Agence Haitïenne de Presse

Port-au-Prince, July 16, 2007.- Thousands of people demonstrated Sunday in several Haitian cities such as Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haïtien to mark the 54th birthday of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The demonstrators called for the former chief of State, forced to leave Haiti on February 29, 2004, by foreign powers, to return to his home country.

"The Constitution is against exile and President Préval knows that full well, said the demonstrators, who set forth from Peace Square in the Saint-Martin district of Port-au-Prince.

Mr. Aristide, who has been living in South Africa for the past two years, and recently received a doctoral degree in African languages, has said that he could not return to Haiti without a signal from the authorities, who would have to establish contacts.

President René Préval, officially elected as a candidate of the Espoir Platform in February 2006, owes his victory to the votes of hundreds of thousands of Lavalas activists who took to the streets after voting in order to defend their victory.

Outside the National Palace, Sunday's demonstrators denounced what they called the continually deteriorating poor living conditions of the deprived masses.

They appealed to the president to include a thought for the poor and criticized the wave of dismissals that has begun under the plan to privatize public enterprises.

In Cap-Haïtien, at the conclusion of a peaceful march that drew hundreds of people Sunday, Lavalas activists exchanged angry words with cadres from the Espoir Platform and accused President Préval of not having kept his electoral promises.