Ousted Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide showed his face for the first time in public on Monday after he fled his country last week, according to a report reaching Yaounde from Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic (CAR).  

"I am and I remain the elected president, and it's in the name of those who elected me that I plead for the restoration of constitutional order," he told reporters and Central African officials at the CAR foreign ministry.

"There was a political kidnapping, I say that again. We were not allowed to look out of the windows in the airplane. We had a four-hour stopover during which we didn't even know where we were," the ex-president said.

"I haven't been prisoner in Bangui, I'm not a prisoner," he added.

Since his arrival in Bangui on March 1, Aristide has delivered several statements, directly or through those closest to him, saying that he was a victim of a "political kidnapping," complotted by the United States and France.

(Xinhua News Agency March 9, 2004)