{"id":4749,"date":"2020-03-11T16:56:20","date_gmt":"2020-03-11T20:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/?p=4749"},"modified":"2020-03-11T16:56:20","modified_gmt":"2020-03-11T20:56:20","slug":"a-dismal-start-for-the-new-prime-minister-by-raj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/?p=4749","title":{"rendered":"A dismal start for the new Prime Minister\u00a0by RAJ"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>HAPPENINGS<\/strong> <em><a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"mailto:raljo@yahoo.com\">par RAJ<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><em>A dismal start for the new Prime Minister\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The new Prime Minister,Joseph Jouthe, <em>announced<\/em> by presidential tweet early Monday morning, March 2, before an official decree later that day by President Jovenel Mo\u00efse, was inaugurated on Wednesday, March 4. In his inaugural speech, he set the tone for the government he would lead. It will be subservient to the Head of State.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In his inaugural speech, Mr. Jouthe said: \u201cWhen I entered the President\u2019s office, I had my head full of my own ideas. When I left the office, I came out with my head full with his own ideas.\u201dIn other words, the Prime Minister will be implementing President Mo\u00efse\u2019s policies. One wonders what they are?<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">For sure, they must have discussed the prevailing situation of in security in Haiti where gangs are turning certain parts of the country, including in the capital, into zones of no man\u2019s land where they take their kidnapped victims, American citizens included, while negotiating their ransom?<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">However, other than insecurity, there are issues of priority, such as hunger haunting one third of the population of 11 million. What did the Prime Minister think about corruption that gangrenes the Haitian administration? Early in his presidency, Mr. Mo\u00efse had declared war against corruption. During a visit to New York for the UN General Assembly in September 2017, he had declared in a speech that Haiti was suffering from a major ill: <strong><em>\u201cCorruption, corruption, corruption, corruption, corruption.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> Imagine that, he said it five times.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">That was then, but the president has been mute on the question ever since. In fact, the State Auditors, La Cour sup\u00e9rieure des comptes et du Contentieux administrative (CSC\/CA), said in its second report, last May, on the PetroCaribe Fund that before he was sworn into office, businessman Jovenel Mo\u00efse had used his companies, including a bogus one, \u201cin an embezzlement scheme\u201d to defraud the Fund. Certainly, Prime Minister Jouthe won\u2019t address corruption in the administration. And forget PetroCaribe!<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The same day the Prime Minister was inaugurated, the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince issued a statement in which it said that it would work with Mo\u00efse and Jouthe, but urged them to improve security and economic growth and \u201corganize free, fair and credible legislative elections, as soon as technically feasible.\u201d It\u2019s an illusion to believe that this team can organize any \u201cfree, fair and credible\u201d elections. With what electoral cards when the existing ones are being replaced by Dermalog, a German company which was given a contract under the table, without CSC\/CA approval, to produce new cards? It\u2019s a set-up to rig all elections.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The day after the Prime Minister\u2019s inauguration, the U.S. State Department issued \u201cTravel Warning level 4,\u201d the highest such warning, concerning Haiti. <strong><em>\u201cDo not travel to Haiti, due to crime, civil unrest and kidnapping.<\/em><\/strong> \u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">That\u2019s no way to treat a friend, according to Prime Minister Jouthe. In an interview he gave to the Port-au-Prince daily Le Nouvelliste, published Friday, March 6, the day after the Travel Warning, Mr. Jouthe said in his meeting with U.S. Ambassador Michele B. Sison, he discussed the State Department warning to American travelers and other points concerning the cooperation between the two countries. He emphasized, he said, that it\u2019s not the moment for the American State Department to put Haiti back at the level 4.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Le Nouvelliste quotes the Prime Minister who was quite expansive: \u201cAs far as I am concerned, it\u2019s not the moment. For two weeks before, I knew that this was coming. I spoke to the State Department, to the U.S. Treasury and to the White House to ask them to revise the warning. Unfortunately, they went ahead and made it public. I have asked them again to rethink what has been done.\u201d (Translation ours)<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Indeed, it\u2019s unfortunate for Haiti, but Prime Minister Jouthe and President Mo\u00efse should know, that unlike them who could care less about what happens to Haitian citizens, the U.S. officials are very concerned about the kidnapping of some American citizens in Haiti.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Meanwhile, according to Le Nouvelliste, the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, put out a tweet acknowledging that \u201cAmbassador Sison indeed did meet with Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe to discuss urgent work to be undertaken by the new government on behalf of the Haitian people as far as security is concerned, the fight against corruption and relaunching economic growth and the organization of free, fair and credible legislative elections.\u201d (Translated from French)<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Based on the foregoing, relations between the protectors of the Mo\u00efse Jouthe administration and the protected themselves are not what they should be, especially only days after the Prime Minister was inaugurated. Apparently, the Prime Minister doesn\u2019t feel very secure either. In his interview, Mr. Jouthe said: \u201cMy management is based on results. And if I can\u2019t provide the results, I must give the place to someone else. We can\u2019t have a country functioning in this manner.\u201d He didn\u2019t say exactly what manner, but we get the idea.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">A hard-hitting editorial yesterday (March 1t0)in the Miami Herald puts the U.S. administration on notice: <strong><em>\u201cHaiti\u2019s Jovenel could turn into an autocrat. The U.S. can\u2019t let that happen.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> The first paragraph opens with \u201cHaiti is a rolling, boiling mess. But, in so many ways it\u2019s our mess too. Haiti suffers in our hemisphere and for South Florida, it\u2019s our back yard.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">We can\u2019t publish the whole editorial without first getting permission. But this paragraph tells the story as it is: \u201c. . .Where the administration has gone after Venezuela\u2019s Nicolas Maduro, a veritable dictator who has overstayed his welcome and whose incompetence has tanked the country\u2019s economy, undercut its legal institutions and sent millions of citizens fleeing across its borders, <strong><em>it has been too passive in thwarting Haiti\u2019s dubious leader.\u201d (bold type ours.)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Of course, there\u2019s a reason for the U.S. administration to cuddle \u201cHaiti\u2019s dubious leader,\u201d because he had joined Washington in condemning the Maduro administration, ending Haiti\u2019s centuries-old friendship with Venezuela, to be in the company of Washington. Though top officials in Washington may not say it publicly, they may think of their Haitian \u201cfriend\u201d in terms attributed to Franklin D. Roosevelt, in remarks made in 1939 about the Nicaraguan dictator Anastasia Somoza Garcia. He supposedly said: \u201cSomoza may be a son of a bitch, but he\u2019s our son of a bitch.\u201d <strong>RAJ, March 11, 2020<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Cet article est publi\u00e9 par l\u2019\u00e9dition de l\u2019hebdomadaire Ha\u00efti-Observateur du 11 mars 2020 VOL. L No. 8, et se trouve en <strong>P. 7<\/strong> \u00e0\u00a0: <a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"http:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/H-O-11-March-2020-1.pdf\">http:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/H-O-11-March-2020-1.pdf<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HAPPENINGS par RAJ A dismal start for the new Prime Minister\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The new Prime Minister,Joseph Jouthe, announced by presidential tweet early Monday morning, March 2, before an official decree later that day by President Jovenel Mo\u00efse, was inaugurated on Wednesday,&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4502,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,25,40,43],"tags":[768,791,1113,1495,1747,1798,2687],"class_list":["post-4749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anglais","category-haiti","category-politique","category-raj","tag-corruption","tag-credible","tag-embassy","tag-haiti-observateur","tag-jouthe","tag-kidnapping","tag-raj"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}