Deposed Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his wife, Mildred, called on former South African president Nelson Mandela on Friday to ”thank him for his role in Haiti”.
Aristide (51) has been living in exile in South Africa with his wife and two daughters since May 31, three months after a popular uprising in Haiti forced him to flee, first to the Central African Republic and then to Jamaica.
He told photographers at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in an upscale quarter of Johannesburg that he had come to ”thank [Mandela] for his role in Haiti”.
While he was welcomed by the South African government, Aristide has kept a low profile since he arrived in the country, venturing out for Sunday mass in a township and granting only a few interviews.
In June, Aristide said he was putting the final touches on a tell-all book about his hasty exit from his country, which he insisted was orchestrated by France and the United States. — Sapa-AFP