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2004/March/theworld_March24.xml§ion=theworld

The agriculture subsidies, the schools, the doubling of wages, the resistance to total prostration before the world bank, the thought that Haiti might actually exchange power peacefully... and so it continues.

For the time being anyway.

Yesterday I was read we kidnapped him now this. What gives?

If that's not the equivalent of a typewritten suicide note, I don't know what is. According to two sources, he was escorted in handcuffs by armed U.S. Marines early in the morning. Yesterday, he proclaimed that he would not step down.

Junior calls this a "resignation"; considering what he calls an "election", that's not surprising.

Will John Kerry say that this is 4 years of concerted effort to undermine him with terrorists in order to get all the IMF structural adjustments through?

I don't think I'll hold my breath.

We can find out what Progressive Interventionism boils down to.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/politics/8054087.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

really wrong.

It's like pulling teeth for them to EVER print anything which doesn't slavishly praise _Bush.

(snip)
Bush's critics on Thursday vowed to draw the distinction between Iraq -- where the United States acted preemptively to remove a dictator and bring democracy -- and Haiti, where a democratically elected leader is under siege and little is being done to stop the opposition.

Democrats also noted that Bush's father lost his reelection in 1992 after a coup in Haiti that led to Aristide's removal and eventual chaos.

''It's like Ground Hog Day as it relates to the Bush family,'' said U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, a Miami Democrat who is Kerry's Florida campaign chairman and one of the leading critics of the Bush approach to Haiti.

Kerry, a Massachusetts senator, likened his envoy proposal for Graham to President Clinton's decision in 1994 to send then-Gen. Colin Powell, former Sen. Sam Nunn and former President Jimmy Carter to help restore democratic rule -- a point clearly designed to draw contrasts with Clinton's foreign policy successes.
(snip)

Have appreciated your input on the threads I've seen here tonight. Very helpful, and accurate, for which Democratic readers are thankful, I'm CERTAIN.

for GHW Bush.
"No new taxes" then, tax cuts no matter what now
Didn't go Baghdad then, well that one is obvious ;-)
Roll back all the Clinton environmental legislation

We should have seen the Haiti thing coming.

Quick someone investigate what other Bush the First failures we may see resurface before this whole mess is over.

about marines escourting him out in handcuffs. The news seemed to be saying that the Marines rescuede him. The US did zero to stop the coup.

Even that 'statement' was read by a third party. Has anyone heard a first person quote from him since yesterday?

Where is the media? Under the thumb of the U.S.?

It's also ruled by the military.

Somehow, I don't think Aristide will be very safe there. I'm sure
he certainly won't be allowed to open his mouth.