Ja: Humpty Dumpty fell before the U.S. rescued him

THE departure from Jamaica of ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has removed one source of irritation between the United States and Jamaica in what the US Ambassador in Kingston, Sue Cobb, suggested was improving relations between the two countries.

But Cobb, in an interview with the Observer, made clear that the Americans still have concerns over the Caribbean Community's (Caricom) demand for a probe into Aristide's claim that he was all but kidnapped and bundled out of Haiti by the US, and the region's failure, so far, to recognise Gerard Latortue's interim government in Haiti.

The diplomat said, too, that she understood concerns raised by Jamaica and its Caricom partners over the manner of Aristide's sudden departure from Haiti on February 29, but said that the region's fears were unfounded.

Caricom, led by Jamaica's P J Patterson, stopped just short of branding Aristide's ouster a coup d'etat, but said that the action set "a dangerous precedent" for governments everywhere.

Ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide speaks at a press conference in Kingston Sunday before his departure to South Africa

"I am not certain that if I was in his position I wouldn't be thinking some of the same things," Cobb said, in response to whether she appreciated the concern of small states like Jamaica over the manner of Aristide's controversial departure from Haiti. "But it is a worry that I think is unfounded."

In any event, she branded the Aristide presidency as a "Humpty Dumpty" that had crashed before February 29 and insisted that the Americans had only given Aristide transportation and security out of Haiti after he had resigned on his own volition.

The U.S. saved Aristide from a sure assassination, and he ought to have been grateful.