12941: Re: 12911:Aristide's Bank Accounts: $US 800 million....Fw (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Stanley  Lucas <slucas@iri.org>

Aristide's Bank Accounts: $US 800 million.
"Copyright income," claims a spokesperson for the presidency.
Haiti Observateur Aug 20, 2002

The purchase of villas priced at millions of dollars, in Haiti and abroad, begins to seem more real, now that we have an idea of the personal wealth of the former Salesian priest, who had taken a vow of poverty and celibacy. According to information circulating in the Haitian capital, the bank accounts of Jean Bertrand Aristide have reached the amount of $800.000.000, without his wife's fortune.

That information coincided with the release of another by Evans Paul, alias K-Plim, about the purchase of a Taiwan villa by the Baron of Tabarre. A spokesperson of the presidency immediately came forward, not to deny the information, but to declare that "this amount represents Mr. Aristide's 'copyright income.'" Aristide's spokesperson would have us believe that the two books written by the former priest, whose sales figure are not available anywhere, turned their author into a multi-millionaire. In such a case, some questions must be asked: How much did Mr. Aristide pay those who helped make his manuscripts "publishing material?" On the other hand, considering all the trouble that book writers usually have to go through, Jean Bertrand Aristide would have to be an exception to the rule.

Incidentally, we could also mention that it is not easy to find any book written by Aristide in the "family," be it in Haiti or abroad. It is widely known that Aristide's political clients are mostly recruited among radio listeners. It must be said finally that, according to some sources, Aristide's book distributors had problems selling  those books and were asked to send them back to Haiti, to be "burned" quietly. An audit of the books sale will be easy to do, and Mr. Aristide will have to be generous toward his French reviewers, who include a prominent French lecturer and scholar.