29132: Hermantin(News)Latortue's disturbing legacy (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Thu, Sep. 07, 2006


HAITI
Latortue's disturbing legacy

BY IRA KURZBAN
ira@kkwtlaw.com

On Feb. 29, 2004, former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forcibly removed 
from Haiti by the Bush administration. Several days later, Gerard Latortue was 
airlifted into Haiti and named the prime minister with barely a fig-leaf as a 
process. Latortue was a radio announcer in Boca Raton.

His major qualification, as with many Iraqi advisors to the Bush 
administration, was his strong ties to the U.S. intelligence community and 
neoconservatives in the White House. Having fed the administration what it 
wanted to hear about how unpopular and dictatorial Aristide was in Haiti -- 
similar to the disinformation campaign waged by Ahmed Chalabi regarding Iraq -- 
the unqualified Latortue was rewarded by being anointed prime minister.

Brutal regime

The results of his tenure are now in. A study published this week in The 
Lancet, the respected medical journal of the United Kingdom, scientifically 
analyzed the brutality of the regime. In the last two years, reports have 
documented the gross human-rights violations in Haiti, but these abuses were 
sadly ignored by most mainstream media. The University of Miami School of Law's 
Center for Human Rights, led by the prominent human-rights author and professor 
Irwin Stotzky, Harvard University's Human Rights Clinic and the Institute for 
Justice and Democracy in Haiti all detailed executions and systematic 
human-rights violations after Aristide's removal.

The Lancet report, however, confirms everyone's worst suspicions. It concludes 
that in the 22 months after Aristide's removal there were 8,000 murders and 
35,000 sexual assaults in the greater Port-au-Prince area alone. More than 50 
percent of these murders were attributed to anti-Aristide and anti-Lavalas 
factions including armed anti-Lavalas groups, demobilized army members and 
government security forces.

Gangs not guilty

Similarly, almost 30 percent of the sexual assaults were attributed to 
anti-Lavalas and anti-Aristide forces. The remaining murders and sexual 
assaults were due to common criminals or of unknown origin. Although a 
sustained disinformation campaign by Latortue and the Bush Administration 
claimed that violence was due to Lavalas ''gangs'' -- the study finds just the 
opposite. No murders or sexual assaults were attributed to Lavalas members or 
partisans during the 22-month period of Latortue's regime.

As in Iraq, the other lasting legacy of the Bush administration's policies in 
Haiti has been rampant corruption. More than $900 million in aid was provided 
to the Latortue regime at the request of the United States, France and Canada. 
But no visible major projects warranting such huge expenditures have been 
recorded. In a country where the average annual income is less than $350 per 
year, the newly elected legislature is investigating this rampant corruption, 
including $6 million that disappeared from Latortue's Foreign Ministry.

Luxury cars

Latortue also paid a U.S. law firm $250,000 a month retainer solely to bring 
against Aristide a civil suit that was ultimately dismissed. In a parting shot 
to the Haitian people, Latortue awarded himself two new luxury automobiles, 
which he took to Florida until the misappropriation was discovered.

The Bush administration legacy of terminating democracy under Aristide and 
allowing gross human-rights abuses and corruption to fester during Latortue's 
regime will take many decades to reverse. Nor was the administration successful 
in terminating the Haitian people's desire for the return of Aristide, who is 
as popular as ever in Haiti.

Ira Kurzban was the general counsel for Haiti for 13 years during the 
governments of René Préval and Jean-Bertrand Aristide.