The South African government said on Monday it was still not aware of any plan for ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide to seek asylum.
”Our situation has not changed from yesterday, [Sunday] ” said foreign affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa.
”We are not aware that President Aristide is making his way to South Africa.”
If there was a request for asylum, South Africa would have to discuss it with the Caribbean regional organisation Caricom.
”We do not know of any such approach,” he said.
His remarks coincide with a report on Monday that Aristide, who flew out of Haiti at the weekend as armed opponents pressed towards the capital, is now in Bangui.
The Agence France Presse news agency reports that he and his wife are expected to stay in the Central African Republic for a few days ”before heading into exile in South Africa”.
In a statement issued earlier on Monday, Mamoepa said the South African government noted ”with serious concern” developments in Haiti and the resignation of a democratically elected president.
”These developments do not bode well for democracy,” he said.
”The international community must not allow ‘rebels’, many of whose leaders are notorious criminals responsible for gross human rights violations, to determine the future of Haiti.”
Aristide arrived at Bangui’s M’Poko airport at 7.15am [0615 GMT] on Monday.
The Central African Minister of Communications Parfait M’bay and junior foreign minister Guy Moskit were at the aiport along with with armed forces chief Antoine Bamdi to greet Aristide.
The embattled president resigned on Sunday under international pressure after three weeks of mounting trouble and insurrection had left scores dead.
The head of the Supreme Court in Haiti, who announced that he was taking charge after Aristide resigned, is a longtime jurist with a reputation for honesty in a notoriously corrupt system.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Boniface Alexandre declared on Sunday, three hours after Aristide fled the country, that he was taking charge of the country under the constitution.
Alexandre, who is in his 60s, urged calm after more than three weeks of violence in the Caribbean nation of eight million people.
”The task will not be an easy one,” Alexandre told a news conference. ”Haiti is in crisis … It needs all its sons and daughters. No one should take justice into their own hands.”
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. But there is a precedent. When General Prosper Avril was ousted in a palace coup in 1990, Lieutenant General Herard Abraham succeeded him and surrendered power to Haiti’s Supreme Court justice. That allowed a transition leading to Haiti’s first free elections in December 1990, which Aristide won in a landslide.
Alexandre has been honoured for his honesty and high competence in a judicial system fraught with corruption.
He was brought up by his uncle, former Prime Minister Martial Celestin, and represented the French Embassy during 25 years as a lawyer.
Alexandre joined the Court of Appeals in the late 1980s and became one of the 12 Supreme Court members in 1990. He was appointed Chief Justice about a decade later.
Meanwhile, more South African opposition parties have condemned the asylum plan.
”We believe that it would not be in the best interests of South Africa as a democratic country to give such a person asylum,” African Christian Democratic Party president Kenneth Meshoe said on Monday.
”We should not be seen to be defending human rights abuses.”
Meshoe said if Aristide had violated human rights in Haiti he should answer for these atrocities instead being given refuge here.
National Action co-leader Cassie Aucamp said that South Africa would be again aligning itself with ”the Gadaffis and the Castros” by granting asylum.
It was ironic that South Africa should grant asylum to someone accused of human rights violations in his own country when there were still people in South African jails serving sentences for apartheid-era human rights violations.
Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Mulder said the situation in Haiti reflected badly on President Thabo Mbeki after he decided to give credibility to Aristide by officially visiting Haiti recently.
”In future it will be better if the South African government use normal human rights criteria in choosing their friends and their official visits and let their judgement not be polluted with pro-black or anti-white sentiments and subjectivity,” he said.
The Democratic Alliance said at the weekend that South Africa should not become a safe-haven for dictators, and that its fund of goodwill was being dissipated by ”strange friendships”. – Sapa-AFP