Aristide returns to Haiti, days before election

(latimes.com)

Port-au-Prince, Haiti— In the face of international pressure to keep him out, former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide returned home Friday after seven years in exile, tossing a combustible new ingredient into the presidential election that is scheduled to take place Sunday.

Aristide arrived on a charter flight from South Africa, where he has lived for most of the time since he was flown out of Haiti on a U.S.-supplied plane amid turmoil in 2004.

He was greeted at a VIP arrival area at the airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital, by some supporters and 100 or so airport workers, some waving little Haitian flags.

Aristide, in a dark suit, waved and clasped his hands as he stepped down to the tarmac, and was then swarmed by dozens of journalists.

Aristide, a leftist former priest, remains a deeply polarizing figure in Haiti, where he is revered by many poor residents as a defender of the downtrodden but detested by wealthy elites and others who see him as a volatile force in the country's politics.

Speculation over Aristide's return had gripped the country since the Haitian government issued him a passport in February, just weeks after former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier made a surprise return.

But it became clear only in recent days that Aristide would return, as his supporters and lawyer began to promise that he would be back on Haitian soil before Sunday, when voters go the polls to choose a new president and parliament.

At the house on the edge of Port-au-Prince where Aristide once lived, workers repainted a tall surrounding wall in faint rose pink and planted scores of tiny Haitian flags along the top.

U.S. officials, including President Obama, had sought to keep Aristide from making the trip home, arguing that his arrival could prove a destabilizing factor during the closing phase of the presidential runoff between Michel Martelly, a popular singer, and Mirlande Manigat, a university vice rector who was once Haiti's first lady.

But South African officials said they had no power to prevent the former Haitian leader from going anywhere he chose.

Aristide left Johannesburg late Thursday, accompanied by his wife, two daughters, actor Danny Glover and the former leader's Miami-based lawyer.

Aristide has said he wanted to return to work in the education field, not politics. He has also said chronic eye problems are aggravated by South Africa's cold weather.

But Aristide's profile and the fractured condition of Haiti left may make it difficult for him to stay out of political life entirely.