Aristide says he’s ready to return

 MIAMI – In what may be his first public statement since onetime nemesis Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier showed up in Haiti, former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide said he is “ready” to return to his troubled homeland.

 Aristide, a two-time head-of-state, wrote a letter from South Africa, according to his former foreign press liaison, Michelle Karshan. Copies were e-mailed to a list of undisclosed recipients and it is now circulating on the Internet.

 If Aristide were to return, it would come at a politically fragile time in Haiti, compounded only by Duvalier’s presence in the country. One year after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake, Haiti is wrestling with sluggish reconstruction, an electoral crisis and a deadly cholera outbreak.

 “The purpose is very clear,” according to Aristide’s letter. “To contribute to serving my Haitian sisters and brothers as a simple citizen in the field of education,” Aristide wrote in the letter dated Jan. 19.

 Aristide, who fought the Duvalier regime in the mid-1980s, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

McClatchy