Haiti: Protests, Strikes and a New Election Council

A protester holds up a banner with the image of former President Jean Bertrand Aristide 
with text in Creole that reads "You persecute him, you persecute us"

Flashpoints Executive Producer Dennis Bernstein interviews Senior Producer Kevin Pina about a two day transportation worker's strike, ongoing protests in Haiti, a new elections council and the continuing incarceration of Jean Bertrand-Aristide.

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Who is Reginald Boulos, Martelly's "fixer" in Haiti?

 Who is Reginald Boulos, "the Haitian businessman who headed the 11-member presidential commission Martelly appointed in November [2014]?"

UPDATE (November 29, 2015): Pro-democracy protests, known as the "Long March for Democracy in Haiti", continue to rage throughout Haiti against the election fraud perpetrated by Michel Martelly and his PHTK party on August 9 and October 25. Despite evidence of massive fraud in both elections, the international community remains steadfast in their validation for this unabashed corruption of the democratic process in Haiti. Behind the scenes, Reginald Boulos has been instrumental in maintaining support for Martelly's corrupt project among the country's wealthy elite who in turn have been lobbying foreign embassies for their stamp of approval. At the center of it remains Reginald Boulos, the broker and go-between for Michel Martelly's corrupt regime and Haiti's wealthy elite whose families continue to cash in on the project.

Boulos is well suited for the job. He is known for having negotiated a settlement to the political crisis in Haiti created by massive protests calling for Martelly's ouster last year. It was Boulos who paved the way for the departure of then Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe to quell the opposition protests, a solution that was clearly embraced and acceptable to both Haiti's wealthy elite and the international community.

On January 19, Jacqueline Charles of the Miami Herald interviewed Reginald Boulos who stated:
“It’s the first time a sitting Haitian President has done what you usually see leaders of the modern world do: When something bad happens, say ‘the ultimate responsibility is with the president,’” said Reginald Boulos, the Haitian businessman who headed the 11-member presidential commission Martelly appointed in November to help him find a way out of the turmoil.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article7601129.html


Here's a few facts about Boulos the Miami Herald failed to mention:


Boulos was a prime mover behind the 2004 coup in Haiti-

The G184 was led by two of the country’s most reviled multimillionaires, who are both of middle eastern heritage: (1) Andy Apaid, Jr., a U.S. citizen and the owner of Haiti’s largest sweatshops, and (2) Reginald Boulos, owner of a Haitian pharmaceutical firm whose products had killed dozens of poor Haitians.1 Both are linked to influential media corporations2 belonging to the National Association of Haitian Media (ANMH). (See pp.26-37.)

 http://www.canadahaitiaction.ca/node/286

Boulos has long ties to Washington's elite that supported the 2004 coup-

Boulos, the president of Haiti’s Chamber of Commerce, is another industrialist of Middle Eastern heritage who was a leading light in the reactionary right’s G-184. He, and his brother Rudolph, are also key to the “Haiti Democracy Project,” a right-wing, Washington-based front that used U.S. government “resources and programs and their diplomatic, State Department, Pentagon and UN/OAS [Organization of American States] connections, to help carry out the 2004...coup.” 26

http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/60/60-10.pdf (pg. 48)

Boulos has no democratic credentials-

After the recent election, Boulos, described by the Associated Press as 'one of Aristide's most ardent foes', said the private sector is "prepared to support and to unite behind the president . . . whoever it is, provided the international and national observers sanction this election as a fair one". Before the votes were fully counted, the campaign began to label the elections as "flawed".

http://johnmaxwellshouse-2006.blogspot.com/2006/03/shame-and-scandal.html


Boulos also has ties to the CIA and death squads in Haiti-

CIA linked to FRAPH, coup

PORT-AU-PRINCE — The link between the US government and the founding and running of the Haitian army's death squad and front group, FRAPH (Front pour l'Avancement et le Progres Haitien), was finally exposed in the October 24 issue of the US Nation magazine.

As long suspected, the Central Intelligence Agency created and has advised FRAPH. The link is Emmanuel Constant, a paid CIA employee and informant. Also, at least some FRAPH "members" were paid by the US-government-funded Centres pour le Developpement et la Sante (CDS), run by Dr Reginald Boulos and linked to FRAPH and to anti-democratic activities in the past.

https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/7836


94-95 U.S. SPENDING $24 MILLION ON ELECTIONS. PART OF MONEY IS
GOING TO PEOPLE LIKE MAYORAL CANDIDATE REGINALD BOULOS, WHO SUPPORTS IMF AUSTERITY FOR HAITI. GEORGE SOROS HAS SET UP SHOP IN HAITI. HE HAS WORKED HAND IN GLOVE WITH CIA IN EASTERN EUROPE AND THE FORMER USSR. HIS BACKGROUND IS TO UNDERMINE PROGRESSIVE GVTS THRU THE BALLOT BOX. TH[R]OUGH SOROS' FOUNDATIONS, LIKE ONE RECENTLY OPENED IN HAITI, MATERIAL AID IS GIVEN TO FORCES ALIGNED WITH THE U.S. LINKED TO THE ROCKEFELLERS, SOROS' ROLE IS TO PROMOTE MARKET ECONOMY. WORKERS WORLD ARTICLE BY PAT CHIN
2/23/95

http://www.peacenowar.net/Americas/News/Haiti.htm#8


More from The Twelfth Bough

Who is Dr. Reginald Boulos?

Dr. Reginald Boulos

Boulos is an Arab Haitian, the son of Carlo Boulos, who was named health minister by Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, himself a voodoo expert who employed a ruthless security force (Tontons Macoutes) to execute opponents.

Most of Haiti's Arab community can trace their roots to Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, with a few families from Jordan and Algeria. Key dates:

• 1890: A group of 30 Arab Christians arrive from greater Syria (which then included Lebanon) in Port-au-Prince's harbor, where Italians and Germans ran many of the businesses.

• 1890-1903: The migration continues. Shunned by the elite, Arabs head to the countryside, where they peddle textiles on the streets and open businesses. They are said to have introduced the concept of ''credit'' in Haiti.

• 1912: Haitian President Michel Cincinnatus Leconte orders them to leave Haiti. He later dies in an unexplained explosion in the national palace. Arabs, fearing for their lives after some attempted to blame them, flee to Cuba and South America. Many later return; some change their last names.

• 1914-1918: Turkey aligns itself with Germany during World War I and abolishes Lebanon's autonomy, causing another migration toward Haiti and elsewhere.

• 1930s: Arabs are protected during the U.S. occupation of Haiti, but more anti-Arab laws are enacted following the U.S. forces' departure.

• 1940s: A wave of Palestinians arrive during the Arab-Israeli war.

• 1950s to present: Smaller groups of Arabs continue to migrate to Haiti. Many speak a hybrid language of Creole and Arabic. Some are owners of the country's larger supermarkets.

I am thinking there might possibly be some Sabbateans in there somewhere. But who knows.

Meanwhile, Boulos has a long history of bad medicine coupled with a love for paramilitaries.January 1996:

On October 15, [1995 - ed.] Tipper Gore, wife of Vice President Al Gore, set out on what should have been an ordinary visit to a U.S. funded health clinic serving the poorest section of the capital of the poorest country in the hemisphere. But the day quickly degenerated from feel-good photo-op to fiasco. Residents of Cite Soleil, a sprawling slum on the edge of Port au-Prince, Haiti, broke up the event with a barrage of stones.
Although the U.S. press initially reported the incident as an anti-American protest,the rocks were aimed not at Mrs. Gore's entourage, but at Dr. Reginald Boulos, the Haitian director of the clinic and an influential power broker long associated with the country's right-wingparamilitaries. 

(See: paramilitaries, a scourge on humanity.)

Boulos' group of clinics, the Centers for Development and Health (CDS, by its French initials), is AlD's [USAID - ed.] richest beneficiary in Haiti, and Boulos the most visible symbol of its influence. In their demonstration last October, Cite Soleil residents were attempting to highlight the way Boulos has used CDS as a tool of political influence. Not only does CDS generate more than $5 million a year in international revenue- it also, not coincidentally, provides a large market for Phar-Val, a pharmaceutical distributor and one of several businesses Boulos controls with his brother.

More nefarious still are Boulos' political ties. He has been linked, notably in articles by Village Voice columnist James Ridgeway and The Nation's Allan Nairn, to FRAPH, the paramilitary death squad ushered into power by U.S. intelligence during the coup led by Lleut. Gen. Raoul Cedras. ...

AID boasts that it delivers primary medical care to 3 million Haitians through contractors like Boulos' clinic. In fact, it has served to advance a central U.S. foreign policy priority in the Third World-population control. Nearly half of the agency's health care spending in Haiti is taken up by the Private Sector Family Planning Program, under which so-called NGOs dispense birth control methods, and each of the other programs-including the "Expanded Urban Health Services" program, which funds Boulos' CDS-has a substantial family planning component.

You can click through to read the horror stories of forcing Haitian women to have the implant contraceptive Norplant, which caused many of them to bleed for long periods unabated and have many other complications.

Here you can read about his media ownership, along with Andy Apaid, Jr., and his role in selling poisonous cough syrup that killed 88 children in 1996, and using an experimental measles vaccine up to “500 times” stronger than normal on another 2,000 infants.

In addition, he is also connected to the "suicide" of a UN commander in 2006.

Amid tremendous controversy over Haiti's security situation and the on-again, off-again elections, the military commander of UN forces in this beleaguered nation apparently took his own life early Saturday morning. After having assumed command of the UN military mission less then four months ago, the body of Brazilian officer Lt. Gen. Urano Teixeira da Matta Bacellar was found sprawled out on the balcony of the Hotel Montana, the apparent victim of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. According to several sources in the Haitian press, Bacellar had participated in a tense meeting with the president of Haiti's Chamber of Commerce, Dr. Reginald Boulos, and Group 184 leader Andy Apaid the night before. 

Bacellar's death comes on the heels of Boulos's announcement of a nationwide general strike on Monday aimed at forcing the UN mission to get tough with bandits in Cite Soleil. The term "Bandits" is often seen as a code word for Lavalas [Aristide - ed.] supporters, and Cite Soleil has served as a launching site for massive demonstrations demanding the return of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Mario Andresol, the current Chief of Police, representing the US-installed government of Gerard Latortue, recently alleged that the community was also being used by Columbian drug traffickers and "certain political forces" to hide victims of a recent spate of kidnappings in the capital. 

This is not the first time Dr. Boulos and Haiti's business elite had pressured the UN to act against supposed bandits in the capital. Last May, Boulos and the ultra-right Haitian Chamber of Commerce had sought to cover-up accusations of human rights violations committed by the Haitian police using similar tactics. An HIP article dated June 12, 2005 entitled, "There is no political persecution in Haiti" reported:

In the absence of holding the police accountable, the only thing lacking was an official justification for the U.N.'s continuing collaboration with the police and turning a blind-eye to their human rights record. On May 27, this justification was provided by the Haitian elite and delivered by the President of the Haitian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Dr. Reginald Boulos. During this meeting between the business community and Haiti's Chief of Police Leon Charles, Boulos demanded the U.S.-installed government of Gerard Latortue allow the business community to form their own private security firms and arm them with automatic weapons. This was clearly a demand to legalize the business community's own private militias to kill what Boulos, and others in his circle, have referred to as "Lavalas bandits." Boulos also suggested the Latortue regime allow businesses to withhold taxes for one month and use the money to buy more powerful weapons for the police on the international market. These statements served the dual purpose of pressuring the U.N. with the image of government sanctioned private militias killing off Lavalas supporters while providing another pretext for the Bush administration to lift the 14 year-old arms embargo against Haiti. "If they don't allow us to do this then we'll take on own initiative and do it anyway" Boulos threatened.

He's a big fan of paramilitary force against "bandits," aka poor Haitians.

Haiti Flashback: Kurzban rebukes charges against Aristide (2005)

This Week in Haiti November 9 - 15, 2005 Vol. 23, No. 35

KURZBAN REBUTS DE FACTO LAWSUIT AGAINST ARISTIDE

Haiti Progres - On Nov. 2, the illegal government of de facto Haitian Prime Minister Gérard Latortue filed a civil lawsuit against exiled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and eight others in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida "to recover money stolen from the people and Government of Haiti."

Also named in the complaint is a Turks and Caicos-based corporation, Mont Salem Management, Ltd., that the suit claims worked to "defraud Teleco," the Haitian national phone company, "through a pattern of racketeering activities."

The lawsuit, filed when the Washington-installed de facto regime's own corruption, incompetence and unpopularity are increasingly manifest, charges that "Aristide abused his power and deceived and betrayed the Haitian people by directing and participating in ongoing and fraudulent schemes to: (a) loot the public treasury and launder the illicit proceeds; (b) divert and steal revenues rightfully belonging to the Haitian national telephone company; and (c) encourage, protect, participate and profit from illegal drug trafficking in and through Haiti." Through these activities, the plaintiffs allege, "Aristide and his accomplices converted to their own use millions of dollars of public funds."

However, neither the lawsuit nor the de facto government's reports on which it was based can concretely demonstrate who was enriched or how, explains Ira Kurzban, the attorney for Haiti's elected constitutional governments from 1991 to 2004. "Even if everything in this complaint were true," Kurzban told Haiti Progres, "and none of it is - I want to be clear about that - but even if you accepted the facts as stated as true, there is no evidence of any wrongdoing by anybody."

The lawsuit comes on the heels of a second report put out by the de facto government's Central Unit on Financial Information (UCREF) two weeks ago. UCREF put out its first report alleging Aristide administration malfeasance in July. The de facto government published a third report also in July through its Commission of Administrative Inquiries (CEA), headed by Paul Denis, the current presidential candidate of the rabidly-anti-Aristide Struggling People's Organization (OPL).

In the 1990s, on the newly-elected Haitian government's behalf, Kurzban investigated and sought to recover millions of dollars stolen by the dictatorship of Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. In the following interview, he analyzes the de facto government's lawsuit and motivations.
Ha*ti Progrès: How would you characterize this lawsuit?
Kurzban: The lawsuit is a political document more than a legal one. It's based on a highly charged political investigation that occurred in

Haiti where both the methodology and the factual findings have been seriously questioned, particularly the claims made on what funds were allegedly taken and what happened with them.
The reason for that, quite simply, is that none of these reports have ever said that money was taken for some illicit purpose. In other words, unlike with Duvalier, there is no money in Swiss bank accounts.

If you recall, a lot of the venom was spewed against President Aristide both before and following the coup - wild accusations that he had $280 million in a bank account somewhere in Europe and so forth. To my understanding, the United States sent seven people from the Treasury Department immediately after the coup to investigate financial wrongdoing, and a number of Haitians have been working day and night to find the money that President supposedly took. But, it's now obvious, there is none.

There are no Swiss bank accounts, no yachts, no Trump Tower apartments, all of which there were with Duvalier. There are none of the things that one classically identifies with the claim that a president has abused his authority and stolen money for his own benefit.

Washington has had teams of people in Haiti investigating this, and the Bush administration, using its considerable resources, has had Treasury officials fanned out all over the world trying to find these bank accounts. Of course, they found none because none exist.

So none of these reports have suggested that Aristide ever took money for his own benefit. There is a very fine line here from violating what is known in the federal rules on civil procedure as "Rule 11," which may impose sanctions against both the attorneys and the plaintiffs for making claims that they can't substantiate. In this case, the UCREF report in Haiti makes claims that money was misappropriated, but they never say, as far as I know, that it was for anybody's personal use.

The lawsuit, really takes the next step, and says that this money was misappropriated for the "Aristide group," which obviously makes it a totally political document.

The so-called "Aristide group" are the people, they claim, that misappropriated the funds, but when they talk about misappropriation, there is no end to the money trail. They never say it is in somebody's bank account. There is no evidence that anybody enriched themselves by doing this.

So what do they have in the end? Even if everything in this complaint were true, and none of it is - I want to be clear about that - but even if you accepted the facts as stated as true, there is no evidence of any wrongdoing by anybody.

For example, this complaint alleges that the government gave money to a corporation to purchase a sound system, and that somebody received a commission on that. There is nothing illegal about that under Haitian law or under U.S. law. There is no evidence that there was any wrongdoing by anybody to either purchase a sound system for the Haitian government or to get a commission on the purchase of a sound system. If that were the logic, then every U.S. corporation doing business anywhere in the world would be guilty of a RICO violation, which is what they have alleged here. [The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1970, is what the plaintiffs base most of their charges on.]

If you look further in this, they make claims, for example, that money was given to purchase rice. Even if what they are saying is accurate, the government had every legitimate right to purchase rice at a lower price to provide for its citizens. They could do that any time they wanted to. Governments do that all the time.

There are allegations here that money was "diverted" to give to an NGO [non-governmental organization] like the Aristide Foundation. The U.S. government gives to NGOs all the time in Haiti. The Haitian government has the right to give money to NGOs in Haiti. There is nothing illegal about that.

This raises a whole other issue. Why is this being brought in the U.S. and not in Haiti, when in fact, virtually everything they are talking about has to do with Haiti, not the U.S.?

That is why the lawsuit really skirts the violations of Rule 11, by making claims that there is illegal or unlawful conduct that enriched someone. Even the UCREF report does not suggest that anyone has been enriched, and that's because, if any money was spent by the Haitian government, it is clear that it was not done to enrich any individual. It was done for the sole and express purpose to help people in Haiti, which it did.

Haiti Progrès: Concerning jurisdiction, how is it that affairs in Haiti can be brought before a U.S. court, especially in a civil case?

Kurzban: First of all, there clearly isn't any jurisdiction against President Aristide. He is not here, he is not a party to it, he's not in the U.S.. So when they try to make him a party to a complaint in the U.S., they have to get personal service over him. There is no personal service over a president. He has head of state immunity and so forth.

With respect to some of the other defendants, some of them are in the state of Florida, so there may be jurisdiction if there are truly events that involved people in Florida. But I think the reality is that all of these events occurred in Haiti. What they are saying, in a very vague way, is that some money was wire-transferred through accounts in the United States, and therefore there is jurisdiction in the United States.

I think that's a pretty open question of whether there is jurisdiction in the Southern District of Florida simply because there were some financial transactions which used U.S. banks somewhere along the way, without of course any specificity.

Haiti Progrès: The complaint also talks about Aristide and his "accomplices" providing safe-passage for transshipments of illegal drugs to the U.S.. What do you think about that?

Kurzban: There are a lot of patently false statements in there. For example, they say that the percentage of drug trans-shipments increased by 20% under Aristide. That is just false. In fact it decreased to about 8% in the last year that President Aristide served before the coup, at which point the U.S. Ambassador said that you really can't rely on those statistics.

This complaint alleges falsely - again a Rule 11 violation - that there was a 20% transshipment of drugs through Haiti, which no one had ever claimed before.

Haiti Progrès: Since the de facto government's status is essentially illegal under the Haitian Constitution, do they, in fact, have the authority to bring a suit?

Kurzban: That is an interesting issue. Traditionally under U.S. law, the courts have deferred to the executive on questions of who is the proper government. In this case, the perpetrators of the coup, the Bush administration, would vouch for the de facto government. So it's almost circular. The U.S. takes this Chalabi-like character, Latortue, from Boca Raton, Florida, airlifts him into Haiti, and makes him the prime minister after arranging the coup against the democratically elected president. Then he goes into a U.S. court, and the same Bush administration says he is the legitimate Haitian government.
Ha*ti Progrès: Can you tell us anything about the Mont Salem Management Company, which is the one corporation identified in the suit?

Kurzban: Yes, that's the only defendant against whom there are any concrete allegations. I don't know anything about it. I know that the FBI has been conducting an investigation about it, as the result of allegations made by a disgruntled employee of IDT [a telecommunications company] some time ago.
What I do know is that Teleco was trying to recoup funds by getting companies to purchase large amounts of minutes. There is something called the grey market in telecommunications, where a company will buy 50 or 100 million minutes of time from Teleco. They then turn around and go to companies like Sprint, MCI and other large U.S. companies, and work deals with them to purchase those minutes. Part of that had to do with the fact that the large U.S. companies were not paying their bills.

I know. I was involved in trying to collect funds from MCI and others because they were not paying what they were supposed to pay to the Haitian government. So maybe Teleco decided to go with smaller companies that were willing to make those payments and have them make the arrangements with larger companies.

Now, they've made allegations in this that seem very serious on their face, but probably have a very benign explanation.

Haiti Progrès: If there was a verdict found against the defendants, what would be the result? Fines?

Kurzban: Yes, this is just a civil case. People should understand that this is not a criminal case. There are no criminal charges involved. It' s a civil lawsuit to recover money on a claim that these people appropriated money improperly. It seems to me that one of the things they are going to have to prove, which no one has ever said until this lawsuit - and even in this lawsuit, they have skirted the issue, maybe because they are afraid of a Rule 11 sanction - but nobody has ever said that they misappropriated money for their own use.

In other words, all of these claims are that somehow money was misappropriated, but it is not clear who got the money. The only place where they claim that there was money set aside, was the Mont Salem arrangement, which had to do with a claim that 3 cents of every transaction was put in a bank account in the Turks and Caicos islands, but they don't say for whom the money was put in the account, who received the money, who was enriched by it, or what happened to it.

And that is because there was no illegal conduct by anybody in the Haitian government, there was no corruption, there was no fraud. When you look at this complaint, in the end, ultimately what they are claiming is that money was diverted from the Haitian government and given to NGOs to help the Haitian people.

The first question is whether it even occurred. Secondly, if it did occur, is it even an illegal act under Haitian law to take money from the Haitian government and give it to NGOs to help the Haitian poor. That's what they are going to have to prove.

HP: What do you think about the timing of this suit?

Kurzban: That's very interesting. I think Latortue and the others panicked and realized that they are now caught between a rock and a hard place. They see that Bush is trying to have [Haitian-born Texan businessman Dumarsais] Siméus become the president of Haiti. So their own game of corruption that's been going on in Haiti since the coup is going to end. They also see the possibility of [former Haitian president and now presidential candidate] René Préval winning the election. If Préval wins, the base of LAVALAS, which is apparently now supporting him and have made demands for the return of President Aristide, may get their way and the president may be back.

So in my view, they prematurely filed this lawsuit because this opens them up. If I was the attorney for one of these people, I would demand to have Latortue's deposition taken in Miami, as well as all the people in Teleco, all the people who were members of the de facto government of Haiti. I think they jumped the gun and are subjecting themselves to a huge amount of discovery. When you make claims like this, you are going to have to back them up. I don't think they can just show the UCREF report, which itself is a political document, and claim that it's the basis for the lawsuit. They are going to have to show facts and figures.

They're going to have to show where the money was actually misappropriated, who got the money, whether any of these individuals accused actually received any money, and there is no indication that this is so.

All articles copyrighted Haiti Progrès, Inc. REPRINTS ENCOURAGED. Please credit Haiti Progrès.

Haiti: Aristide's lawyer denounces "politicized" judiciary

Ira Kurzban holds passport he negotiated for the return of former president
 Jean-Bertrand Aristide to Haiti from exile in South Africa in 2011

Flashpoints on Pacifica Radio's Senior Producer Kevin Pina interviews the attorney of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti. Kurzban details the decades long campaign against Aristide by the US government and its intelligence agencies. He also denounces recent moves by Haiti's politicized judges to attack his client.

 
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