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29132: Hermantin(News)Latortue's disturbing legacy (fwd)





From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Thu, Sep. 07, 2006


HAITI
Latortue's disturbing legacy

BY IRA KURZBAN
ira@kkwtlaw.com

On Feb. 29, 2004, former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forcibly removed from Haiti by the Bush administration. Several days later, Gerard Latortue was airlifted into Haiti and named the prime minister with barely a fig-leaf as a process. Latortue was a radio announcer in Boca Raton.

His major qualification, as with many Iraqi advisors to the Bush administration, was his strong ties to the U.S. intelligence community and neoconservatives in the White House. Having fed the administration what it wanted to hear about how unpopular and dictatorial Aristide was in Haiti -- similar to the disinformation campaign waged by Ahmed Chalabi regarding Iraq -- the unqualified Latortue was rewarded by being anointed prime minister.

Brutal regime

The results of his tenure are now in. A study published this week in The Lancet, the respected medical journal of the United Kingdom, scientifically analyzed the brutality of the regime. In the last two years, reports have documented the gross human-rights violations in Haiti, but these abuses were sadly ignored by most mainstream media. The University of Miami School of Law's Center for Human Rights, led by the prominent human-rights author and professor Irwin Stotzky, Harvard University's Human Rights Clinic and the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti all detailed executions and systematic human-rights violations after Aristide's removal.

The Lancet report, however, confirms everyone's worst suspicions. It concludes that in the 22 months after Aristide's removal there were 8,000 murders and 35,000 sexual assaults in the greater Port-au-Prince area alone. More than 50 percent of these murders were attributed to anti-Aristide and anti-Lavalas factions including armed anti-Lavalas groups, demobilized army members and government security forces.

Gangs not guilty

Similarly, almost 30 percent of the sexual assaults were attributed to anti-Lavalas and anti-Aristide forces. The remaining murders and sexual assaults were due to common criminals or of unknown origin. Although a sustained disinformation campaign by Latortue and the Bush Administration claimed that violence was due to Lavalas ''gangs'' -- the study finds just the opposite. No murders or sexual assaults were attributed to Lavalas members or partisans during the 22-month period of Latortue's regime.

As in Iraq, the other lasting legacy of the Bush administration's policies in Haiti has been rampant corruption. More than $900 million in aid was provided to the Latortue regime at the request of the United States, France and Canada. But no visible major projects warranting such huge expenditures have been recorded. In a country where the average annual income is less than $350 per year, the newly elected legislature is investigating this rampant corruption, including $6 million that disappeared from Latortue's Foreign Ministry.

Luxury cars

Latortue also paid a U.S. law firm $250,000 a month retainer solely to bring against Aristide a civil suit that was ultimately dismissed. In a parting shot to the Haitian people, Latortue awarded himself two new luxury automobiles, which he took to Florida until the misappropriation was discovered.

The Bush administration legacy of terminating democracy under Aristide and allowing gross human-rights abuses and corruption to fester during Latortue's regime will take many decades to reverse. Nor was the administration successful in terminating the Haitian people's desire for the return of Aristide, who is as popular as ever in Haiti.

Ira Kurzban was the general counsel for Haiti for 13 years during the governments of René Préval and Jean-Bertrand Aristide.