Duclona, DR Ambassador
This is from the Lavalas, Aristide, paper in NYC
(not actually know for its justice, truth or independence)
HAITI LIBERTE
"Justice. Verite. Independance."
* THIS WEEK IN HAITI *
October 14 - 20, 2009
Vol. 3, No. 13
DOMINICAN AMBASSADOR CASTS DOUBT ON STORY LINKING ARRESTED MILITANT TO HAITIAN GOVERNMENT
by Herv? 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 Cit? Soleil neighborhood leader Amaral Duclona confessed to Dominican authorities that he worked for and was protected by President Ren? Pr?val'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 Cit? 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 Cit? 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 Pr?val'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 combin?es" (combined sources), which has become a Haitian community snicker meaning a fabrication.
Dominican Ambassador Ruben Sili? 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," Sili? 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 Pr?val'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 G?rard Latorture in 2004 and kept on by Pr?val 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 Pr?val 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. Pr?val 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 Pr?val's mandate drawing to a close and is beginning to take a distance from the increasingly unpopular president. In addition, although Pr?val'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.
The main leaders of Cit? Soleil's armed resistance, which lasted from 2004 until 2007, have now been either killed or captured. One of those leaders, Evens Jeune, also known as Ti Kouto, was arrested in March 2007 and held in the National Penitentiary. He was to have been tried in July, but the day before he would have appeared in court, Haitian authorities announced that he had died in prison of AIDS. Many observers suspect the coincidence.
Latest reports indicate that the Dominican Republic will decide on Oct. 14 whether to extradite Duclona to France or back to Haiti. Most Haitians, whether they sympathize with Amaral Duclona or not, are demanding that he be returned to Haiti as a Haitian citizen and sent not to France, Haiti's former colonial ruler.
After a reasonable investigation, if it is found that Amaral Duclona committed crimes, he should be tried according to Haitian law. But if it is found that he is the victim of political persecution, he should be released and protected by Haiti's laws and constitution.
It is fitting to close with verifiable words from Amaral Duclona. We "are accompanying the population in their search for justice and a way out of misery," he said in a Feb. 2006 interview with the Haiti Information Project, during the final days of the 2004 coup. "And again, the bourgeoisie and MINUSTAH will label anyone who defends the interests of the people as common assassins and criminals. And we say, we are not assassins, we are not criminals. We are political militants, who are defending the rights of the population of Cite Soleil, the rights for all of the Haitian people who are suffering in misery today. And it is for that reason that we are struggling, but we will never be criminals, never, ever."
All articles copyrighted Haiti Liberte. REPRINTS ENCOURAGED.
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