Op - Ed to Miami Herald in reference to article about Aristide/Neptune "corruption" Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 09:13:01 +0000
(
HeraldEd@herald.com)
Dear Miami Herald Op-Ed Editor;
I write in response to the Miami Herald article (see below) written by Jacqueline Charles entitled "Aristide cronies' accounts probed" to state categorically and in the strongest of terms, that contrary to the articles inferences about the corruption of Haiti's forcibly removed constitutionally elected Aristide/Neptune government nothing, nothing The Gousse or the U.S.-imported Gwo Gera could EVER discover or make-up about corruption in the duly elected Constitutional government of Aristide/Neptune will justify the more than 4000 Haitian lives lost to put these fools in power and Haiti under occupation.
Nothing whatsoever that the illegitimate Latortue regime could ever turn up in terms of money misspent was worth the lost of ONE Haitian life; the desecration of our bicentennial year; the return of French soldiers on Dessaline's soil!; the over 1,100 political prisoners wasting away in these Coup d'etat peoples' jails in Haiti and the more than 100 simply massacred by Gousse and Gwo Gera's guards at the National Penitentiary. Nothing. (See,
http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/jjinterview.html )
It is clear to the world who the criminals are. This total darkness Haiti's so-called intellectual, bitter and frustrated class has brought back to Haiti is unmatched, devastating and barbaric.
Aristide/Neptune where not only under an international embargo by the world's international financial institutions, but their government had an arms embargo against it. Today there are more guns in Haiti, drugs in Haiti, financial corruption, as ALL Gwo Gerar's authorities where not elected and got their position as reward for their participation in the violent Coup d'etat or by paying for them or simple cronyism in a manner beyond what we could even imagined for the forcibly removed Constitutional government.
It is simply perverse to somehow try to justify the disenfranchisement of almost 9 million Black people and total destruction of their dreams of domestic development, dignity in the bicentennial year and sovereignty with this lame broken-record refrain: "Aristide-may-have-stolen-monies, we-don't-have-legal-proof-yet-but-we are-optimistic!"
Merely a trial by innuendo. Lame and absurdly reflective of Haiti's bankrupt "Black Frenchmen" class, the Francophonies!, looking to bring back a blan to shadow each Ministry's in Haiti, every move and every word that comes to their head.
As those Haitian, who live in the working neighborhoods of Bel Air, Delmas 2, Cite Soley, may say "La rouze fè banda toutan soley pa leve." - The dew goes wild for only as long as the sun (of truth) hasn't risen!
Haiti's traditionally morally repugnant elite, category zero, the Black opportunists are the ones ALWAYS refusing to pay their fair share of taxes, their share of responsibility for the country's development, for, let say, 200-years!
If the Miami Herald wants to talk of corruption in Haiti, than anchor it in some Haitian historical perspective.
If the elected government was misusing funds, it certainly was NOT the tax receipts paid out by members of Group 184, that's for sure. Most of Haiti's economic elite are too corrupt to pay taxes to help build the country. There wasn't any international funds coming in, so where was the money for stealing coming from? Why the tremendous focus on Aristide's corruption as opposed to Cedras, Duvalier, et al. Duvalier has even said he would return to Haiti now that his cronies are back in power!!!! Talk about corruption! Those Duvalierists/FRAPH/Tonton Macoutes' corruption were just ignored just as the morally repugnant elites ignore their own lack of investment in Haiti. All they do is, even at the risk of losing their own autonomy, want Papa-blan-Santa-Claus to help them subdue the Black masses and their civil liberties, the better to exploit Haitian labor and resources.
Talk about inept. Even after spilling rivers of Haitian blood and liberty to force their way into the National Palace where U.S.-Ambassador Foley now governs Haiti, these incompetents can't even get themselves rewarded with the trickle-down left-overs of the HERO act, or the billions "always promised" by those who simply used them to kill Black sovereignty and achievements. These "Haitian" agents of Haiti's traditional enemies, their ignorance and lack of understanding of their USES is plain felony STUPID.
Haiti is a million times worst than it was under Aristide/Neptune. Why couldn't these fools wait until the end of the Constitutional term and get themselves duly elected or simply PROVE to the people, through legal means, that is the ballot box, they were better leaders for Haiti. Why? Because they ARE NOT.
(
http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/HLLNapale.html See, also Amnesty International's recent human rights violation alert regarding prison killings in Haiti at:
http://www.margueritelaurent.com/campaigns/campaignone/presswork/amnesty dec.html )
What's more corrupt than arrests without a warrant, arbitrary detention of prisoners by Haitian Chief prosecutor Audin, and Beer and Gousse; the stealing of property owned by Lavalas supporters, the closing of schools because only poor children attend them, the closing of the children TV and radio program, the hunting down of said children because they were part of a Lavalas program, the outright execution of a 6-year old girl, a 9-year old boy, et al, the taking over of the medical university by the foreign troops, the more than 4,000 deaths and massive repression and return of the bloody Haitian army and their FRAPH mercenaries? Carting countless dead bodies to secret unknown mass graves in plain daylight. What? That the greatest U.S. powers and resources and their Haitian butt-kissers have yet to find any legal way to charge the Aristide/Neptune government they forcibly overthrew with corruption?
La rouze fè banda toutan soley pa leve. When the real freedom fighters of Haiti, when their voices are heard, not Latortue's thugs and suited-group-184-mafia, than we'll see who is corrupt. No way on this earth shall this generation of Haitians allow these old "Black Frenchmen" who love European barbarity, oops "culture" more than Haiti, Haitian people, themselves or the ancestor's legacy of liberty and freedom, to not be given their true place in THIS particularly arnachic phase of Haitian history as the U.S./Canada/France imported DEATH REGIME.
La Plum was a Black general in Les Cayes, Haiti, during the Haitian Revolution, who so loved being slave to the white man and his Triangular Trade, now morphed in this 21st century and called "free trade," that he fought for France until the end. Group 184 and the coup d'etat supporters of Haiti are modern day La Plums. These stooges, these Franco-PHONIES need to let Haiti live and go be with their corrupt masters-in-crime some place where they won't be harming anyone - JAIL. They are the real criminals who destroy Haitian liberty and resources and always have been.
Ezili Danto
Li led li la
December 23, 2004
erzilidanto@aol.com ------------------------------------------------------------
Miami Herald Article
Posted Dec. 22, 2004
HAITI
Aristide cronies' accounts probed
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
jcharles@herald.com PORT-AU-PRINCE - Two Haitian panels probing allegations of corruption under former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide say they have found evidence that millions of dollars were paid into bank accounts held by one of Aristide's foundations, by his wife and by officials of his government for unknown purposes.
Investigators are also looking at a U.S. bank account held by Mrs. Aristide and others held by Aristide associates in Finland, Greece, Panama and Canada, Haitian officials said.
Among the evidence are presidential account checks for $5 million to $10 million made out to Oriel Jean, a former Aristide security chief now jailed in Miami on drug charges.
Justice Minister Bernard Gousse and Jean-Yves Nol, head of the Financial Intelligence Unit, which has been acting as the liaison between Haitian and U.S. investigators, told The Herald they believed the evidence trail will eventually lead to Aristide.
''Given the tight grip the president had on all these institutions, especially at the presidential palace, and where his cronies were appointed, it is clear he was the mastermind and the architect,'' Gousse said.
ARISTIDE DEFENDED
Aristide's Miami attorney, Ira Kurzban, said that if any government funds were transferred to bank accounts of the president's wife or his social works foundation, they went to legitimate government expenditures.
''They did it legitimately and they did it for a public policy. This was not money that was routed into the pockets of the president to buy a yacht in Miami,'' he said.
For now, Gousse and Nol say they are putting together a list of about 29 Aristide associates who received government funds without explanations. They will soon turn over the list to prosecutors, who could then seek search or arrest warrants.
Interim Haitian Prime Minister Gerard Latortue has publicly asked Gousse to issue an arrest warrant for Aristide, who fled the country Feb. 29 amid a bloody revolt. But Gousse has said he and Nol are still building a case.
Nol said his panel is also cooperating with a group of U.S. Treasury, Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI agents in Haiti who have been combing through bank records and other documents as part of a U.S. probe into drug trafficking, money laundering and bribes during Aristide's rule.
For now the names of the suspects are confined to dozens of folders on Nol's desk, containing thousands of copies of canceled checks and other documents he said came from five presidential bank accounts. Among them, according to documents Nol showed The Herald:
• Bank records showing ''millions of dollars'' transferred from one presidential account to Haitian bank accounts held by Aristide's wife, Mildred Trouillot Aristide, and one of his private social welfare foundations, the Aristide Foundation.
• A 2003 check for $800,000 to Kiskeya Store. Nol said the store does not exist. Haitian business owners questioned by The Herald said they had never heard of Kiskeya.
• Hundreds of thousands of dollars in government checks written simply to cash, without any explanation of the recipient or the reason for the payment.
• A series of presidential checks written out to the Central Bank but flagged for deposit into the personal accounts of Haitians that Nol said were Aristide associates. He would not provide their names.
CHECKS TO JEAN
Nol also said several suspicious presidential checks, some for $5 million to $10 million and all made out in U.S. dollars, were made out to Oriel Jean, the former Aristide security chief.
Displaying a canceled presidential check to Jean in 2002 for $6,077,342.40, Nol said he believed the money ''was used for a lot of things, the chimres, to do propaganda for him, to pay people.'' Chimres are thugs allegedly armed and financed by Aristide to back him and to harass his opposition.
Jean, being held in Miami on drug charges, said through his Miami attorney, David Raben, that he knew nothing about the check. ''I have never seen or received any check for $6 million made out to me from the Haitian government,'' he said.
Jean's possible cooperation with U.S. prosecutors could play a key role in a parallel U.S. investigation of possible links between Aristide, officials in his government and traffickers who used Haiti to ship Colombian cocaine to U.S. markets.
At least 11 Haitian drug suspects have been arrested and extradited to the United States. Haitian authorities have arrested another three drug suspects and confiscated $1.3 million in cash, Nol said, but 14 other suspects remain fugitives in Haiti and neighboring Dominican Republic.
A top Haitian official aware of the U.S. investigation said the American agents are investigating a U.S. bank account held by Mildred Aristide and have found suspicious bank accounts held by Aristide associates in Panama, Canada, Greece and Finland.
U.S. law enforcement officials declined comment on the Haitian officials' reports.
Haitian investigators acknowledge that despite the evidence gathered and the cooperation from U.S. officials, they face an uphill battle proving the corruption charges that have dogged Aristide's government since he was reelected in 2000. Aristide now lives in South Africa.
But both Gousse and Nol say they remain optimistic.
''We are well informed,'' Nol said. ``We are determined. We have a lot of people who are helping us.''
Herald staff writers Jay Weaver and Sidonie Sawyer contributed to this report.
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