28456: Hermantin(News)Interim prime minister's turbulent term ends quietly (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Interim prime minister's turbulent term ends quietly




By James Gordon Meek
New York Daily News

June 11, 2006



BOCA RATON · On his last day as Haiti's interim prime minister, Gerard Latortue 
gently rocked in a hand-carved chair in his modest home and whooped happily at 
a big-screen TV as Ecuador trounced Poland in the World Cup.

Unlike most former Haitian leaders, Latortue left Port-au-Prince last month on 
two feet and without an armed gang in hot pursuit.

The New York Daily News joined Latortue, 71, on Friday as his turbulent, 
26-month term as Haiti's leader ended quietly.

"I'm proud to say my mission was completed," he said.

After getting word that Jacques-Edouard Alexis had been sworn in as Haiti's new 
prime minister, the Secret Service detail that guarded Latortue in the United 
States packed up its guns, radios, anti-toxin kits and panic buttons and bade 
him adieu.

Left to watch TV in his alabaster living room, the man tapped by a U.S.-backed 
council of Haitian elder statesmen in 2004 to lead the tiny Caribbean nation 
after the U.S.-backed ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide seemed glad to 
be relieved of power.

"I am finally free!" he exclaimed giddily, relishing his first night out to a 
restaurant in more than two years without bodyguards.

Haiti's new 18-member Cabinet, composed of members from six political parties, 
was sworn in Friday, The Associated Press reported.

Though Latortue has been criticized for failing to stop Haiti's bloodshed or 
curb rampant corruption, U.S. experts credit the retired U.N. economist with 
something unheard of in 202 years since Haiti's independence: He oversaw an 
election that peacefully brought to power a man from the opposite political 
extreme, President René Préval.

His tenure also was remarkable by Haitian political standards for his personal 
honesty, his refusal to sanction violence and his simply walking away from 
power after creating the machinery for an open election.

Latortue recalled waking at 3 a.m. on Feb. 7 to find his countrymen standing in 
long lines to vote -- without a shot fired.

"I almost cried. I did not expect that to happen at all," Latortue said softly.

Among the accomplishments Latortue cites were firing corrupt customs officers 
and police and taking steps to help free the civil service of political 
cronyism. He claimed unequaled cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement 
Administration on counternarcotics efforts, got $1.3 billion in foreign aid and 
enlisted European Union support to rebuild roads.

He eliminated the discretionary spending -- once a key source of bribery and 
embezzlement funds -- that was more than half the Haitian budget two years ago.

But though even Latortue's detractors praise his economic policies, they point 
to a rash of kidnappings and a Justice Ministry "witch hunt" against Aristide 
supporters during his tenure.

"On some issues, Latortue cooperated with the international community, but on 
other issues he was an obstacle," said Mark Schneider of the International 
Crisis Group, an independent organization based in Belgium.

Latortue admitted the Justice Ministry was "the worst," and said he's 
"embarrassed" that Yvon Neptune, Aristide's former prime minister, is still in 
jail.

The greatest blow to Latortue's credibility was his security chief, a "distant 
cousin" and reputed drug runner named Youri Latortue.

U.S. and French diplomats advised him to dump Youri Latortue, known to some as 
"Mr. 30 percent" for the kickbacks he allegedly pocketed. But the leader 
refused. He argued that in a nation of political assassinations he could trust 
only kin.

Latortue now concedes he was shady and "distanced" himself from his cousin when 
he ran and won a Senate seat in February.

"He did provide me first-class security," Latortue said. "Everybody feared him. 
The people who wanted to kill me confessed that, if he was not here, it would 
have been easy to kill me."

U.S. officials agree he probably would be dead if not for his cousin, said to 
be a CIA informant.

Despite the criticism, Latortue is at peace with the end of his turn in power. 
And venturing out to a Cuban restaurant in Boca Raton on Friday night, he was 
greeted as a returning hero by Haitian kitchen workers.

"You have to be a real man to do such a great job," one said.


Copyright © 2006, South Florida Sun-Sentinel