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25444: Hermantin(news)Interim Haitian leader cites progress despite critics (fwd)




From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Interim Haitian leader cites progress despite critics
By Mike Williams

Palm Beach Post-Cox news Service

Sunday, June 12, 2005

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Gerard Latortue was summoned to lead his country at 69, an age when many might have chosen to avoid the rigors of such a challenge.

Haiti was a shambles, its economy a wreck and its political system riven by violence and discord. Foreign troops were on the ground to provide stability, and the populace was mired in the worst poverty in this hemisphere.

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Many say the situation hasn't changed much — perhaps it has grown worse — since March 2004, when Latortue took over as Haiti's interim prime minister.

But in an interview with Cox Newspapers, the former United Nations official vowed he would leave office as promised in February, when a freely elected government is to take power.

Worn by 17-hour work days and a challenge he admits has been tougher than he imagined, Latortue, who turns 71 June 19, looks forward to returning to his home and family in Boca Raton.

"The experience of the last 14 months indicates Haiti is a country that is very difficult to govern," Latortue said. "There is a tradition of a lack of good governance, a lack of political stability and a lack of tolerance in Haitian society.

"They never tell you the truth in politics here. There is always a double language. When I talk to people here, I say what I think and they are not used to that. Many of them think I'm naive."

Latortue has drawn plenty of criticism since a "council of sages" selected him to rule Haiti after former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled in February 2004 in the face of an armed rebellion. Critics say his government has persecuted Aristide supporters, jailing hundreds without charges, while doing little to heal the deep divisions left in the wake of the once wildly popular Aristide's departure.

On Haiti's streets, the sharpest criticism of Latortue is that he has allowed parts of the country to descend into lawless violence. Gun-toting thugs have paralyzed several large slums in the capital, often battling with police and U.N. peacekeepers, choking off economic activity, discouraging foreign investment and raising doubts about whether elections can succeed next fall.

All but his fiercest critics, however, admit that Latortue inherited a nightmarish situation, and some say he has done a solid job on many fronts.

"He was faced with an extremely difficult job," said Dan Erikson, head of Caribbean programs at Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based policy group. "Running the interim government in a country like Haiti in turmoil is a thankless task. But the overall economic management of the government has been clean and well-run, and that's saying a lot for Haiti. The area where he's achieved the most has been in winning the confidence of the international community and getting a renewal of aid assistance."

Fled to escape dictatorship

Born in Gonaives, a gritty port city on Haiti's western coast, Latortue was educated in Paris, where he studied politics and economics. He came back to Haiti with a law degree and taught as a law professor.

In 1963, however, he fled the country to escape the dictatorship of Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier. He found a job with the United Nations, working as chief negotiator for the Industrial Development Organization.

After one brief return to Haiti in 1988 to work in the government of Leslie Francois Manigat, who was overthrown in a military coup, Latortue semi-retired to Boca Raton. He remained active in the Haitian community, hosting two talk shows on a Haitian and Creole-language television network.

After a career spent mostly out of Haiti, Latortue said his sudden return last year was something of an eye-opener.

"I respect law and order," he said. "These virtues existed in Haiti at one time, but progressively declined since the dictatorships of the Duvaliers. There is no respect for institutions. Everything is seen from a personal point of view."

Although Latortue has drawn praise for his dealings with foreign governments and the 7,400-strong U.N. peacekeeping contingent that has served in Haiti since last summer, he has had his battles with the international community.

"As far as the use of money, I'm 100 percent for control of it," he said. "When a foreign government donates money to Haiti, those checks should require two signatures, one from the Haitian government and one from the donor country. But it becomes a conflict when some of the diplomats want to micromanage, to tell you who should be hired and how the job should be done."

Latortue also has clashed with the U.N. mission over security issues, at times demanding that the foreign troops take a more aggressive stand against the violence that continues to plague parts of the capital.

He admits, though, that his government has been partly at fault.

"Everything has not been a success," he said. "We need a new strategy and approach to the situation in Belair and Cite Soleil," Port-au-Prince slums where pro-Aristide armed thugs routinely battle police and U.N. troops. "We need a more comprehensive approach. That means not only a police and military solution but also to improve the living conditions in those areas, to create jobs and give those people some hope."

Along with the security situation, Latortue has drawn criticism for his handling of Aristide supporters, many of whom have been jailed for months without the start of judicial proceedings.

"He hasn't been neutral, which is the role of an interim government," said Henry Carey, a Haiti specialist at Georgia State University. "He says he's enforcing the rule of law, but he hasn't done it evenhandedly. It's polarized an inherently polarized situation even further."

Aristide backer slams him

The Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste, an Aristide supporter and Port-au-Prince priest, was even more critical.

"Cite Soleil is like a concentration camp," he said. "It's a disaster. Latortue has made it worse with his attitude. In his speeches he's arrogant and negative, pushing us to fight each other, not reuniting us."

Although acknowledging that Haiti's judicial system has problems, Latortue dismissed the charge that his government has violated the human rights of Aristide supporters, most of them members of the Lavalas Family political party the former president founded.

"They are our friends," he said of Lavalas. "Aristide is the one that his followers fear. We want them to participate in the political process."

Latortue also rebutted charges that Aristide's prime minister, Yvon Neptune, has been unfairly jailed since last year on charges that he masterminded several murders during last year's uprising. Neptune has been on a hunger strike in recent months, and his case has drawn concern from international diplomats.

"At no moment did my government want to keep him in jail without seeing a judge," he said. "He refused to see a judge. We deplore the tradition of inefficiency in Haiti's judicial systems, and I believe in human rights. I have spoken to the judge in Neptune's case, and I expect him to make a decision in the days to come."

Latortue pointed out that, when he took office last year, he kept all of Neptune's key assistants in their jobs, adding, "Is that someone who wants to persecute Lavalas?"

Image pivots on elections

Many say Latortue's tenure will be judged largely on whether international observers and the Haitian people will view this fall's elections as free and fair. With parts of the capital beset by violence and the voter registration process already behind schedule, many wonder whether elections can even be held.

Latortue believes the schedule will be met and a new government will take over in February, even if the voting is delayed slightly.

"We still believe we can make the calendar," he said. "There have been elections in other countries with troubles, including Jamaica and Colombia, not to mention Iraq and Afghanistan. We have to recognize the insecurity problem, but we're considering steps to strengthen the national police and at the same time we're negotiating changes with the U.N. in the structure of their effort to make them more effective."

The steps, which Latortue said would be implemented as soon as possible, may include changes in leadership and redeployment of UN peacekeepers and Haitian police from calm areas to the trouble spots.

Latortue also plans to appeal to the U.S. government to end the deportation of Haitians convicted of crimes in America to Haiti during the election period, saying studies show the deportees typically resort to crime when they return to their home countries.

Reflecting on his tenure, Latortue is proud that his government managed to pull Haiti back from the brink of a civil war, a threat that some say still exists in Haiti.

He also believes he has established principles of ethics and good governance, saying that Haiti's once bankrupt treasury is now operating in the black and is on good relations with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

And he is immensely proud that he has reorganized the civil service, saying he has eliminated the patronage system that for decades made Haiti's governmental institutions weak, inefficient and corrupt.

"We're strengthening the institutional framework of the Haitian government," he said. "We're building institutions so that tomorrow they won't depend on one political leader. Power in Haiti has always been a source of privilege. To me, power means to serve."

However, Latortue acknowledges that he had hoped to accomplish more.

"When I decided to leave retirement, I looked at my life and said this was a wonderful opportunity to apply the lessons I had learned working with the U.N.," he said. "Well, that has not been the case. You find a resistance to change here. Perhaps I came at the wrong time. But I am not the type of man who would quit. When I start something, I try to take it to the end."

Now, Latortue said, he looks forward to a "full retirement" with his family in Boca Raton, noting that his wife has remained in Florida, which the couple considers home.

"I'll take care of my grandchild and write my memoirs," he said.