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Ousted Haitian president leaves for Jamaica

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Bangui - Former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Monday left his exile in the Central African Republic (CAR) for Jamaica, an official at Bangui airport said.

The airport official said Aristide left for the Caribbean island nation at around 2.30am (01h30 GMT) by plane in the company of a United States-Jamaican delegation.

Aristide was also accompanied by his wife Mildred and a personal aide.

His plane would stop over in Dakar, Senegal.

Aristide fled Haiti on February 29, ending weeks of violence which left at least 70 people dead after opposition and rebel forces demanded his resignation, alleging mismanagement and corruption.

He has claimed he was flown out of Haiti into exile as part of a plot managed by the United States and backed by France. Washington and Paris have strongly denied the claims.

Caribbean leaders have called for an inquiry into Aristides accusation.

Jamaican Foreign Minister Sharon Hay Webster arrived in the Central African Republic on Sunday and met the ousted president.

She said she had come to "get him out of this situation," adding that Jamaica, as president of the community of Caribbean states, Caricom, was intervening for purely humanitarian reasons.

She said Caricom was seeking a solution that would enable Aristide to leave Bangui and go somewhere where he could see his two daughters, now in the United States.

A government source here said on Friday that the Jamaican-led delegation, which includes five US Democratic lawmakers, would take Aristide away for a temporary stay in Jamaica.

The probable return of Aristide to the Caribbean has provoked unease in Washington, which fears it could rekindle violence in Haiti, where the United States at the head of a 2 600-man multi-national force is spearheading a process of political transition.

Jamaica lies less than 200km to the west of Haiti.

Jamaican President Percival Patterson in the past week said that Aristide's expected visit, which reports said would last for up to 10 weeks, should not be regarded as the granting of political asylum.

Hay Webster had said she had a message from Patterson to the President of the Central African Republic, Francois Bozize, and that she wished to find out personally from Aristide what his plans were.