29995: Brown: (news) The Haiti File (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: "Brown, Stephen D. MR." <stephen.brown4@us.army.mil>

The Haiti File
By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
February 12, 2007; Page A14
The Wall Street Journal
A government file pertinent to two civil law suits alleging bribery doesn't 
just get up and walk out of a supposedly secure federal-agency record room in 
Washington. When said bribery allegations involve politically influential 
individuals on both sides of the aisle and a notoriously corrupt former Haitian 
president that the U.S. supported for a decade, it's even more troubling.
In a December email to a lawyer in one of the law suits, the Federal 
Communications Commission said that its "Haiti file" was missing. The file is 
the record of which U.S. telecom companies that did business with the 
government of former Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide actually complied 
with U.S. law by submitting their contracts to the FCC. An official at the 
commission told me on Friday that "we don't have the file but we are continuing 
our active efforts to locate it."
I'm not sure whether the missing file would fit into Sandy Berger's socks. But 
given the number of political heavyweights -- both Republican and Democrat -- 
who might welcome the disappearance of these documents, it's a bit difficult to 
write the whole thing off as an accident.
Since 2000 I have followed allegations that Haiti's Mr. Aristide took bribes 
from U.S. telecom carriers doing business in his country. These charges arose 
first in conversations with Haitians familiar with operations at the 
state-owned phone company, Teleco. More recently they have been aired in two 
separate civil suits filed in two different U.S. federal courts.
The alleged quid pro quo for the U.S. companies that agreed to pay the bribes 
was access to the Teleco network at rates below the uniform "international 
settlement rate" set by the FCC. During the course of my investigations, two 
different long-distance suppliers told me that Teleco officials offered them 
just such a special rate in exchange for payment made to specially designated 
accounts.
If the allegations are true, it would mean that the Foreign Corrupt Practices 
Act was violated, right under the nose of the FCC and the Department of 
Justice, during Democratic and Republican administrations. It would also mean 
that while Haitians were placing their trust in Uncle Sam to help them 
construct a democracy, millions of dollars that might have gone to building an 
infrastructure were siphoned off by a corrupt tyrant and U.S. business partners 
with friends in high places.
In 2000, questions arose about Fusion Telecommunications, which had a 
concession to terminate calls in Haiti and which, according to sources, had an 
office inside Teleco. Marvin Rosen (finance chairman for the Democratic 
National Committee from September 1995 until January 1997), former Democratic 
Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy II, and Bill Clinton confidante Thomas (Mack) 
McLarty III were all on the board of Fusion. Mr. Rosen was Fusion chief 
executive officer.
Rumors abounded in Haiti that Fusion had a sweetheart deal with Mr. Aristide 
that gave the U.S. firm rates well below the international settlement rate. 
When I inquired about the company's Haiti business while preparing a Jan. 2001 
op-ed, I was immediately referred to a company lawyer who refused to either 
confirm or deny that the company was even doing business in Haiti. In September 
2005, Fusion told me it had always filed what was required at the FCC and 
denied making any illegal payments to Teleco.
In 2001 Mr. Kennedy's office released a statement that he had no "joint 
venture, partnership or business arrangement with the president of Haiti or for 
that matter, anyone in Haiti" and that he was not involved in running Fusion. 
Nevertheless, in a Feb. 7, 2001 op-ed in the Boston Globe, he wrote, "I was 
proud to help bring more than $1 million in private investment from Fusion into 
Haiti." That was peanuts when you consider that Teleco once had annual revenues 
upwards of $60 million. By the time Mr. Aristide was forced into exile by a 
political uprising in 2004, the company was losing money.
The whole thing might have been swept under the rug if it weren't for Michael 
Jewett, who in 2003 had been an employee at New Jersey-based IDT, headed by 
former Republican congressman Jim Courter. Like Fusion, IDT had a number of 
seasoned politicos on its board.
In March 2004 Mr. Jewett filed suit in federal court in Newark, N.J. alleging 
that he was fired from IDT because he objected to an illegal deal between the 
company and Mr. Aristide. Mr. Jewett's allegations seem to echo the charges 
swirling around Fusion. IDT responded much like Fusion, insisting that its 
arrangement with Haiti Teleco was a trade secret. In fact, IDT had a legal 
obligation to make its arrangement public and the information was unsealed, 
revealing that IDT had been granted a rate of nine cents per minute versus the 
FCC mandated rate of 23 cents. Mr. Jewett also claims in court documents that 
IDT agreed to make payments to an offshore account in Turks and Caicos called 
"Mount Salem," ("Mont Salem" in French) for the benefit of Mr. Aristide.
After Mr. Aristide was driven from power in February 2004, the interim 
government pried open Teleco's books and alleged that the company had been 
looted. In November 2005 it filed suit in U.S. district court in southern 
Florida. "The fraudulent scheme to steal Teleco revenues was carried out in 
part through defendant Mont Salem," the government claimed, adding that, "At 
Aristide's direction, Inevil, Duperval and Beliard [Haitian nationals] directed 
at least two of the Class B carriers, IDT and Skytel, to make their payments 
for Teleco's services to Mont Salem. At Aristide's direction, Teleco's 
then-counsel also caused Teleco to request at least one other Class B carrier, 
Fusion, to make payments through Mont Salem."
Mr. Jewett's case has already revealed a lot, but it won't tell Haitians where 
millions of dollars in lost Teleco revenues went throughout the 1990s. That 
will require a more thorough airing, such as the civil suit Haiti filed in 
Florida. Unfortunately, Haiti has had to withdraw its suit for lack of funds. 
Its request for a share of assets forfeited by Haitian drug kingpins -- which 
could be used to reinstate the suit and pay legal fees -- has been resisted by 
the DOJ. First DOJ said it couldn't release the assets because the cases were 
on appeal. Now it says that it doesn't yet have the forfeited assets.
Another way to get at the truth would be if DOJ used the mountain of evidence 
it seems to be sitting on to indict Mr. Aristide, since he has often asserted 
that he won't remain silent about his dealings with highly placed American 
politicians if he is brought to trial. Why the DOJ would turn down an offer 
like that is a mystery, a little like the missing file.


Steve Brown
 brownst@soc.mil