FAKE ELECTIONS UNDER UN GUNS TO IMPOSE CRIMINALS AS HAITIAN "LEADERS"

Following a total debacle organized under foreign supervision, Haiti's puppet regime announces results of first round "elections". Parties linked to head puppet Michel Martelly seen rigging the elections in broad daylight by taking ballot boxes to their homes, filling them with fake ballots and returning them to the polling station with gangs of armed mercenaries are rewarded with titles of "Elected Senators, Elected Deputies, First Runner up" etc...


International as well as national bandits have aligned with the degenerate Michel Martelly to humiliate the Haitian people for more than 4 years.

Get informed and stand up to put an end to this mascarade!
Bill & Hillary Clinton (tolerated by Obama) had a lot to do with this mess!


"INTRODUCING 2015 SELECTED SENATOR YOURI LATORTUE"

WHAT HAS THE UN DONE WITH THIS TESTIMONY ON THE MURDER OF FATHER JEAN-MARIE VINCENT?

Witness: That's when I saw a pickup....a double white pickup with a bunch of men in black. And uh...I saw Youri. The reason why I remember Youri....I don't remember the other ones. But the reason why I remember Youri because he used to come to (beep) house. And I saw him getting out of the car and shooting at the car. But at that time I didn't know he was a priest. The man they were shooting at. I didn't know he was a priest. And I didn't know the person who was in that car.

UN Official: Right

Witness: It's when I went back to my uncle's house and I was explaining what I witnessed. Then I found out when he said "you know (unintelligible) who they shot?" I said who they shot? He said Jean-Marie Vincent. I said who is Jean-Marie Vincent. He said it's a priest.

Gen omwens 2 lot TEMWEN ki te di yo rekonet misye.

Lan WIKILEAKS yo ,ANBASAD AMERIKEN an ,lan DEPECH yo ;yo rekonet ke misye se yon GWO SISPEK lan SASINAJ sa a.

Neg sa yo telman AWOGAN ;yo konnen ke yo se MET PEYI yo pa menm degize TET yo le yo komet yon ZAK konsa.
Se menm jan NEG ki te touye ANTWAN IZMERY yo ,te rantre lan LEGLIZ lan ,an gran jan ,yo pa t bay yon "rat's ass" si MOUN ta rekonet yo.
Yo te pran l e gaye SEVEL li ;MESYE sa yo ap sikile an gran jan lan LARI POTOPRENS.

Men tou.Gen de peyi lan AMERIK SANTRAL lan ,apre 30 a 40 AN GE SIVIL ;se kounye an ,y ap mete men sou ANSYEN JENERAL ak OFISYE ki t ap opere ESKADWON LANMO yo.

Dominiken yo;lanne pase an ,yo te arête yon KAPTENN yo di ki te EKZEKITE FRANCISCO CAAANO apre debakman l ,soti KIBA an 1973.

Yo te fe sa ,anvan ke yo te mete FRANCISCO CAAMANO lan PANTEYON NASYONAL DOMINIKEN an

YON ATIK HAITI-LIBERTE




“Mafia boss... Drug dealer... Poster-boy for political corruption” :
WikiLeaked U.S. Embassy Cables Portray Senator Youri Latortue

by Kim Ives

...

First of two articles

Youri Latortue is one of Haiti’s most powerful politicians.

As an outspoken Senator, he is an ally of Haitian President Michel Martelly. Both are leading advocates for reestablishing the demobilized Haitian Army. He supported Martelly’s nominee for Prime Minister, neoliberal businessman Daniel-Gérard Rouzier, who was rejected by the Parliament in a Jun. 21 vote.

But Youri Latortue is also a drug-trafficker, gang godfather, and death-squad leader, according to the testimony and reports of many colleagues, crime witnesses and government officials, both Haitian and international.

In fact, “Senator Youri Latortue may well be the most brazenly corrupt of leading Haitian politicians,” according to the U.S. Embassy. Secret U.S. State Department cables obtained by the media organization WikiLeaks and reviewed by Haïti Liberté paint a portrait of a relentlessly unscrupulous, ambitious strongman, who has helped bring down Haitian governments and holds Gonaïves, Haiti’s fourth largest city, as his personal fiefdom.

His Rise to Power

Born in Gonaïves, Youri Latortue went to law school in Port-au-Prince and then graduated from Haiti’s military academy in 1990. He became a lieutenant in the Haitian Armed Forces (FAdH), teaching briefly at the Military Academy. But after the Sep. 30, 1991 coup d’état against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Latortue joined the Army’s notorious Anti-Gang Unit (previously called Criminal Research) headed by Col. Michel François, one of the coup’s principal leaders.

“It was widely known that he was involved in many of the political killings carried out during the 1991-94 coup, in particular the shooting of Father Jean-Marie Vincent in August 2004,” explained a once highly-placed government security source who wishes to remain anonymous. “He was one of Michel François’ death-squad leaders.”

In 2004, a delegation of the Center for the Study of Human Rights wrote that “a former high-ranking police official from the USGPN (palace security), Edouard Guerrière... claims that Youri Latortue participated in the 1994 murder of Catholic priest Jean-Marie Vincent (as did eyewitnesses in 1995), and that he assisted in the 1993 murder of democracy activist Antoine Izméry.”

In 2005, a U.S. policeman with the United Nations Police (UNPOL) videotaped an interview that he made with a young woman who feared for her life “because the 28th of August 1994, I witnessed Youri Latortue murder the priest by the name of Jean-Marie Vincent,” she said. The video, released in October 2010 by the Haiti Information Project (HIP), is now available on YouTube.

She describes how the priest drove up to his gate that night. “That's when I saw... a double white pickup with a bunch of men in black,” she continued. “I saw Youri... I [didn’t recognize] the other ones. But the reason why I remember Youri [was] because he used to come to [name removed] house. And I saw him getting out of the [pick-up]and shooting at the car. But at that time, I didn't know [the victim] was a priest... I didn't know the person who was in that car.” It was only later that she learned who it was (see Haïti Liberté, Vol.4, No.14, 10/20/2010).

The video-taped interview was sent to HIP with the following note: “The UN has no interest in pursuing this case or revealing this evidence despite the statements of this eyewitness that Youri Latortue was the triggerman that shot and killed Father Jean-Marie Vincent on August 28, 1994.... It is a travesty of justice that the UN has been withholding this testimony from the public. They are supposed to be impartial but Latortue has powerful friends in the US Embassy who view him as an asset since his role following the ouster of Aristide in 2004.”

After Aristide returned to Haiti from exile on Oct. 15, 1994, he dissolved the FAdH in early 1995, and Latortue was transferred to the Interim Police force, made up of former FAdH soldiers. Dr. Fourel Célestin, a former FAdH colonel, was appointed as President Aristide’s security advisor, and he proposed bringing Youri Latortue into the Palace security under his aegis.

“Aristide was dead set against it, having heard the persistent rumors of Latortue’s murderous role during the coup,” the former government source said. “But Célestin convinced him, arguing that the Palace needed to have some of the Army bad guys if it was going to dismantle and neutralize the force.” Aristide relented.

In March 1995, unknown assassins shot to death well-known pro-coup spokeswoman Mireille Durocher-Bertin and another passenger in her car on the eve of President Bill Clinton’s visit to Haiti. The shooting was a tremendous embarrassment to the Aristide government and to Clinton. A team of FBI agents spent time in Haiti investigating the murder, and Youri Latortue was one of their suspects. Washington yanked Latortue’s U.S. travel visa.

Latortue worked out of Célestin’s Palace office until 1996 when President René Préval took power. Washington insisted that certain former FAdH officers deemed too close to Aristide – Célestin, Major Dany Toussaint, Major Joseph Médard – be removed from leadership of the new police and two new Palace Security details: the USP (Presidential Security Unit), similar to the U.S. Secret Service, and the USGPN (Security Unit to Guard the National Palace). When they were removed, that left a void in the Palace security’s command, a void that was filled by Latortue. He became the USGPN’s deputy chief under Frantz Jean-François. Two better trusted pro-Lavalas security agents – Nesly Lucien and Oriel Jean – were named to head the USP. That arrangement lasted throughout Préval’s term (despite his grave misgivings about Latortue, as we shall see) until he handed the Presidency back to Aristide in 2001.

Aristide Returns, Youri Takes Leave

“After Aristide's accession, other USGPN policemen found [Latortue] ‘hostile’ to his new President, who worried about his involvement in a ‘plot,’ according to Haiti's elite-owned radio station Signal FM on February 21, 2001,” Canadian investigative journalist Anthony Fenton wrote in a June 2005 Znet article entitled “Have the Latortues Kidnapped Democracy in Haiti?”.

At that point, Latortue was transferred out of the Palace to work under Nesly Lucien, who had been named Police Chief. But in late 2001, Latortue took a paid leave of absence from the police to pursue a master’s degree in law in Canada. He “had lived in Miami, [and] studied in Montreal for two years” he told Fenton in a June 2005 phone interview.

It was during that time that Latortue was paid a visit by Stanley Lucas, an operative for the International Republican Institute (IRI), a tentacle of the U.S. government’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED), according to our security source. IRI was playing a central role in organizing the “civilian opposition” to Aristide, principally the so-called “Group of 184,” headed by sweatshop magnate Andy Apaid. But Lucas was also keeping touch with the “armed opposition” of former Haitian soldier and police chief Guy Philippe in the Dominican Republic. This is where Youri came in.

During 2002 and 2003, Latortue shuttled back and forth between the U.S., Canada, and the Dominican Republic, meeting with Guy Philippe, former FRAPH death-squad leader Jodel Chamblain, and others in the “rebel” force forming, training, and launching raids into Haiti. Interestingly, Youri’s U.S. travel visa, which had been suspended in 1995, was reinstated in 2002 when he started to play this role of anti-Aristide intermediary.

“We know that Youri was one of the intellectual authors, one of the key planners, behind the Dec. 17, 2001 attack on the National Palace,” when a band of Philippe’s “rebels” briefly took over the National Palace during a failed coup attempt, our well-placed source explained. “In the investigation after the attack, we learned that it was Youri’s people – his proteges – in the USGPN who, working inside the Palace, let the attackers into the Palace grounds.”

Finally Latortue, Philippe, Lucas, IRI, and the 184 were successful in their destabilization campaign after a U.S. SEAL team kidnapped Aristide from his home on Feb. 29, 2004, completing the second coup against him.

After the 2004 Coup

Youri Latortue then flew back to Haiti with his first cousin once-removed, Gérard Latortue in tow. A few weeks later, Gérard Latortue was installed as de facto Prime Minister. Youri Latortue, often called Gérard’s “nephew,” was appointed as his security and spy chief, with the title “Responsible for National Intelligence to the Primature.”

“The thing was that Gérard had been working for international organizations overseas most of his life and didn’t really know the lay of the land in Haiti,” our security source explained. “He had to rely largely on Youri for guidance. In that sense, Youri was practically the shadow Prime Minister. And during that coup, he was the main one responsible for the massacre of many militants in Belair, Cité Soleil and other pockets of resistance.”

In his post, Latortue was “nicknamed 'Mister 30 Per Cent' because of the percentage he demands in return for favors,” wrote Thierry Oberlin in the December 21, 2004 Le Figaro. “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'."

But then something interesting happened. In late 2004, Gérard Latortue left Haiti to travel to a conference in Canada, passing through Miami. Youri was part of his delegation. But in Florida, U.S. agents detained Youri for his suspected involvement in drug-trafficking. (Joel Deeb, a Haitian-American arms dealer who reportedly brokered deals with Youri Latortue, “stated that Youri Latortue presently has four sealed DEA indictments pending against him, and that the DEA [has] issued an extradition letter for Youri Latortue to the interim government,” Fenton learned in several interviews with Deeb between April and June 2005. “Youri Latortue himself evaded questions about the DEA indictments, denying that he and Deeb, as Deeb claims, were in regular contact.”)

Gérard Latortue got on the phone to officials in Washington and demanded that Youri be released. Eventually, U.S. officials said they would not hold Youri, but on the condition that he take the next flight back to Haiti, which he did.

“When Gérard returned to Haiti after the Canada visit, he met with Youri about the incident and about his vulnerability to prosecution,” our source explains. “They determined that the best course of action was for Youri to become an elected official, which would confer upon him immunity from prosecution. That is why and how Youri’s political career began, assured by Gérard, under whom his election was assured.”

Thus, under his “uncle’s” government, Youri was elected to a six-year term as the first senator of the Artibonite Department in the Feb. 7, 2006 elections that also brought Préval to the Presidency for the second time.

This is where the U.S. Embassy cables pick up the thread.

A Drug Dealer and Kidnapper in the Palace?

When Youri Latortue worked in the Palace under Aristide and Préval, neither president was comfortable with his presence there and knew he was involved in illegal activities. But they were afraid to act against him. “Among political observers, it is an article of faith that Latortue was involved in drug trafficking under Aristide and during the first Préval administrations,” reported U.S. Ambassador Janet Sanderson in a June 27, 2007 cable to Washington. “Préval himself reports that Latortue ‘ran drugs’ out of his office in the Presidency during Aristide's mandate.”

Préval said the same thing to Sanderson’s successor, current Ambassador Kenneth Merten, who reported in an Oct. 6, 2009 secret cable that the Haitian president “also expressed concern over the lack of integrity of the president of the Senate Commission on Justice and Security, Senator Youri Latortue, implying ties to the drug trade. He supported his viewpoint by recalling the USG’s [U.S. government’s]alleged refusal to allow Latortue to travel to the United States” in 1995 and 2004.

The U.S. Embassy treated Latortue warily when he returned to Haiti in 2004. The first conflict they had with him was when he took it upon himself to tell “some of the ex-soldiers in Cap-Haïtien” who had taken part in Guy Philippe’s “rebel” force “that they would be admitted into the HNP,” or Haitian National Police. “This raised a red-flag for us and the rest of the international community and was a subject of the Core Group meeting March 12,” reported Sanderson’s predecessor, Ambassador James Foley in a Mar. 15, 2005 cable. The U.S. and its allies went to Prime Minister Gérard Latortue who “made clear this was not the case,” pleasing them with “his public acknowledgment that the HNP was not an automatic option for the ex-FADH.”

Two months later, a prominent member of Haiti’s bourgeoisie, businessman Fritz Mevs, told the U.S. Embassy that “Colombian drug-traffickers” were working “with a small cabal of powerful and connected individuals, including Youri Latortue... to create a criminal enterprise that thrives on - and generates - instability,” Foley wrote in a May 27, 2005 cable. This cabal which included Youri was a “small nexus of drug-dealers and political insiders that control a network of dirty cops and gangs that [...] were responsible for committing the kidnappings and murders.”

The Embassy also worried that Youri was beginning to alienate some in the anti-Lavalas coalition that had driven Aristide from power, particularly students. They were starting to distrust the Interim Government of Haiti (IGOH), as the Latortues’ de facto regime was called, because “rumors are rife that the IGOH (and specifically Youri Latortue) is building an ‘intelligence cell’ within the student movement for political ends,” wrote interim Chargé d’Affaires Douglas M. Griffiths in a July 6, 2005 cable.

Washington was also closely watching the emergence of the Artibonite in Action (LAAA), the party Youri Latortue formed in 2005 to run for Senate. “This party may have nefarious sources of income and has already been implicated in gang-related violence in the poorer neighborhoods of Raboteau and Jubilee in Gonaïves,” wrote another interim Chargé d'Affaires Erna Kerst in a Nov. 30, 2005 cable.

As Sanderson took over the Embassy in early 2006, she also echoed that Youri Latortue is “widely believed to be involved in illegal activities,” in a Jun. 16, 2006 cable.

Less than two months later, on Aug. 2, she sent another cable that reported that Edmond Mulet, the chief of the U.N. Mission to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH), was concerned that “drug trafficking has become an increasingly alarming problem, which is difficult to combat, in part because of the drug ties within the Haitian Government,” Sanderson wrote. “In this connection, he mentioned Senate leader Joseph Lambert and Security Commission Chair Youri Latortue -- describing the latter as a ‘drug dealer’.”

Arms dealer Joel Deeb also called Latortue “a drug smuggling ‘Kingpin,’ with ‘close ties’ to paramilitary leader Guy Philippe,” Anthony Fenton reported in his ZNet article. “Deeb also said that ‘everybody knows’ about Youri Latortue's involvement in kidnappings,” which were plaguing Haiti at the time.

“It is also widely known that Youri Latortue and his deputy, Jean-Wener Jacquitte,... are, at the least, funneling money associated with kidnappings,” Fenton continued. “This has been confirmed by sources both in diplomatic circles, as well as sources inside and outside the de facto Haitian government.”

In a September 2006 cable, Sanderson reported that Youri was able “to hire his ‘cronies’ to run customs' operations in Gonaïves” and, in a November 2006 cable, that Gonaïves Judge Napela Saintil, who had presided over the landmark 2000 Raboteau Massacre trial (at which Youri Latortue “refused to testify”), considered Latortue “his ‘arch enemy’” and “accused a security agent of Latortue's, Leon Leblanc, of attempting to assassinate him in March, 2004.”

One of Sanderson’s most enlightening cables is that of Nov. 20, 2006. It is based on a Nov. 9 meeting that one of Youri’s close associates (whose name has been removed from this report and the cable posted on WikiLeaks’ site to protect him) had with Embassy political officers or “poloffs.” The colleague “shared with poloffs his concerns regarding Latortue's illegal or otherwise unsavory activities in the port city of Gonaïves and other areas of the Artibonite,” Sanderson wrote. “Latortue's family connections play a part in his ability to manipulate the region, as do his close associations with armed gangs and drug traffickers.”

An Ambitious Politician

“The Latortue family is crawling all over Haitian politics,” the man told the Embassy. “Youri's sister is the former mayor of Gonaïves, and the former delegate to the region was a cousin of his as well. The administration filled Haiti's local and municipal offices by presidential appointment during the IGoH. Senator Latortue had influence over these appointments through his relation with IGoH Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, and managed to place members of his party in most positions around the Artibonite. The senator used these people to consolidate his power and influence in the region until the new delegate to the Artibonite appointed new local and regional officials who were not in the back pocket of Senator Latortue.”

The colleague “likened Senator Latortue's authority in the port city of Gonaïves to that of a mafia boss,” the cable continued. “He claimed that the somewhat lethargic port and the drug and other contraband trafficking taking place there are completely under the Senator's command. The port in Gonaïves is largely controlled by the Cannibal Army gang, which faces persistent competition from two other gangs, Des Cahos and Jubile Blan. Senator Latortue exerts influence over all three groups and is thus able to maintain sway over dealings in the port. Senator Latortue's other businesses in Gonaïves include a nightclub and movie theater, both of questionable legitimacy.”

Sanderson also noted that “an oft-disruptive popular organization in St. Marc named ‘Bale Wouze’ recently accused the senator of distributing weapons in an effort to destabilize the government.” Latortue’s colleague “phoned the Embassy on November 16 to reinforce the Bale Wouze accusations, and also to report another incident in which Senator Latortue and friends were stealing telephone poles and utility boxes from Port-au-Prince for use in Gonaïves.”
The colleague described how Youri was a savvy politician. “After the large-scale flooding in the Artibonite in September, the central government allocated emergency food supplies to be distributed to the flood victims,” Sanderson wrote, but “Senator Latortue intercepted the supplies and stashed them temporarily somewhere in Gonaïves, and then took the supplies to the victims and acted as if he was personally responsible for the handouts.”


Vol. 4 No. 50 • Du 21 Juin au 5 Juillet 2011

opyright © 2009 Haiti Liberte. All rights reserved

“With a shady and possibly criminal past, Latortue is an unavoidable presence in the Senate... Embassy nevertheless remains conscious of Latortue's shady past (which may well continue into the present) and of his possible drug associations. While Latortue is the most articulate and media-savvy of Senators, his messages to foreign diplomatic interlocutors are carefully tailored around his political agenda. Embassy will continue to maintain discreet, working level contact with Latortue in the interest of gathering information.”

WikiLeaks: Part II: “Mafia boss... drug dealer... poster-boy for political corruption” : Wikileaked U.S. Embassy Cables portray Senator Youri Latortue

By Kim Ives, HAITI LIBERTE, July 6-12

Second of two articles [read the first here].

Last week’s installment examined charges that Senator Youri Latortue, whom the U.S. Embassy described in a secret cable as possibly “the most brazenly corrupt of leading Haitian politicians,” was involved in drug trafficking, kidnapping, and other illegal activities. We continue our portrait of this powerful politician through secret U.S. Embassy cables provided to Haiti Liberté by the media organization WikiLeaks.

Latortue vs. Alexis

One of Youri Latortue’s biggest political rivals was then Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis, who also hails from Gonaives. A colleague of Latortue described how “Senator Latortue paid protestors to demonstrate and cause disruption to the ceremonies” celebrating Gonaives’ anniversary, which Alexis attended, wrote U.S. Ambassador Janet Sanderson in a Nov. 20, 2006 cable. “Senator Latortue often exploits local gangs for his own purposes in this way.”

Sanderson commented at the end of her cable that “Latortue's activities are a cause for concern given his presidential ambitions for 2011. Prime Minister Alexis has gone as far as to ask for the USG [U.S. government] to ‘arrest him’, as has Préval's advisor Bob Manuel.”

The political skirmishing between Alexis and Latortue continued throughout 2007, with the U.S. Embassy following it closely. The biggest row came after “Chief judge for the court of appeals, Hughes St. Pierre, died in Port-au-Prince on April 24 in a traffic accident,” Sanderson reported in a May 15, 2007 cable. The judge was presiding over the La Scierie trial, in which various Aristide government officials and policemen were accused of carrying out a “massacre” in St. Marc, a charge which has since been completely discredited. “St. Pierre, 75 years-old, was getting off a a ‘tap tap’ (a small truck converted for public transport) on the busy Delmas thoroughfare when another vehicle struck him.

St. Pierre on April 13 had issued a ruling on a motion to dismiss the charges brought by several La Scierie defendants, declining to make a final decision and asking the examining magistrate in the case to re-examine several witnesses.” Two days after St. Pierre’s death, former Lavalas deputy Amanus Mayette was released by the replacement judge, which “unleashed a torrent of criticism and conspiracy theories from [Lavalas Family] FL opponents,” who argued that “the La Scierie defendants would go free and not reveal the involvement of President Préval and other officials in crimes committed under Aristide.”

Sanderson matter-of-factly commented at the end: “Apart from trying to link the judge's death to a government conspiracy to absolve the La Scierie defendants, Youri Latortue and his allies in the Senate appear to be using this opportunity to derail justice reform legislation.”

When Alexis met with Sanderson later that May, he said that Latortue’s “parliamentary investigation into the death of [St. Pierre] and calls to remove the justice minister” were simply an “attack [...] really directed against him, orchestrated by Youri Latortue,” the ambassador wrote in a May 25, 2007 cable. Alexis “claimed that Latortue had organized the demonstrators who had thrown rocks at him during his visit to Gonaives... to attend St. Pierre's funeral.” Alexis said how even his “supporters among the Gonaives elite” asked to meet him “outside of Gonaives, because they did not feel safe holding the meeting in the city” because “the local police force was corrupt and controlled by Latortue.” Sanderson concluded, almost bemusedly, that even the powerful Prime Minister’s “supporters in his own home town were running somewhat scared.”

Five days later, Sanderson wrote Washington that “political observers believe that Senator Youri Latortue is either instigating or encouraging the disturbances” in the northwestern city because “ongoing violence in Gonaives discredits both the government and MINUSTAH, raising Latortue's profile as a powerful alternative to the current order.”

She continued: “While Youri Latortue may have become something of a combination boogeyman and pat answer for government officials seeking to explain their failure to improve conditions in Gonaives, a broad spectrum of contacts with knowledge of the situation almost unanimously believe that Latortue orchestrates an anti-government/anti-MINUSTAH campaign and manipulates the local gangs to his own political ends. Specifically, they charge that Latortue encourages lawlessness in Gonaives to discredit the government and to bolster his case for the re-establishment of Haiti's army, while strengthening his own power base in the region.”

Latortue’s Charm Offensive

The U.S. Embassy was starting to be ALARMED at the trouble Latortue was creating – in a Jun. 20, 2007 cable, for example, Chargé d’Affaires Thomas Tighe remarked that Youri was “suspected of supporting, if not participating, in criminal activity.” But perhaps Latortue had some spies of his own in the Embassy who gave him a heads-up about Washington’s growing concern, because he requested a meeting with the Embassy and got it on Jun. 18, 2007.

In a Jun. 27 cable entitled “YOURI LATORTUE REACHES OUT,” Sanderson describes how the Senator “expressed his desire to have better relations with the embassy and expand the reach of his political party” and “explained that he supported forming an army.” She noted that “Latortue's profile as a leading opponent of the government and future presidential candidate has risen sharply in recent months, even though informed Haitians widely assume that he was involved in drug trafficking and is still directly linked to criminal activity in his home base in the Artibonite.” Alas, she concluded, “Latortue's influence makes it increasingly difficult for post [the Embassy] to shun him completely, but we will maintain our policy of keeping him at arms length.”

Latortue told the Embassy political officer with whom he met that “his goal was to transform his organization [LAAA] from a regional to a national party.”

“Latortue stated that the international community plays a big role in Haitian affairs and that he must reach out to it if he is to be a successful, national political leader,” Sanderson reported. “He claimed to have had good relations with the US Embassy in the past, but that the relationship soured beginning in 2004. Unprompted, Latortue acknowledged that some people believe he is a drug trafficker. He retorted that these were unsubstantiated claims by his and his ''uncle's'' political enemies.”

Latortue’s sucking up to the Embassy appeared to have been rather transparent. “He closed his remarks on his political ambitions by avowing that he has always been, and will continue to be, a friend of the United States” Sanderson wrote. “He said that he receives from Cuba and Venezuela offers to visit, but always declines because these countries ‘do not represent his way of thinking.’ He also claimed to have counseled other government officials and parliamentarians that accepting these offers would appear to be playing off the United States and Venezuela/Cuba against each other.”

Youri also said he favors “an obligatory one year service for 18-20 year olds” in a new Haitian “public security force” that “should number between 1,000-2,000.” (Haiti has tens of thousands of young men in that age group.)

Although Sanderson flagged “Latortue's blatant political ambition,” she concluded “in Haiti's see-no-evil -hear-no-evil political culture, many Haitians naturally assume that Latortue will play an increasingly important role in politics as he consolidates his power, and view him as a serious presidential contender, even as he becomes the poster-boy for political corruption in Haiti.”

The Embassy kept collecting many reports from many quarters about Youri’s devilry. For example, one “civil society representative” (whose name is removed for his safety) “believed that Gonaives suffered from insecurity 'that was a form of opposition to the GoH' caused by politically ambitious persons, 'some of whom should be behind bars, but are seeking office. You know who I am talking about.'” He said that “because of his long established ties with the gangs, Latortue is part of a strong minority able to disrupt events that support Prime Minister Alexis, as seen when demonstrators threw rocks at Alexis during Judge Hugues St. Pierre's funeral” and “claimed to know definitely that Latortue is stockpiling arms.”

Youri WINS... for Now

Latortue’s chance to bring down Alexis’ government came in early 2008, when protest and eventually food riots began to sweep Haiti over the high cost of living.

“Senator Youri Latortue immediately pronounced that the ‘government in power has failed,’ and that the people's ‘patience has limits,’” wrote Sanderson in a Feb. 15, 2008 cable. In sharp contrast to his posture at the U.S. Embassy only eight months earlier, Latortue “accused the government of pursuing ‘neo-liberal’ policies responding to the demands of ‘international FINANCIAL institutions’ rather than to the needs of the Haitian people.”

Sanderson concluded that “ten percent inflation and sixty percent joblessness have no short-term cures. The cost of living is an issue tailor-made for demagoguery and browbeating the government, which Senator Latortue is spearheading for now.”

On Apr. 12, 2008, the Haitian Senate ousted Alexis, and it was largely thanks to you-know-who. “Senator Youri Latortue,... who ultimately helped engineer the downfall of PM Alexis, accurately predicted to the Canadian Ambassador Alexis' fall before it happened,” Sanderson wrote in her Apr. 24, 2008 cable. “It was Senator Latortue who called for the Senate to vote on Alexis' fate in the April 12 Senate interpellation.”

Ironically, in meetings with the U.S. Embassy three months later, Latortue “put the blame for the April food riots on Fanmi Lavalas elements” saying that they were “organizing the violence.” Sanderson reports in a Jul. 17 cable. (Ironically, during the food riots, the Lavalas Family had a large rally in Cité Soleil seeking to calm the population.)

At that same meeting, Latortue outlined his security program as “1) expanding Haitian National Police (HNP) coverage of the country... 2) creating a coordinated national intelligence institution; and 3) establishing an army or a gendarmerie.”

As usual, Sanderson concluded with the usual shrug: “With a shady and possibly criminal past, Latortue is an unavoidable presence in the Senate... Embassy nevertheless remains conscious of Latortue's shady past (which may well continue into the present) and of his possible drug associations. While Latortue is the most articulate and media-savvy of Senators, his messages to foreign diplomatic interlocutors are carefully tailored around his political agenda. Embassy will continue to maintain discreet, working level contact with Latortue in the interest of gathering information.”

The New Latortue/Martelly Alliance

The Embassy cables in 2009 continue to track Latortue’s political challenge to the Préval camp but also international leeriness of him. For example, a Jan. 23 cable explains that Michaëlle Jean, then Canada’s Governor General, on a tour of Haiti “skipped the port city of Gonaives to avoid having to meet Artibonite Senator Youri Latortue who is widely believed to be associated with drug trafficking and thus unable to get a CANADIAN VISA.”

Also the Haitian President began to tell the Embassy that he was worried about Latortue’s rise, according to a May 12, 2009 cable. “These were Préval's first remarks to the Embassy that he views Artibonite Senator Youri Latortue -- whose Presidential ambitions are thinly veiled -- as a political threat,” it reads.

Ironically, neo-Duvalierists like Youri Latortue and Michel Martelly, with backing from Washington, did end up knocking Préval’s candidate, Jude Célestin, out of the March 2011 Presidential run-off. They now are trying to ram through their pet project of restoring the Army, but as Rouzier’s rejection shows, Haiti, politically, is “te glisse,” or slippery ground.

Meanwhile, Youri Latortue continues to carry on his business, secure with his parliamentary immunity and his “je sech,” approach, Kreyòl for bald-face lying. For example on Jun. 14, 2011, he held a book signing for his new title “My Fight in the Parliament,” a self-serving ACCOUNT of his years as Senator. In it, he denounces the Aristide and Préval governments’ failure to carry out judicial reform, the very same reform he worked so hard to block as Chairman of the Senate’s Justice committee, the U.S. Embassy cables show.

In the new book, he also describes how he worked hard in the Parliament to “give the institution another image.” Best of all, as he signed his new book, Youri Latortue was also signing one of his other titles: “The Problem of Drugs.”

"This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI LIBERTE newsweekly. For the complete edition with other news in French and Creole, please contact the paper at (tel) 718-421-0162, (fax) 718-421-3471 or e-mail at editor@haitiliberte.com. Also visit our website at <http://www.haiti-liberte.com>.

Source:http://canadahaitiaction.ca/content/wikileaks-senator-youri-latortue-part-2

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Joel a écrit:WIPIP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

KAB ANBASAD AMERIKEN yo voye bay DEPATMAN DETA gen tandans pou yo di sa ANBASADE AMERIKEN ak lot ANPLWAYE ANBASAD lan vreman panse.
Yo diferan de sa SEVIS ENTELIJANS yo ap di.

Yo kenbe misye pou sevis l ap rann SEVIS ENTELIJANS yo ;sa pa vle di ke le PEP AYISYEN an ap mande KONT ke GOUVENMAN AMERIKEN yo ap leve yon DWET pou ede NEG tankou misye yo.

Yo pwouve sa ak NEG ,ansyen JENERAL ,menm ansyen PREZIDAN POUTCHIS MILITE ke yo mete ANBA KOD lan AMERIK di SID ak AMERIK SANTRAL!    

Sa m ap di Selman;se pa refize yo refize "ENTELEKTYEL" pale.

Gen MOUN lan POPILASYON an ki komanse konnen ki sa ki te pase ant 2001 ak 2004 VRE.

Le majorite POPILASYON an vin konnen ,TRANBLE!

Tankou PAWOL lan di "LE W SIMEN VAN ,ANPIL FWA SE SIKLONN OU REKOLTE"


kite koken koken se pa pwemye fwa sa fet ...... Zanmi ou yo fe sa toutan...se LA TANPET YO RESEVWA KONYA

Si m te konnen ou konprann de ki sa w ap pale mwen ta eseye reponn.

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