Thousands of Haitians rally for Aristide's return

[Mekeda7]

http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/cgi-...023/002381.htm

Thousands of Haitians rally for Aristide's return
Monday, July 17, 2006

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP): Several thousand Haitian
demonstrated peacefully Saturday under armed United
Nations escort for the return of their deposed leader
Jean Bertrand Aristide from South African exile.

The demonstration delivered a warning shot to the
two-month rule of President Rene Preval, which has
already been shaken by an resurgence of gang violence
that claimed some 20 lives over the past week.

Preval ran for office on the premise that he was open
to the return of Aristide, who fled Haiti in February
2004 as an armed uprising bore down on the capital.

"We vote for Rene Preval to obtain the return of our
leader" Aristide, said one of the march's organizers
Andre Michelet.

The demonstrators, some wearing t-shirts with
Aristide's image, gathered in the capital's poorest
district before moving through other parts of the city
and finally dispersing in front of the presidential
palace amid a heavy presence of UN peacekeepers, some
driving tanks.

"Everything passed off well. There were no incidents,"
a police spokesman said.

The demonstrators also demanded the return of all
exiled Haitians and the release of "political
prisoners."

Aristide, 52, had long maintained that he had been
forced to step down under pressure from the United
States and France and had urged the African Union to
take up his claims of a coup.

[manifestdestiny]

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