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24856: Haiti Progres (pub) This Week in Haiti 23 : 6 4/20/2005



Haïti Progrès" <editor@haiti-progres.com>

"This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI PROGRES
newsweekly. For the complete edition with other news in French
and Creole, please contact the paper at (tel) 718-434-8100,
(fax) 718-434-5551 or e-mail at editor@haitiprogres.com.
Also visit our website at <www.haitiprogres.com>.

                       HAITI PROGRES
             "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                    * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                     April 20 - 26, 2005
                       Vol. 23, No. 6

DE FACTO PRIME MINISTER'S NEPHEW AND SECURITY CHIEF RUNNING GUNS AND
DRUGS

Youri Latortue, the security chief of the National Palace and de facto
Prime Minister Gérard Latortue's nephew, has been importing weapons into
Haiti in violation of a 13-year U.S. arms embargo against the country,
according to Canadian journalist Anthony Fenton interviewed April 18 on
Pacifica Radio's Flashpoints program
(www.flashpoints.net/index.html#2005-04-18).

A Florida-based Haitian arms dealer who does business with Youri
Latortue also told Fenton that the security chief is "one of the major
narco-king pins of Haiti right now," Fenton told Flashpoints.

The arms dealer is Joel Deeb, a Haitian-American weapons dealer based in
Florida's Broward county who was arrested in 1991 by the Haitian
government and accused of illegally importing weapons into Haiti. Deeb
told Fenton, as well as the British daily The Independent, that Youri
Latortue had recently ordered $500,000 worth of guns from him.

"I was given half a million dollars in the form of a letter of credit,"
Deeb told The Independent. "But there is an embargo. There has not been
any deal yet. The money is frozen. Everybody is saying I have done
something with the money, but it is still there."

Although Deeb claims that his deal with Latortue is on ice, about $7
million worth of weapons have been delivered to Haiti in the past year
through unofficial channels, but with Washington's knowledge, according
to Robert Muggah, author of a recent independent study made by the
Geneva-based Small Arms Survey (www.smallarmssurvey.org).

"According to informants on the ground, US arms shipments to Haiti have
resumed," Muggah writes. "Recent evidence indicates that a shipment of
weapons - including 3,635 M14 rifles, 1,100 Mini Galils, several
thousand assorted 0.38 cals, 3,700 MP5s, and approximately one million
assorted rounds of ammunition (valued at USD 6.95 million) - were
allegedly transferred to Haiti for probable sale to the HNP [Haitian
National Police] by the US in November 2004."

Under its last constitutional government (Feb. 2001 - Feb. 2004), Haiti
imported less than 200 guns per year. But following the Feb. 29, 2004
coup against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, arms imports leapt to
almost 10,000 guns for the year, a 50-fold increase, Muggah's statistics
show.

"The US is believed to have channeled support to various anti-Lavalas
opposition parties since the re-election of President Aristide in 2001,"
he writes. "The approach has combined both financial and covert military
assistance."

But since Aristide's removal, "legal transfers from the US resumed,"
Muggah notes.

Another large and illegal shipment of arms was revealed by journalist
Kevin Pina on April 8 Flashpoints program. "Almost six months ago, there
was a cheque for $1 million that was cut from the Prime Minister's
office, that brokered one of the first shipments of arms that went into
Haiti," Pina said. "The arms shipment was [allegedly] brokered by a
figure associated with the Republican Party in Florida, a
Haitian-American woman named Lucy Orlando. Apparently, one of the other
brokers is a man named Joel Deeb." Orlando and Deeb have both denied any
involvement in the arms deal.

"Apparently, [U.S. Secretary of State] Condoleeza Rice was well aware
that this arms deal was happening six months ago," Pina continued. "She
was well aware that the Haitian government had cut a $1 million check
from its treasury in order to pay for this arms shipment, and apparently
that deal was brokered for arms that were held by the Pentagon in
Panama, what they call refurbished, recycled arms. These are arms that
apparently had been captured from so-called enemy forces, which we can
only assume would be people like al-Qaeda, and other armies, possibly
the FARC in Colombia. The captured armaments were then shipped to Panama
and now apparently are up for sale by the Pentagon to so-called friendly
nations within Latin America and the Caribbean." Again, this purchase
was made through Youri Latortue's office.

As for Latortue's drug running, Fenton said that Deeb told him that
"Youri Latortue is tight with Guy Philippe, one of the so-called rebel
paramilitaries and, this has been confirmed by other sources on the
ground in Haiti, that Guy Philippe is often seen going in and out of
Youri Latortue's office." Guy Philippe has repeatedly been accused of
drug trafficking. "Haitian and U.S. authorities say that Philippe was
involved in drug trafficking while he was police chief in Cap-HaVtien,
as well as during his exile in the Dominican Republic, although he has
never been officially accused of any drug crimes," the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation reported Feb. 23, 2004.

In January of this year, the French newspaper Le Figaro criticized the
de facto prime minister for tolerating his nephew. "He is blamed for
retaining in his entourage his nephew, Youri Latortue, a person
nicknamed 'Mister 30 Per Cent' because of the percentage he demands in
return for favors," the Figaro author wrote. "Worried, not without
reason, about his own security, the prime minister pays 20,000 euros a
month to this former police officer implicated in various scandals for
'organizing an intelligence service'."

The Maryland-based Quixote Center reports that Youri Latortue
"reportedly participated in the 1994 murder of Catholic priest
Jean-Marie Vincent and the 1993 murder of democracy activist Antoine
Izméry, and reportedly embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from
the palace security payroll. Youri owns GonaVves' La Chandelle Hotel,
which he supposedly used to provide weapons to anti-Aristide rebels
prior to Aristide's removal."

Pina noted that Condoleeza Rice "has been well-aware for quite some
time, since before becoming Secretary of State - when she was National
Security Advisor for the Bush administration - that the Pentagon was
selling arms to the U.S. installed government in violation of that
13-year arms embargo." Furthermore, John Bolton, who is presently in
confirmation hearings to become Washington's Ambassador to the United
Nations, has been the U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and
International Security since May 2001. His office would have had to
approve any arms shipments to Haiti.

"The guns shipped to Haiti would have gone through Bolton's office which
could affect his nomination," said Ira Kurzban, who was the Haitian
government's lawyer under Aristide, told Flashpoints.

QUEENS, NY:
HAITIAN STUDENTS VILIFIED AND ABUSED
HAITIAN COMMUNITY OUTRAGED

On March 16, Assistant Principal Nancy Miller at Public School 34 in
Queens Village punished 13 Haitian pupils in the school's only
fourth-grade bilingual class for an incident involving just two of the
students. She made them sit on the cafeteria floor, then made them use
their fingers to eat their lunch of chicken and rice, while all the
other students watched.

"In Haiti, they treat you like animals, and I will treat you the same
way here," several students recalled Miller saying.

Since the incident there has been a storm of outrage, especially after
the school's principal, Pauline Shakespeare, backed up Miller after
parents demanded she be fired.

Miller has since been transferred out of the school on her own request
to an administrative post while there is an inquiry into the matter. The
NAACP is also investigating.

During their punishment, several of the fourth-graders asked to use
spoons, and others began to cry.

According to some of the students, Shakespeare has spoken to punished
students trying to convince them to change their story, even offering
some of them bribes of free ice-cream and toys.

A number of Haitian parents with children in P.S. 34 have formed a group
called the Haitian Parents Initiative, which has demanded the firing of
both Miller and Shakespeare, not merely a transfer as Miller has
received.

The group has called for a picket-lined on Thursday, April 21st from 2
to 4 p.m., in front of P.S. 34 at 104-12 Springfield Boulevard, Queens
Village, NY. For more information, call 718-464-6068 or 718-735-4660.

All articles copyrighted Haiti Progres, Inc. REPRINTS ENCOURAGED.
Please credit Haiti Progres.

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