26996: Severe:(pub) Miami Herald: Phillippe and Toussaint Tied to Narco Traffickers (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Presidential hopefuls have drug ties, sources in Haiti, U.S. claim

Some candidates for president of Haiti have ties to drug traffickers, according 
to Haitian and U.S. officials.

By JOE MOZINGO

PORT-AU-PRINCE - At least three candidates in Haiti's upcoming elections have 
links to a cocaine-trafficking industry that wants to ensure the next 
government is weak and corruptible, a half-dozen Haitian and U.S. officials 
say.
Two of Haiti's best-financed presidential candidates -- Guy Philippe and Dany 
Toussaint -- have long been linked to cocaine trafficking by U.S. Drug 
Enforcement Administration officials.
And a Senate candidate who's a nephew of interim Prime Minister Gérard Latortue 
has close links to a gang that controls drug smuggling in the port of Gonaives, 
according to the Haitian and U.S. officials.
Haiti, where the average person struggles on less than $1 a day, is a 
pass-through point for about 8 percent of the Colombian cocaine detected 
heading to U.S. streets, according to U.S. State Department narcotics reports.
Despite the presence of 8,000 U.N. peacekeepers deployed after the rebellion 
that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide last year, the arrival of cocaine 
''is essentially unimpeded,'' said the State Department's 2005 International 
Narcotics Control Strategy Report.
Analysts fear that traffickers are quietly working to subvert any return to an 
elected democracy, either by backing candidates they can control or sowing 
chaos on the streets to delay the balloting.
''At this point the entire transition is at risk,'' said Mark Schneider, of the 
International Crisis Group, a nonprofit that analyzes conflict around the 
world. ``Drug traffickers don't want a functioning, effective government with a 
functioning, effective police force and customs.''
''They have their hooks in the police, they have their hooks in parts of the 
transitional government,'' he added.

SUSPICIONS
U.S. prosecutors in Miami have gone after 10 of the biggest traffickers and 
corrupt officials of the Aristide years. But there are plenty of suspicions 
about officials of the current interim government.
Diplomats and counter-drug agents have expressed particular concerns about 
Youri Latortue -- the security chief for his uncle, the prime minister, and a 
Senate candidate for the Gonaives region, a major drug-smuggling area.
The U.S. Embassy warned the prime minister in private in March of 2004 that his 
nephew was linked to illegal activities and should not be part of the 
government, according to one top U.S. official familiar with the issue, who 
requested anonymity because he's not authorized to discuss the issue. At that 
time, Washington refused the nephew a U.S. visa.
`MR. 30 PERCENT'
The French newspaper Le Figaro last year reported the nephew's nickname was 
''Mr. 30 Percent'' for the commissions he allegedly demands on government 
contracts.
The prime minister publicly defended his nephew, saying he trusted him and, in 
a nation that has seen 32 coups in 200 years, he wanted the nephew to stay on 
as his chief of security and intelligence.

U.N. Civilian Police are concerned that Youri Latortue is trying to take 
control of the diplomatic lounge at the Port-au-Prince international airport, 
one way that drug traffickers have traditionally bypassed official scrutiny 
while entering and leaving Haiti, one top U.N. official told The Miami Herald.
And there are credible reports that Youri has close ties to a gang of armed 
thugs in Gonaives that controls the drug trafficking through the seaport, the 
official added.
Youri Latortue, meanwhile, has struck a political alliance with Guy Philippe, 
one of the leaders of the rebellion that ousted Aristide and now a candidate 
for the presidency. The two apparently knew each other when they served in the 
Haitian police.

DISPUTES ACCUSATION
The DEA suspected Philippe was involved in drug trafficking when he was police 
chief in the northern port of Cap Haitien, Haiti's second biggest city. U.S. 
drug agents once tried to recruit Philippe as an informant, but he turned them 
down, saying that the traffickers paid him more, two top U.S. officials told 
The Miami Herald.
Philippe has vehemently denied such allegations. ''Where is the evidence?'' he 
asked, in an interview with The Miami Herald last year.
But he has acknowledged that one of his rebellion's financial supporters was a 
Canadian-Haitian businessman named Jean-Claude Louis-Jean -- who has been 
linked to the drug trade by the International Crisis Group. Haitian police 
arrested Louis-Jean in September 2004, though it is unclear what the charges 
are against him.
Philippe vigorously defended his friend in an interview at the time with Radio 
Métropole.
''The judicial authorities will have to say why they arrested him and of what 
they accuse him,'' he said. ``I just hope that they will not say that there are 
rumors that he is involved in drug dealing, as they always do.''
When Aristide fled, Philippe put down his weapons and formed a political party. 
He is among 35 presidential candidates on the ballot for the election 
tentatively scheduled for Jan. 8. A CID-Gallup poll in November showed him a 
distant third, with 4 percent, behind former President René Préval with 32 
percent and Leslie Manigat with 5 percent.

CRITICAL ISSUE
Rebuilding the corrupt police force has been the perhaps most critical priority 
for the U.S. State Department and the U.N. peacekeeping mission here. The 
newly-appointed police chief, Mario Andresol, has estimated in media interviews 
that at least 25 percent of his force is corrupt.
U.N. officials say they fear that some of the officers may be more loyal to 
Dany Toussaint, a senator and chief of police under Aristide who broke with the 
president in 2003 and is now running for president.
Long labeled by U.S. officials as a suspected trafficker, and now the owner of 
a security business, Toussaint got 2 percent support in the CID-Gallup poll, 
behind nine other candidates.
Toussaint has denied the drug allegations and brushed off the claim that he 
controls some police officers.