[News] Haiti's Upcoming Elections

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Council On Hemispheric Affairs
Monitoring Political, Economic and Diplomatic Issues Affecting the Western 
Hemisphere
Memorandum to the Press 05.12

Word Count: 3200
Wednesday, 2 February 2005

Haiti’s Upcoming Elections: Fanmi Lavalas
opts out unless Latortue halts State-sponsored Terrorism





• On 1 February 2005, nearly one year after the de-facto coup against 
Haiti’s democratically elected president, Jean Bertrand Aristide, the AP 
reported that the Lavalas party will not participate in the local and 
municipal elections scheduled for October, or the legislative and 
presidential elections scheduled for November.

• Lavalas’ decision to not participate is a direct result of the 
suppression carried out against party supporters by paramilitary factions 
and gang leaders who get their marching orders from the Latortue 
government. New evidence reveals interim Haitian Prime Minister Gerard 
Latortue’s de-facto policy of restoring “Duvalierism without Duvalier.”

• Since the first day Washington installed him in power, Latortue has taken 
a fiercely adversarial position towards Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas political 
party. By working with the anti-Aristide opposition to extinguish Lavalas, 
he repudiates his claim that he is for free, fair and open elections.

• Where did Latortue obtain the funds to buy off the ex-military, and how 
can U.S. and Canadian taxpayers know that the funds their governments 
donated to the Haitian Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) will not be used 
as payments for military renegades?

• The ex-military and former death squads are engaging in terrorist tactics 
similar to those that were used by Iraqi insurgents to keep the majority 
from the polls. But unlike the situation in Iraq, the anti-democracy forces 
in Haiti have the tacit backing of the state.

Haiti’s Latortue: Washington’s Chief Chimere in Port -au-Prince
The Fanmi Lavalas party, which Aristide founded as the Lavalas movement 
against the U.S. backed Duvalier dictatorship, has decided not to 
participate in Haiti’s upcoming elections. Its grave decision yesterday is 
understandable since, in contrast to Interim Prime Minister Gerard 
Latortue’s declaration that in the upcoming elections, “this government 
will not act in favor of anybody or any political candidate [nor will it] 
work against any candidate who will run,” evidence abounds of 
state-sponsored terror that has been launched against residents of 
pro-Aristide slums, such as Cite Soleil and Bel Air, by the ex-military and 
rebel gangs.

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs repeatedly has called attention to the 
Latortue government’s brutal suppression and illegal imprisonment of 
Lavalas supporters. We already knew that, according to the Catholic 
Church’s Justice and Peace Commission, there are an estimated 700 political 
prisoners languishing in Haitian jails, including former Prime Minister 
Yvon Neptune and former Minister of the Interior Jocelerme Privert. The 
interim government even had the audacity to imprison the country’s most 
revered Catholic priest, Father Jean-Juste, though he was recently 
released. We also knew that hundreds of Haitians, mostly from Lavalas 
neighborhoods, have been killed since the coup. For these reasons and many 
others, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has refused to recognize the 
Latortue regime. But now, new evidence mounts in support of the claim that 
Latortue and his rogue justice minister, Bernard Gousse, are engaged in an 
all-out-war against Haiti’s poor, who make up the vast majority of the 
population and who overwhelmingly support Aristide.



<http://www.coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/New_Press_Releases_2005/05.12%20FinalFanmil%20the%20one.htm>TO 
READ THE ENTIRE TEXT OF THIS PRESS RELEASE, CLICK HERE



This analysis was authored by COHA Senior Research Fellow, Seth R. DeLong, 
Ph.D.

February 2, 2005

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