Colin Powell, the American secretary of state, last week accused ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide of poor governance and said he did not think it would be helpful for Aristide to return to a leadership role in that country.

“He governed in a way that allowed thugs to take over. He governed in a way that allowed the legislature, frankly, to be unable to do its work and, finally, had to go out of existence,” Powell said in a March 8 interview on National Public Radio.

“… The police became corrupt and he, essentially, had allowed conditions of chaos to exist,” Powell charged.

Powell gave the interview as the United States fended off accusations by Aristide and influential Black American leaders that the Haitian president was kidnapped by US Marines and taken out of Haiti on February 29.

Bush Administration officials have insisted that Aristide resigned and left the violence-torn country of his own volition after asking the US for help as rebels, opposed to his presidency, made a bloody advance on Port-au-Prince.

Aristide’s departure from Haiti shocked Caribbean Community (Caricom) leaders who, in the early weeks of the rebellion, fashioned a political solution to the crisis that would have involved Aristide sharing power with the official Opposition.

The action plan was initially agreed to by the United States, Canada and France. However, Washington, Ottawa and Paris eventually backed away from the plan and joined the Opposition in demanding Aristide’s resignation.

The three countries also refused to support a Caricom-proposed UN peace-keeping force for Haiti after the rebels took over several towns and cities. However, they pushed through the authorising resolution at the Security Council only hours after Aristide’s departure.

On Monday, Powell said that the US, Canada, France, and other countries were unwilling to send military forces to “prop up a leader who was seriously failing”. He also claimed that all attempts to find a political solution to the Haitian crisis were unsuccessful.

“We did everything we could to find a political solution to this terrible crisis in Haiti,” Powell said. But, he added, “we found that his performance was so bad and so wanting that it was going to be impossible to find a political solution between the two parties under the circumstances that existed”.

Washington’s view, Powell said, was that Aristide should take a look at his performance and make a judgement as to whether he could continue to serve.

Powell reiterated the Bush Administration’s insistence that Aristide was not kidnapped, saying that the ousted president left his home for the airport “in the protection of his own private bodyguards”.

Added Powell: “There were US troops there to make sure they got to the airport safely. His bodyguards got on the plane with him and flew out with him. His bodyguards are the ones who went to him and said, “It’s time for you to really think about leaving”. And he accepted their advice. It was also good advice – at least our security people thought so, as well.”

Powell also said that Aristide told the Americans that he wanted to go to South Africa. “We contacted South Africa and they said that they were unable to accept him at this point,” said Powell. “So we quickly looked around, contacted other countries, and with the good offices of the French, they contacted the Central African Republic, who was willing to accept President Aristide.

“So it was not a kidnapping. We were all minding our own business on a Saturday evening when this all broke and word came to me that President Aristide was asking about circumstances under which he could leave, leave the country and leave his office.”

Asked whether he thought Aristide had a role to play in Haiti’s future, Powell replied that while that was not his decision, he could not see how.

“I just don’t think that would be helpful,” Powell said. “It’s a country that has had many tries at democracy and has not been successful, and I deeply regret that very much. But we have to keep trying. These are eight million people in desperate need. Yes, there is some continuing violence on the island. but things have calmed down quite a bit from where we were 10 days ago, when President Aristide was still there and we had violence all over the country and it was getting especially bad in Port-au-Prince when his paid thugs, the Chimera – Chimer, as they’re called, were going around being a principal cause of the violence.”

Powell also outlined his personal involvement in Haiti’s political process, saying that he wanted Aristide to succeed. “I went into Haiti in 1994 with President Carter and with Senator Nunn. We talked the generals out of power in order to bring President Aristide in. A 20,000-man American force went in. They stayed for months and the last Americans didn’t leave until the year 2000. The UN stayed there.

“So we gave President Aristide a great deal of support. But in the late ’90s, there was such disappointment in his work that the international community couldn’t see it appropriate to continue sending money in, money that was being wasted. And the previous administration, President Clinton’s administration, started to put constraints on the support they would give because of the misgovernment that was taking place,” Powell said.