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Gerard Latortue, who has claimed that Aristide's presence in nearby Jamaica could be destablising to Haiti, also announced from Port-au-Prince that he had withdrawn Haiti's Ambassador to Jamaica, Jean Gabriel Augustine. But Monday night the Foreign Ministry said it had received no notification from Haiti.
In any event, the Ministry said, there was no ambassador to recall as he had left Jamaica last week.
At the same time, the US Marines sent to Haiti to help restore order after Aristide's overthrow, had their first casualty. One was shot in the arm while patrolling a pro-Aristide stronghold in Port-au-Prince. The wound was not life-threatening.
The Aristides, after a 17-hour flight aboard a chartered Gulfstream jet, arrived at Kingston's Norman Manley airport where they were greeted by Deputy Foreign Minister, Delano Franklyn. They were flown by Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) helicopter to a sprawling ranch-style bungalow at Lydford, St Ann, which is sometimes used as a weekend retreat by Patterson and other government ministers.
TheAristides were accompanied by Sharon Hay-Webster, the South Central St Catherine MP who was Patterson's personal emissary; US Congresswoman, Maxine Waters; and the writer and black activist, Randall Robinson.
Reporters, except two travelling with him, were kept far away from Aristide and he made no statement to the press.
Latortue, who would have preferred Aristide to stay in Africa, on the weekend branded Jamaica's decision to host him as an "unfriendly act". He also dropped a planned visit to Jamaica to lobby Patterson, ahead of a CARICOM summit later in the month, for the Community's recognition of his interim government.
Latortue deepened the rift yesterday with his declaration about withdrawing Haiti's Ambassador from Jamaica and putting "to sleep all participation in the activity of CARICOM".
"CARICOM has hurt this country too much in the past, even when they were breaking Haitians' bones, when they were violating human rights," Latortue said.
In an interview with Amy Goodman, the host of the Democracy Now programme who had also travelled with Aristide, Congresswoman Waters described Latortue's statement as "meaningless".
"This is another effort directed at trying to make this government more legitimate," Waters said. "But the fact of the matter is that Aristide was democratically elected by the people and this new government wasn't."