Let's move on to some crimes in Haiti. CNN reports: At least four people killed there Sunday. "Gunshots rang out near the presidential palace — a neighborhood which is home to the armed gangs that supported Aristide. Aristide resigned the presidency last Sunday and was taken to the Central African Republic by US and French military. CNN International reported that it was the French who arranged his transfer to this backwater, one of the poorest countries in the world. CNN compared its capital to Baghdad. Their reporter said that the French worked through the president of Gabon to make the deal.

Haiti's democratically elected leader is now apparently under house arrest there. His supporters and the press have been barred from talking to him. He's out of a job — and his lips are being shuttered in a manner that Tony Soprano — who came back to my living room last night — would approve of. Read this:

"BANGUI, (AFP) – The Cabinet in the Central African Republic went into talks yesterday, reportedly to discuss what to do with their difficult guest, ousted Haitian leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and took steps to keep him quiet.

"National radio announced that all local and foreign journalists with questions relating to Aristide, who has annoyed his hosts with embarrassing statements, must henceforth first address themselves to the CAR authorities.

"All agents of the private press and the foreign press must go to the foreign ministry over any matter related to the stay of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, for better coordination and orientation," said a broadcast government statement.

After reading this, CNN added more (and in more detail for once than the BBC):

"Central African Republic security personnel brandishing Kalashnikov rifles burst into a news conference scheduled for President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's American wife, Mildred Trouillet, and told the 30 or so journalists assembled to turn off their cameras.

"After the journalists protested, a local television crew was allowed to videotape the event, which ended after 40 minutes with an announcement that Aristide himself would speak to the news media within 72 hours."

Stay tuned.

WHY DIDN'T ARISTIDE GO TO SOUTH AFRICA?

The speculation is that the US government pressured Thabo Mbeki's government not to accept President Aristide. Mbeki, it was suggested, now up for reelection, fears US meddling in South African politics. That may not be true. ANC leader Pallo Jordan, chairman of the Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee sent me an article he's written which offers some information not published in the US. Here are some excerpts:

"This week commenced with rumors about the movements of Aristide, the ousted President of Haiti. They proved particularly exciting to South Africans because our media had carried reports to the effect that South Africa was or had sent a planeload of police equipment to Haiti the previous Saturday. By late Sunday that rumor had been amplified with speculations that Aristide was headed for South Africa.
"Editorial writers, talk-show hosts, and regrettably leaders of opposition parties, all chimed-in that Aristide was unwelcome in South Africa. Charges, some of an absurdly hyperbolic nature, that Aristide was a "dictator", "undemocratic", a "human rights abuser", came thick and fast. Most of this was ill-informed and based on little more than the meager media coverage Haiti has received in South Africa since January."…

THIS IS NEW

"While the plane was on the tarmac, Colin Powell made a number of phone-calls, one to President Mbeki, requesting asylum for Aristide. No one in the South African government leaked the information about that request to the media.…

"What has unfolded in Haiti is a coup d'etat. Regardless of one's assessment of Aristide, the armed rebel soldiers, ex-policemen and gangsters, led by a notorious former Ton-Ton Macoute, do not deserve the legitimacy accorded them by the US, France and some of our opposition parties.…

"The Haitian opposition parties had in principle accepted that Caricom would help find a solution to their country's crisis. Consequently, when the Haitian police found that their equipment was unequal to the challenge posed by the armed rebels, Aristide turned to Caricom for assistance. Caricom, in its turn, appealed to South Africa. That is the origin of the rumor about a planeload of police equipment destined for Haiti.

" … Those who protest the unrepresentative character of the 2000 elections that returned Aristide to office would do well to examine the elections that put Bush, Blair and a host of other heads of government in office. It's an accepted fact that a 40% poll during a US elections is something to write home about!

"We should also weigh with circumspection the planted news stories, whose hidden motives we might be unaware of. It is clear to me, on examination of the available facts, that Washington and Paris had no interest in defending Aristide's government, and deliberately stalled UNO action until they were sure he was out of the way.

"It is equally clear that the pleas of Caricom notwithstanding, Washington chose to assist the rebels get rid of Aristide, first by inaction, then by shipping him out of the country. Secretary of State Powell will forgive us for regarding his assurances to the contrary with profound skepticism. It's a mere twelve months ago that he was giving us equally impassioned assurances of US good intentions. Today we all know that he either misled us or old us deliberate lies.

"When the elephants make love, the grass also gets hurt!" -----------------------