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Excerpt from a MUST READ ARTICLE:"Have the Latortues Kidnapped Democracy in Haiti?"

by Anthony Fenton

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarti...55&ItemID=8165

"Kidnapping Reality and the Latortues

Before Jean Bertrand Aristide assumed the Presidency in early February,

2001, Youri Latortue was second-in-command at the General Security Unit

of the National Palace (USGPN) under President Rene Preval. After

Aristide's accession, other USGPN policemen found him "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. By

this time, Youri Latortue?s friends Guy Philippe and Jackie Nau,

son-in-law and security chief for today?s Foreign Affairs Minister

Herard Abraham, had been implicated in a plot to overthrow Preval?s

government in October 2000, one month in advance of Haiti?s

Presidential elections. Nau?s brother-in-law, Roger Alteri, would be

arrested for helping the coup-plotters escape to the Dominican

Republic. At the time, Alteri was ?a contractor for the U.S.

embassy.?(Signal Radio, November 7, 2000) . Philippe and Nau ?s names

would come up in relation to other early coup attempts in July and

December, 2001, and Philippe would emerge as a central figure in the

February 2004 ?uprising? against Aristide, where he stated quite openly

that his idols were, fittingly enough, Augusto Pinochet and Ronald

Reagan.

After being kicked out of the USGPN, Youri Latortue was transferred to

the HNP (Haitian National Police). While there are numerous mentions of

Youri Latortue the security agent in media prior to 2001, I found no

reference to him in Haitian or international media from February 2001

to February 2004. After his transfer to the HNP, Youri Latortue

disappeared from the media to rappear only three years later, after the

2004 coup.

In a phone interview on June 12, 2004, Youri Latortue explained this

three year absence: he had lived in Miami, studied in Montreal for two

years, and then returned to Haiti.Upon returning after the coup, he was

offered various jobs in the interim government: ?they tried to choose

me as the Chief of Police when Aristide went,? he said. ?I said I

didn?t want to because I want to choose a political career, I don?t

want to be chief of police.? Instead, Youri Latortue took the position

as head of security for his uncle, Gerard Latortue....

?Youri Latortue has his own guns...why do you think Latortue need

all the munitions right now? To give to all his guns, this way when

they want to go and do something, they can go and do it for him, that?s

why the country?s not going anywhere.?

?But Latortue will pay one day?, Orlando prophesied. ?One day the whole

world will know the truth about the Latortues...."

Read the whole thing here: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarti...55&ItemID=8165