22607: White: Fwd: Press Memorandum: El Payaso: Washington's Amiable Entertainer - The good works of Haiti's interim-Prime Minister Gerard Latortue (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Randall White <raw@haitiaction.org>


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Council On Hemispheric Affairs
Monitoring Political, Economic and Diplomatic
Issues Affecting the Western Hemisphere
Memorandum to the Press 04.36
Friday, July 2, 2004
Word Count: 3000


El Payaso: Washingtonís Amiable Entertainer - The
good works of Haitiís interim-Prime Minister
Gerard Latortue


ß         Latortue has asserted that the average
Haitian does not know CARICOM exists, and that an
official in the previous administration didnít
even know what the acronym stands for - ouch!Ý
What Latortue didnít mention was that until
Washington imposed him on Haiti, even fewer
Haitians had ever heard of him.

ß         Latortue says that Haiti derives more
benefits from its relationship with the Dominican
Republic than it does from its inclusion in the
Caribbean Community trading bloc - perhaps he is
taking into account mounting reports that the
Dominican Republic was allegedly used as a
training ground and an arsenal for rebels intent
on deposing Haitiís democratically-elected
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

ß         Latortue also has charged that some in
the Caribbean Community are unabashed promoters
of Aristideís Lavalas Party, but this ignores the
fact that the CARICOM Heads of Government
confronted Aristide about Haitiís slow
advancement towards democracy at the Special
Summit of the Americas in January, and that
Lavalas was and remains a legal party, which is
more than can be said for Latortueís status.

ß         In remarks, which outraged many
specialists close to the scene, United Nations
Secretary-General Kofi Annan strongly rebuked
Aristide, just before the Haitian leader was
forced to leave Port-au-Prince and go into exile,
for allegedly encouraging lawlessness and
participating in the illicit drug trade.Ý But
Annan presented no evidence to buttress his
charge, nor didÝ a highly critical report on
Aristide authored by the UN Secretary-Generalís
Special Adviser on Haiti, John Reginald Dumas -
something which was noted by the Prime Minister
of St. Kitts and Nevis in an interview that he
gave to COHA last week.Ý Prime Minister Denzil
Douglas stated that he does not support the view
that Aristide contributed to the flourishing of
the drug trade, which had been alleged by the
Dumas report, and that the real issue at hand is
that a democratically-elected president was
overthrown and nothing has been done so far to
redress that fact.

…        By adopting Washingtonís scenario on
Haiti and its bad mouthing of Aristide, Annan
signed on to the spurious charges leveled against
Aristide by Secretary of State Colin Powell as
well as his stalling tactic when there was still
time to save the Aristide government.

ß         The Caribbean Community has been one of
Aristideís most stalwart institutional backers,
along with the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC),
since the ousted president alleged that
Washington orchestrated his removal.

ß         CARICOM and the CBC have been
increasingly skeptical towards a smooth-talking,
two-faced Latortue who expects that because he is
now being backed by the UN this automatically
grants him legitimacy as an authentic democratic
figure.

ß         The Organization of American States
(OAS), unlike the UN, has decided to undertake an
investigation of the events in Haiti leading up
to Aristideís abrupt departure on February 29,
2004, something that the UN has expressed no
interest in doing.Ý

ß         The OAS investigation might also evoke
a U.S. backlash against the Caribbean Community.

What does CARICOM stand for, anyway?
Nursing a bruised ego resulting from CARICOMís
coolness towards his rule, Interim Haitian Prime
Minister Gerard Latortue recently attempted to
establish some semblance of legitimacy after
enduring months of embarrassing diplomatic
non-recognition from the 15-nation Caribbean
Community (CARICOM), of which Haiti has been a
full member since July 2002.Ý Speaking at what
had to be the makings of a pep rally for himself
in Washington, DC, organized by two conservative
think tanks.Ý Latortue condemned CARICOM for its
supposed obscurity and irrelevance.Ý A former UN
agency bureaucrat, Latortue stated that he hopes
to continue working with CARICOM, but only if
ordinary Haitians along with members of the
islandís government are educated about the
purpose of the organization and how exactly the
trading bloc is useful to them.Ý

<http://www.coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/New_Press_Releases_2004/o4.36_haiticaricom_PR2.htm>TO
READ THE ENTIRE TEXT OF THIS PRESS RELEASE, CLICK
HERE.

This analysis was prepared by Valencia K. Grant, COHA Research Associate
July 2, 2004
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