Former government minister rebukes Washington

THE UNITED States Embassy in Kingston has reported that a former government minister chided Washington for its reaction to the 2004 decision to allow ousted Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide to stay in Jamaica.

According to a United States diplomatic cable dated March 2005, the former minister said the Government of Jamaica was "just helping a friend in need who asked for assistance".

The cable claims: "(The government minister) said that some within the Cabinet believed that Washington had overreacted to the GOJ's decision to allow Aristide to visit Jamaica 'for family reasons'."

The Cabinet minister, who was not in charge of the foreign affairs portfolio, reportedly told the US Embassy officials that he was offering his personal views and not speaking on foreign affairs issues on behalf of the government.

"He assured (embassy officials) that the GOJ was not taking an adversarial position to the US by extending Aristide an invitation to stay on the island for several weeks.

"He added that a condition of the stay was that Aristide keeps a low profile and refrain from making public statements while he was in Jamaica," the cable said.

One embassy official is said to have "reminded the minister that the GOJ had indeed acted unhelpfully during the 2004 political crisis in Haiti, including by publicly accepting at face value Aristide's unfounded allegations about a US role in his downfall, and by remaining largely unengaged in resolving the crisis nearly a year after Aristide's voluntary resignation and departure".

In a May 30, 2004 message from Jamaica after he was taken out of Haiti and exiled, Aristide thanked Jamaica's then Prime Minister P.J. Patterson and the people of the country for hosting him and his family.