15682: Anonymous -- Aristide's government

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Please post anonymously
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The fact that Aristide bought a controlling stake in Telemax is not exactly
a secret. Of course, Aristide is not stupid enough to do so under his own
name. So he does what every ruler in every country does: he uses a front
person to do the deed.

In the case of Telemax, the front man is Mr. Patrice Turnier. Thanks to his
wife's close ties with Mrs. Aristide, Mr. Turnier was "selected" to
purchase 65% of Telemax's shares for a cool $1.2 million on behalf of
Aristide. For those of you into "zin", Mrs. Turnier is the former Paola
Guillod. Just before that transaction, Mr. Turnier could not come up with
$100,000 for another business deal, so it would have been quite impossible
for him to claim that he alone came up with the investment money. The funds
transited through a Sogebank account before being disbursed to the 5 or 6
shareholders who agreed to the deal.

The founder of the company, however, decided to hang on to his shares.The
transaction closed earlier this year, but not without controversy. One of
Telemax's hallmarks has been the independence of its editorial line and its
good reputation as a result. That has translated into gaining a broad
market share against the other TV stations. Following the rumors of
Aristide's impending takeover of the station, many advertisers were
concerned that the public would stop watching the station and threatened to
pull their advertising. In the end, they decided not to but are closely
watching whether there will be a shift in the editorial line.

Every time a post on Corbett comes out describing these transactions done
by front people like Turnier, Gladys Lauture, Claudie Flambert, Lesly
Lavelanette, Jose Ulysse, Sò Anne elatrye on behalf of the President and
his wife, their defenders always come out saying that these are rumors that
cannot be substantiated. Of course they cannot be! The lawyers and banks
involved in these transactions will not allow anyone to see the paper trail.

But the problem that the President and his wife face, when trying to do
these transactions, is that their front people must go through the
financial system, which is controlled by people not entirely devoted to
their cause but who like the fees that are generated. So while the Haitian
banking establishment may hate his guts or his looks or both, they will
gladly handle the cash that is deposited by the front people to buy the
certified checks required for the transactions. And the lawyers will charge
the exorbitant fees required to hide the true buyer. Sogebank and Socabank
in particular have enjoyed those fat fees,
and those nice deposits in cash in tens and twenties that come from Lord
knows where. As for the notaire Céant, he is laughing all the way to his
South Florida bank. And all of these people will divulge verbally the
particulars of a transaction!

What we have then is complicity between the President and his wife, on the
one hand, and the morally-repugnant elite on the other. He knows that he
cannot do his personal transactions without them, and they know that they
must cooperate for fear of their operations being sabotaged or shutdown
through some legal shenanigans.

But the farce goes further. While Aristide pretends to be fighting for the
people and against the bourgeoisie in the foreground, it is all about
Aristide -and-  the bourgeoisie in the background. Let's review the
business people who stuck to Aristide through thick and thin and did
business with him: Richard Coles, Gerard Moscoso, Jean-Edouard Baker,
Rene-Max Auguste, the Mevs brothers, Jean-Marie Vorbe, etc. They did not
land there by accident. They wanted to make sure they protected their
interests and Gladys Lauture
made sure to provide the proper introduction.

I disagree with the people who believe that Aristide truly and deeply cares
about the fate of the Haitian people. He may profess to want real change
that would unseat the leeches I listed above from their dominant position,
but in reality he is very content to deal with them and to welcome them in
private. They, not the people, have access to the real power. They, not the
people, can dictate the course of the government's actions by suggesting a
transaction here or there that will allow them and some officialsto get
richer
while pretending to help the people. They, not the people, can whisper in
Mrs. Aristide's ears that so and so has a deal lined up that could be
beneficial to their pockets, with that deal all of a sudden becoming the
hidden reason for a change in public policy.

Witness the "subsidized" school book deal that Deschamps has been getting
for the past two years. Deschamps hoodwinked the government into believing
that it printed all the books that the contract required in exchange for
the 90+ million gourdes he received. Not only did the company not print the
amount of books that were ordered, but a sizable percentage of the books
were sold at regular market prices by Deschamps thereby augmenting his
gains and shortchanging the families that were supposed to benefit from the
subsidy. Did the government react or do anything? No. Instead, Deschamps
was rewarded with yet another contract. Setting aside the pedagogical flaws
of the deal, that the government would allow its meager resources to be
squandered by Deschamps in such a dishonest way is a crime.

The deal with Jean-Marié Vorbe's company, SOGED, for the electricity is
also very educational. Maybe someone should explain to the Haitian people
why the government chose the worst solution - from a technical and from a
financial perspective - to provide electricity to Les Cayes, Petit-Goave
and some other cities. Of course, the American company selected by SOGED as
its partner in the deal, TVIG, issued a glowing press release that would
make you believe the Haitian people got the best deal in the world. (See
http://www.csrwire.com/article.cgi/1755.html) Buy why did they pick
diesel-powered plants? Do we need more pollution in Haiti? Do we need to
spend more money on diesel fuel? Worse yet, why is the Haitian government
footing the bill? Why is there no effort to collect payment from the users
of the electricity? I know of no country in the world where such a model
has been sustainable. Why would that work in Haiti?

Frankly, people who believe that there is a true ideological struggle going
on between the forces of the good, i.e Lavalas, and the forces of evil,
i.e. the MRI, have it all wrong. The real story is that once again, and
true to the logic of Haitian history, the mean and selfish but clever
political and economic elites (Lavalas and the MRI) are fucking the Haitian
people in the worst way possible.

PS: Lavalas is an obstacle to progress, like the Duvaliers, Colonel
Magloire, Sténio Vincent, etc. were before. The elites are being their
usual repugnant selves. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

PS2: Kathy Dorce writes:"If they cared, they would work with Aristide not
against him.  Foolish men, with oversized egos." The reality is that these
men work hand in hand with Aristide. The joke is really on us.