DR Ambassador Casts Doubts on Story Linking Militant to Haitian Government

Haiti Liberte: DR Ambassador Casts Doubts on Story Linking Militant to Haitian Government
by Hervé Jean Michel

The Dominican Ambassador to Haiti has scoffed at the assertions of a Haitian newspaper, famous for its fabrications and unattributed gossip, that former Cité Soleil neighborhood leader Amaral Duclona confessed to Dominican authorities that he worked for and was protected by President René Préval's government.

Dominican authorities arrested Duclona, 29, early last month in La Romana, just east of Santo Domingo. He had been a popular leader in Cité Soleil leading an armed resistance against the occupying U.N. Mission to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH) and Haitian police during Haiti's 2004 to 2006 coup d'etat. He disappeared from public view in early 2007 when U.N. occupation troops launched an offensive in Cité Soleil, killing or capturing most of the leadership of the slum's armed popular groups.

France has asked the DR for Duclona's extradition to stand trial for the 2006 murder of a French Honorary Consul in Cap Haitien, Henri Paul Mourral.

The Brooklyn-based newspaper Haiti Observateur published an unsigned front page article in its September 30 edition, entitled "Amaral Duclona Makes New Revelations." According to the article, Duclona was arrested by the Dominican Agency to Fight against Drugs (DNCD) and confessed to several crimes including the murder of a MINUSTAH soldier, the kidnapping of the Director of Public Markets, Robert Marcello, and the kidnapping followed by murder of Mourral. French and UN officials were present at the Duclona's interrogations, the paper said.

The article claims that Jude Celestin, the managing director of the National Center for Equipment (CNE), a division of the Public Works Ministry, hired Duclona to make a contract hit on Marcello, who opposed the granting of an infrastructure repair contract to Celestin.

Duclona supposedly escaped Haitian police searches by taking refuge "at least 30 times" in the National Palace or at the home of President Préval's sister, Marie Claude Calvin, the paper wrote. Duclona is also said to have claimed that he was "a personal friend of President [Jean-Bertrand] Aristide," who was deposed in a 2004 coup and still lives in exile in South Africa.

Normally, such unsigned, unsourced articles in Haiti Observateur are preceded by a byline saying "sources combinées" (combined sources), which has become a Haitian community snicker meaning a fabrication.

Dominican Ambassador Ruben Silié diplomatically dismissed the article, saying that the Dominican secret services would never disclose information they obtained from questioning Duclona.

"When it comes to such sensitive issues, the authorities take every precaution," Silié responded. He said "the information" given in the story could not be trusted because no sources were cited.

The biggest story behind this story is not its dubious content but that Préval's Ambassador to the United States may be responsible for it. Raymond Joseph was appointed to the post in Washington, DC by the coup government of Prime Minister Gérard Latorture in 2004 and kept on by Préval in 2006. A former CIA agent, Joseph launched Haiti Observateur in 1970 with his brother Leo Joseph, who remains the titular editor. The paper was a bitter opponent of Aristide and a vocal supporter of both the 1991 and 2004 coups against him.

Joseph's unusually long tenure in Haitian diplomacy's most important post has outraged the thousands of Haitians who elected Préval on the hope that he would help Aristide return to Haiti from exile, free all the coup's political prisoners, and cleanse Haitian diplomacy of its putschist appointees. Préval has done none of these things.

Now Raymond Joseph is apparently biting the hand that has fed and tolerated him so long. It may be that he sees Préval's mandate drawing to a close and is beginning to take a distance from the increasingly unpopular president. In addition, although Préval's policies have been fundamentally anti-nationalist, anti-union, pro-bourgeois, and pro-imperialist, he has never enjoyed the full confidence of imperialism and Haiti's ruling classes due to his past collaboration and identification with Aristide.

Malgre sa ,w ap kontinye wè KOK ki kk ak lòt konpayèl li yo kontinye ap pale de AMARAL DUCLONA.
Mesye yo antrave;tout manti ;tout bagay yo fabrike yo ak tonbe tankou yon chato kat.

A LA TRAKA POU NÈG SA YO!

Ezili, li ta bon pou mete dat atik lan soti epi ki jounal ki rapote l.
Konsa na kapab swiv kronoloji evenman yo.
Mèsi.

Sasaye a écrit:Ezili, li ta bon pou mete dat atik lan soti epi ki jounal ki rapote l.
Konsa na kapab swiv kronoloji evenman yo.
Mèsi.

Go to that web page for $1.00 you can read the article on the bottom of the front page regarding Duclona. I'll search the web and see if I can find it somewhere else for you.

http://www.haiti-liberte.com/archives/buying_options/Vol.3-No.13%20of%20Oct.14-20%202009.asp

Ezili, mèsi pou repons w an.
Ou pa konprann sa m vle di.
Mwen wè ke sous lan se: Haiti-Liberte.
Mwen pa t remake sa anvan.

Mwen te mande dat la paske nouvèl saa pat sitiye dan le tan.
Setadi moun ki pa konnen ta ka konprann se yon nouvèl ki fenk parèt.
Kounyea mwen wè dat la lan lyen ke w mete an: 14 octob 2009.