Whether he likes it or not, President Thabo Mbeki must have accepted that his relationship with ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide has become an election issue for him.
But as he took a break from his campaigning mid-week, he would have breathed a sigh of relief because things could have been so much worse had he actually given Aristide asylum.
The government of the Central African Republic (CAR), which took Aristide in on Monday, was soon clearly regretting its decision.
”When a man in need knocks at your door, you do not consider his colour, his race or his rank, you welcome him and offer him the little you have,” Parfait Mbay, the country’s Communications Minister, said on Tuesday.
”At the request of his counterpart and dean of central African heads of state Gabonese President Omar Bongo, the president of the republic, François Bozize, [agreed] to receive the former president of the first black republic in the world, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.”
Within a day though, the prickly former priest was proving to be a handful. ”He’s already started to embarrass us. He’s scarcely been here 24 hours, and he’s causing problems for Central African diplomacy,” Mbay said.
His hosts scolded Aristide for making ”irresponsible statements” to the United States TV network CNN. These included his saying he was ousted in a coup orchestrated by Washington.
Aristide’s aides ungraciously told US TV the former president felt like a prisoner in Bangui.
CAR Foreign Minister Charles Herve Wenezoui led a team of officials to the luxury villa near the presidency, where Aristide was burning up the telephone line, to warn the refugee to show them more respect and stop criticising the US after the country accepted him at the request of the Bush administration.
”He must be grateful to these countries, because if he had not asked the US and France to help him, president Aristide would be dead by now,” Mbay said.
An official source in Bangui reiterated that Aristide was on a mere stopover before leaving for eventual exile in South Africa.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell has contemptuously rejected Aristide’s claims of being forcibly removed.
On Tuesday night Powell said Aristide might well have been confused about his final destination. This was supposed to be South Africa, but Pretoria had effectively put up the stop sign. Aristide was seen by officials in Antigua, during a fuelling stop on his flight into exile, and told them he was heading for South Africa.
If indeed any offer to shelter Aristide was made from South Africa, it would have been by Mbeki personally and not through the normal diplomatic channels. To his chagrin Mbeki has been embarrassingly linked with Aristide since being the only foreign head of state to attend the bicentennial celebration last month of Haiti’s slave army overthrowing Napoleon Bonaparte’s occupying forces.
Mbeki felt that celebrating this revolution was every bit as important as marking the French or American revolutions. To this end he gave Haiti R10-million to help finance the festivities. His argument that this did not constitute any support for the discredited Aristide was less than compelling to all but the president’s entourage.
South African Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said at the time she was proud to be part of a government that took lone decisions when necessary. She offered help in training Haiti’s riot police.
There are unconfirmed and undenied reports that a consignment of anti-riot weapons and materiel has been shipped from South Africa to Haiti. If true, it will be put to good use by the new authorities in that troubled country.
Meanwhile, Mbeki continues to come under political fire from opposition Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon, who has put a R30-million price tag on South Africa’s show of solidarity with Haiti.
Leon over-reached himself by suggesting that Aristide’s asylum would come up in the South African Cabinet last week. It did not, but he recovered by claiming that the whole issue would never have arisen had Mbeki not gone to Haiti.
Government spokesperson Joel Netshitenzhe, in his post-Cabinet briefing, backtracked from Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad’s assertion that South Africa has no objection in principle to giving Aristide asylum.
Netshitenzhe emphasised the exhaustive process that would have to be followed before granting asylum.
Having taken no advice about going to Haiti, Mbeki is now consulting widely on permanently sheltering his then host.
Diplomatic sources insisted this week that Aristide had bought a house in South Africa. Then again, so did deposed Liberian strongman Charles Taylor and South Africa resisted strong pressure from Washington and elsewhere to let him take up residence.