Posted on Thu, Dec. 22, 2005
Candidates in Haiti have ties to trafficking, officials say
BY JOE MOZINGO
Knight Ridder Newspapers
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - At least three candidates in Haiti's upcoming elections have links to a cocaine-trafficking industry that wants to ensure the next government is weak and corruptible, a half-dozen Haitian and U.S. officials say.
Two of Haiti's best-financed presidential candidates - Guy Philippe and Dany Toussaint - have long been linked to cocaine trafficking by U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officials.
And a Senate candidate who's a nephew of interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue has close links to a gang that controls drug smuggling in the port of Gonaives, according to the Haitian and U.S. officials.
Haiti, where the average person struggles on less than $1 a day, is a pass-through point for about 8 percent of the Colombian cocaine detected heading to U.S. streets, according to U.S. State Department narcotics reports.
Despite the presence of 8, 000 U.N. peacekeepers deployed after the rebellion that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide last year, the arrival of cocaine ``is essentially unimpeded,'' said the State Department's 2005 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report.
Analysts fear that traffickers are quietly working to subvert any return to an elected democracy, either by backing candidates they can control or sowing chaos on the streets to delay the balloting.
``At this point the entire transition is at risk,'' said Mark Schneider, of the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit that analyzes conflict around the world.
``Drug traffickers don't want a functioning, effective government with a functioning, effective police force and customs.''
``They have their hooks in the police, they have their hooks in parts of the transitional government,'' he added.
U.S. prosecutors in Miami have gone after 10 of the biggest traffickers and corrupt officials of the Aristide years.
But there are plenty of suspicions about officials of the current interim government.
Diplomats and counter-drug agents have expressed particular concerns about Youri Latortue - the security chief for his uncle, the prime minister, and a Senate candidate for the Gonaives region, a major drug-smuggling area.
The U.S. Embassy warned the prime minister in private in March 2004 that his nephew was linked to illegal activities and should not be part of the government, according to one top U.S. official familiar with the issue, who requested anonymity because he's not authorized to discuss the issue.
At that time, Washington refused the nephew a U.S. visa.
The French newspaper Le Figaro last year reported the nephew's nickname was ``Mr.
30 Percent'' for the commissions he allegedly demands on government contracts.
The prime minister publicly defended his nephew, saying he trusted him and, in a nation that has seen 32 coups in 200 years, he wanted the nephew to stay on as his chief of security and intelligence.
U.N. Civilian Police are concerned that Youri Latortue is trying to take control of the diplomatic lounge at the Port-au-Prince international airport, one way that drug traffickers have traditionally bypassed official scrutiny while entering and leaving Haiti, one top U.N. official told The Miami Herald.
And there are credible reports that Youri has close ties to a gang of armed thugs in Gonaives that controls the drug trafficking through the seaport, the official added.
Youri Latortue, meanwhile, has struck a political alliance with Guy Philippe, one of the leaders of the rebellion that ousted Aristide and now a candidate for the presidency.
The two apparently knew each other when they served in the Haitian police.
The DEA suspected Philippe was involved in drug trafficking when he was police chief in the northern port of Cap Haitien, Haiti's second biggest city. U.S. drug agents once tried to recruit Philippe as an informant, but he turned them down, saying that the traffickers paid him more, two top U.S. officials told The Herald.
Philippe has vehemently denied such allegations.
``Where is the evidence?'' he asked, in an interview with The Herald last year.
But he has acknowledged that one of his rebellion's financial supporters was a Canadian-Haitian businessman named Jean-Claude Louis-Jean - who has been linked to the drug trade by the International Crisis Group.
Haitian police arrested Louis-Jean in September 2004, though it is unclear what the charges are against him.
Philippe vigorously defended his friend in an interview at the time with Radio Metropole.
``The judicial authorities will have to say why they arrested him and of what they accuse him,'' he said. ``I just hope that they will not say that there are rumors that he is involved in drug dealing, as they always do.''
When Aristide fled, Philippe put down his weapons and formed a political party.
He is among 35 presidential candidates on the ballot for the election tentatively scheduled for Jan. 8. A CID-Gallup poll in November showed him a distant third, with 4 percent, behind former President Rene Preval with 32 percent and Leslie Manigat with 5 percent.
Rebuilding the corrupt police force has been the perhaps most critical priority for the U.S. State Department and the U.N. peacekeeping mission here. The newly-appointed police chief, Mario Andresol, has estimated in media interviews that at least 25 percent of his force is corrupt.
U.N. officials say they fear that some of the officers may be more loyal to Dany Toussaint, a senator and chief of police under Aristide who broke with the president in 2003 and is now running for president.
Long labeled by U.S. officials as a suspected trafficker, and now the owner of a security business, Toussaint got 2 percent support in the CID-Gallup poll, behind nine other candidates.
Toussaint has denied the drug allegations and brushed off th
