29134: Lucas (reply) Re: 29118: Potemaksonje (News) Latortue's disturbing legacy (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Stanley Lucas <maloukwi@yahoo.com>

This is not new Potemakbliye.  These people are always making false reports -- 
just look at the ongoing investigations into the Lancet.

  A review of the 1992-2004 Haiti portion of the Foreign Registration Act 
(FARA) put out by the U.S. Justice Department discloses the sources of funding 
for various individuals and lobbyists who, in addition to their routine 
lobbying activities, issued reports that essentially validated Aristide's 
actions and views. It is important to go and check the records of these people 
at this office because many of these people never publicly disclose that they 
were in fact paid lobbyists for Aristide but posing as independent.

  This office is on New York Avenue and 14th Street in Washington. For $10 all 
the information will be provided. It wasn't democracy advocacy....neg ta plen 
poch yo...Kembe la.

  Anyway found for you on the internet Mr. Latortue's response:

  Dear Editor,

  I was both dismayed and surprised to read in an Opinion page article in your 
september 7, 2006 edition,a litany of misstatements and outright lies of Mr.
  Kurzban purporting to comment on my tenure as Interim Prime Minister of
  Haiti during the last two years. Not wishing to dignify Mr. Kurzban's article
  with a detailed response, I would like only to point out a few obvious 
misstatements
  your Newspaper could have easily verified.

  First and foremost, the basis for Mr. Kurzban's allegations is a now 
discredited study
  published in the Lancet and purporting to reflect on the brutality of my 
government.
  A quick search would have revealed that the Lancet, indeed a prestigious 
British
  medical journal, is already actively investigating complaints about potential 
conflicts
  of interest involving the author of the article, a student at Wayne State 
University's
  school of social work in Detroit, Athena Kolbe, who has been an employee of 
Mr.
  Aristide for three and half years at one of the latter's centers where street 
children
  were organized to terrorize Haitians during his regime, using both weapons 
and rape,
  often in plain view of Mr. Aristide's police.They even threatened to rape the 
Haitian
  National Police spokewoman during my own tenure as they continued their 
despicable
  practices under the leadership of Mr. Kurzban's employer. For obvious 
reasons, Ms Kolbe used the pseudonym " Lyn Duff " to sign her article.

  Mr. Kurzban's article is simply part of a well - funded pro-Aristide campaign 
to distort
  news and repair the reputation of Aristide, his discredited employer.He has 
the funds to do it.Over the years,he has collected over ten millions dollars 
(exactly $10,840,734)
  from the Haitian Public Treasury which was left empty upon Mr.Aristide's 
departure.
  This is why the lawsuit undertaken to look into Mr.Aristide's tenure was 
withdrawn.
  It has never been dismissed by the trial court, as Mr.Kurzban seems to 
wrongly allege,another fact which you could also have easily checked in the 
U.S.Federal Court
  in Miami. And yes, the two hundred fifty thousand a month referred to were 
never paid
  to the law firm. On the other hand, Mr.Kurzban has already collected.

  Lastly, even though I have had the honor and the privilege to hold various 
posts during
  my long career, I have yet to be a " radio announcer in Boca ", as M.Kurzban 
avered.

  Gerard Latortue
  Former Interim Prime Minister
  19207 Cloister Lake Lane
  Boca Raton, Fl 33498
  Tel. (561) 483-1528