[R-G] Chavez and Aristide Meet in South Africa

[Anthony Fenton]

From: K M Ives <kives at toast.net>

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                             HAITI LIBERTE
                   "Justice. Verite. Independance."

                    * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                       September 10 - 16, 2008
                             Vol. 2, No. 8

ARISTIDE AND CHAVEZ MEET IN SOUTH AFRICA
by Kim Ives

On Sep. 2, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez met with former Haitian 
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Pretoria, South Africa, where Aristide 
has been in exile for the past four years.

The meeting came during Chavez's one-day visit to South Africa to sign two 
energy and oil agreements.

Chavez received Aristide at Pretoria's Sheraton Hotel, where the two met for 
"more than thirty minutes," according to a South African press officer, 
Terrence Manase. Aristide and his wife Mildred then attended a state banquet 
held in honor of Chavez at the Presidential Guesthouse on Pretoria's Church 
Street.

Mildred Aristide told Haiti Liberte that "it was a good meeting" without 
offering further details about the content of discussions.

Many have speculated that Venezuela would be an ideal place for Aristide to 
take up residency in exile if Haitian President Rene Preval continues to 
ignore the persistent popular demand that security preparations be made to 
allow Aristide's return to Haiti to live as a private citizen.

Venezuela is located only 650 miles south of Haiti, as opposed to the 7,400 
miles between Pretoria and Port-au-Prince. In March 2004, Bush 
administration officials vociferously opposed a three-month stay by Aristide 
in Jamaica at the invitation of then Prime Minister P.J. Patterson. Then US 
Ambassador to Haiti, James Foley, said that Aristide's "coming within 150 
miles from Haiti is promoting violence." Then National Security Adviser 
Condoleezza Rice said that Aristide's return to the Western Hemisphere from 
the Central African Republic, where U.S. Special Forces had deposited him 
after kidnapping him from his home in Haiti's capital on Feb. 29, 2004, was 
"a bad idea." And Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that the Bush 
administration did not want Aristide to "come back into the hemisphere and 
complicate [the] situation."

Following the second successful Washington-backed coup d'etat against him, 
Aristide was invited to live in South Africa by President Thabo Mbeki, who 
was the only head of state to attend Haiti's Jan. 1, 2004 bicentennial 
celebrations.

However, today, Mbeki and his faction of South Africa's ruling party, the 
African National Congress (ANC), are facing a serious challenge from bitter 
political rival Joseph Zuma, who captured the ANC's presidency in December 
2007 and is expected to win South Africa's presidency in elections scheduled 
for March 2009.

Should Zuma win, he may not be as welcoming to Aristide, who is viewed by 
Zuma's partisans and much of the South African opposition as Mbeki's 
protegee.

In April 2007, Aristide was awarded a doctorate in philosophy and literature 
at the University of South Africa (UNISA), where he now teaches.

Ironically, following the first coup against Aristide on Sep. 30, 1991, 
Aristide was flown to Caracas by then Venezuelan President Carlos Andres 
Perez. Chavez staged an unsuccessful coup d'etat against Perez and his 
neoliberal policies in February 1992.

In an afternoon press conference with Mbeki, Chavez hailed Venezuela's 
agreements with South Africa as a shining example of "South-South 
solidarity."

"Fortunately the attempt to impose on the world hegemony and a uni-polar 
world has failed," Chavez said, addressing the U.S. during remarks lasting 
nearly two hours. "On the horizon, we can see rising a multi-polar world, 
and that is precisely the world we need. The bi-polar was terrible to the 
Third World... Today we are in the midst of a terrible crisis all over the 
world - a financial crisis; an economic crisis; a food crisis; an energy 
crisis; an ecological crisis and a moral crisis. It is a systematic, a 
general crisis."

"So it is essential to unite the people of the South to get together in the 
manner South Africa and Venezuela are doing today in order to devise a new 
strategic agenda," Chavez continued, "to conduct a true strategic change in 
international relations... In South America and Latin America a true process 
of liberation is currently underway - a true liberation is underway. It is 
no longer a revolution of rifles, no longer the guerrillas that 40 or 50 
years ago were all around our hemisphere. Today we are millions, women and 
men, workers, the youth, students, Blacks, Indians and mixed-bloods. The 
people have awakened and a peaceful revolution is underway today - a 
democratic revolution, but it is a revolution. This is part of the world 
dynamics."

Under the deals signed, the South African state-owned oil firm PetroSA will 
carry out with its Venezuelan counterpart PDVSA heavy crude oil production 
and offshore gas and oil exploration, particularly in Venezuela's Orinoco 
Belt, said to hold the world's largest hydrocarbon reserves.

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Please credit Haiti Liberte.

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