JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP):
SOUTH AFRICA'S main opposition party protested yesterday the imminent arrival of Haiti's ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, calling the decision to grant him temporary asylum a 'mistake' and questioning the cost to South African taxpayers.
Aristide left Jamaica yesterday afternoon with his family and bodyguards. President Thabo Mbeki would be at Johannesburg International Airport to welcome them when they arrive this afternoon, the government said in a statement yesterday.
"Hosting Jean-Bertrand Aristide here in South Africa is a mistake, and the South African government should know it," said Parliament representative Douglas Gibson, the opposition Democratic Alliance's spokesman on foreign affairs. "Ordinary South Africans cannot fathom why they must pay to put up the former Haitian leader along with his delegation. Mr. Aristide should go home."
His return angered Haiti's new U.S.-backed interim government, who worried his presence would further destabilise the nation. Fresh elections are expected there next year.
NO FORMAL ASYLUM REQUEST
Aristide's aides have said for weeks that he preferred to go to South Africa, but the government there delayed a decision until after April 14 general elections, saying they had received no formal asylum request.
On May 13 South Africa agreed to give Aristide temporary asylum "until his personal situation normalises" and he can return to Haiti.
Once there, he will live under tight security in the capital, Pretoria, at the South African government's expense a move that has angered opposition groups.
"The South African government has still not explained under what legal authority Mr. Aristide is being granted entry into our country," Gibson said in a statement. "We need to know whether other nations will help finance his stay, or whether the South African taxpayer will be left with the bill."
He said the government's time and resources would have been better spent on crises closer to home, including in Zimbabwe and Sudan and on catering for its own impoverished people.
"Haiti is so far beyond our sphere of influence, we should have left the matter to other nations," Gibson said.
South Africa maintains it cannot be indifferent to what is happening in Haiti because the country is part of the African Diaspora.
