Policemen chase a woman that was found looting flour at a wharehouse near the seaport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, yesterday. (Photo: AP)

BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) - Ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide said US soldiers kidnapped him and forced him into exile in Africa, telling him they would "start shooting and killing" if he refused.

A haggard-looking Aristide spent his first day in hastily arranged exile after a rebellion to oust him from power as Haiti's first elected president.

Aristide

Aristide, his wife and a few companions landed just after daylight Monday aboard a contracted US-government plane in the Central African Republic, a nation as impoverished and nearly as coup-prone as the one he left.

Aristide spoke to The Associated Press by telephone yesterday evening and said he was the victim of an American-led coup. He repeated the claim last night in an telephone interview with the US television news network, CNN, saying that he was forced out of the country without being allowed to speak to "my people" and put on a plane with his family for 20 hours without knowing where he was going.

The Bush administration denied the claim, first raised earlier in the day by African American activist Randall Robinson and US representative, Charles Rangel, after telephone discussions with Aristide.

Another black US House member, Maxine Waters, also quoted Aristide's wife Mildred as telling them that the president was "forced to leave his home".

Waters said an embassy official told Aristide that he "had to go now, and that if he didn't go he would be killed and a lot of Haitians would be killed".

However, US officials say they arranged for a plane to pick up Aristide in Haiti, and that he was accompanied to the Port-au-Prince airport by his personal guards.

People greet rebels as they enter Port-au-Prince, Haiti yesterday (Photo: AP)

"He was not kidnapped. We did not force him on to the airplane. He went onto the airplane willingly, and that's the truth," Secretary of State Colin Powell said.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan described the claim as "nonsense" and told reporters that Aristide left on his own free will. "We took steps to protect Mr Aristide and his family so they would not be harmed as they departed Haiti," he said.

At the same time, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, at a news conference, said he was involved in the diplomatic flurry preceding Aristide's departure, and "the idea that someone was abducted is inconsistent with everything I saw".

"I don't believe that's true, that he's claiming that," Rumsfeld said prior to Aristide's interviews with the news services. "I would be absolutely amazed if that were the case."

In Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic where the plane carrying Aristide landed on Sunday, officials said that the ousted president was not a prisoner, although the initial reports suggested that his movement was restricted.
"Aristide is not a prisoner in the Central African Republic," Foreign Minister Charles Wenezoui, who greeted the ousted leader upon his arrival at Bangui's airport, told the Associated Press yesterday. "He is a free man, and the heavy security measures around the presidential palace are for his own security."

Authorities said the United States, France and the West African nation of Gabon negotiated Aristide's asylum in the country. State radio said it would last only a few days, with South Africa possibly a permanent stop.

When asked by the AP if he left Haiti on his own, Aristide quickly answered: "No. I was forced to leave."

"Agents were telling me that if I don't leave they would start shooting and killing in a matter of time," Aristide said during the brief interview.

When asked who the agents were, he responded: "White American, white military.

"They came at night. ... There were too many, I couldn't count them," he added.

Aristide told reporters that he signed documents relinquishing power out of fear that violence would erupt in Haiti if he didn't comply with the demands of "American security agents".

But Powell said the ousted president wrote a letter of resignation and only then did the United States bring an airplane to help him leave the country.

According to the White House's McClellan, Aristide's aides had contacted the US ambassador to Haiti on Saturday and asked if Aristide would be given protection by the United States if he resigned. The ambassador consulted with Washington, then called Aristide's aides and told them that if Aristide decided to resign, the United States "would facilitate his departure", McClellan said. "And we did."

He said the United States arranged for a plane to fly to Haiti to pick up Aristide. The aircraft arrived about 4:30 a m,
(0930GMT) McClellan said. Aristide went to the airport in the company of his own personal security guards, the spokesman said.

Aristide had up to Saturday been insisting to world leaders, including Jamaica's Prime Minister P J Patterson and Foreign Minister K D Knight, that he would not resign as was being demanded by the country's opposition and armed rebels. He was also being pressured by the United States, Canada and France to go.

It became clear to Aristide over the weekend that he could not expect any protection for his personal safety if rebels entered Haiti's capital of Port-au-Prince, according to a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Guards from Aristide's security team, employed by the San Francisco-based Steele Foundation, asked the US embassy in Port-au-Prince whether they could count on American protection in the event of rebel hostilities at the presidential palace, the official said. Aristide's guards were told that no such protection would be provided, the official said.

In fact, Powell called former US Congressman, Ron Dellums, whom Aristide hired as a Washington lobbyist, the official said, and told him that the United States had no plans to protect Aristide.

Aristide descended from the jet that took him to Bangui wearing a rumpled suit and a firmly knotted tie. His wife, looking worried, was by his side.

Aristide's arrival lacked the red carpet and greeting from the host head of state usually afforded dignitaries. No soldiers were visible as Aristide disembarked from the plane.

Officials drove the couple to the palace of the Central African Republic's leader, Gen Francois Bozize, who came to power in March 2002 by overthrowing the country's elected leader.

Aristide apparently remained in the palace throughout the day. Soldiers were out in heavier than usual numbers around the presidential compound.

"He's here with his wife, and we've granted them asylum for the beginning, and then we'll see what happens," Communications Minister Parfait Mbaye said.

In Pretoria, South Africa's capital, Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said his country did not "in principle, have any opposition" to taking in Aristide. Pahad said he knew of no formal asylum request.

In his statement on state radio, Aristide thanked Central African Republic authorities, and saluted Africa and its people - "because Africa is the father of us Haitian men and women".

Central African Republic has weathered nine coups or coup attempts since independence from France in 1960.

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