Former UN General Assembly president indicted on bribery charges

Prosecutors have formally charged the ex-UN official with accepting more than a million dollars in bribes. The case has raised concerns about corruption within the international governing body.

Deutsche Welle, 21 Oct 2015

Former UN General Assembly President John Ashe was formally indicted by New York prosecutors on Wednesday for enaging in a corruption ring that also involved a billionaire Macau real estate developer.

Originally from Antigua and Barbuda, the 61-year-old Ashe presided over the General Assembly from 2013 to 2014. He is accused of accepting more than $1.3 million (1.14 million euros) from various real-estate developers between 2011 and 2014 in exchange for promoting the construction of a UN conference center in Macau.

Four other people were also charged with participating in the bribery scheme, including the Macau-based real estate developer Ng Lap Seng and a suspended UN diplomat from the Dominican Republic named Francis Lorenzo.

Ashe was arrested two weeks ago and is now free on bail.

Concerns over corruption

UN officials reacted with shock after the arrest, with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman insisting Ashe's actions were not representative of the intergovernmental organization's practices.

"Corruption is not business as usual at the UN," Stephane Dujarric told following the arrest.

Prosecutors said members of the corruption ring relied heavily on Ashe, who allegedly failed to report gifts and money he had received for particpating in the scheme.

In response to the scandal, Secretary-General Ban launched an audit on two of the organizations allegedly involved in bribing Ashe.

blc/msh (AFP, AP, Reuters)

US Catholic bishops quit, envoy faces trial in sex abuse cases

Yahoo – AFP, Angus MacKinnon, 15 June 2015

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of two US bishops (AFP Photo/

Filippo Monteforte)

Vatican City (AFP) - The Vatican on Monday announced the resignation of two senior US clerics accused of failing to protect minors from a paedophile priest and set a date for an unprecedented trial of a former archbishop for paying boys for sex.

The twin announcements follow last week's unveiling of plans to create an internal Church tribunal empowered to punish bishops who cover up abuse by priests.

The two US bishops' resignations follow the 2012 jailing of Minnesota priest Curtis Wehmeyer for the sexual abuse of two minors and possession of child pornography.

Prosecutors in the case of Curtis
Wehmeyer unveiled evidence that Church
officials failed to act on warnings that
the priest was a danger to children 
(AFP Photo/Don Emmert)

Wehmeyer's conviction led to the archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis being charged on June 5 with six counts of failing to protect minors after prosecutors unveiled evidence that Church officials failed to act on repeated warnings that the priest was a danger to children.

No individuals have been charged but the two senior clerics who have stepped down, Archbishop John Clayton Nienstedt and Auxiliary Bishop Lee Anthony Piche, were both named in the complaint as having failed to heed the warnings.

Frank Meuers, the Southern Minnesota leader of SNAP, a network of victims of clerical abuse, said Nienstedt's resignation was "a tiny but belated step forward."

"After centuries of abuse and cover up done in secrecy, and decades of abuse and cover up done somewhat in public, evidently one pope has finally seen fit to oust one archbishop for complicity in clergy sex crimes. That's encouraging. But it's only a very tiny drop of reform in an enormous bucket of horror," Meuers said.

PR campaign?

The Vatican also announced Monday a start date of July 11 for the trial of Jozef Wesolowski, a former papal ambassador to the Dominican Republic, in the first case of its kind to be brought before a Vatican court.

Wesolowski, a Polish former archbishop, was secretly recalled from his Caribbean posting in 2012 after the Church hierarchy was informed that he was regularly paying boys for sexual services.

He was defrocked by a church court in June 2014 but remained at liberty until September 2014, when he was placed under house arrest under an order which the Vatican described as coming directly from Francis.

Possession of child pornography has been a crime under the Vatican city state's penal code since 2013 following a change also initiated by the Argentinian Pope.

In a statement, the Vatican said its prosecutor had worked in collaboration with authorities in the Dominican Republic, who failed in their attempts to have Wesolowski extradited to face trial there.

Dominican authorities have said they have identified at least four alleged victims of the papal envoy.

Archbishop John Clayton Nienstedt and Auxiliary Bishop Lee Anthony Piche have 

resigned after accusations they failed to protect minors (AFP Photo/Eric Cabanis)

Pope Francis's supporters say the flurry of announcements related to sex abuse cases reflect his determination to address an issue that has severely tarnished the image of the Church in recent decades by creating new transparent procedures to hold abusers to account.

Critics say the initiatives undertaken since Francis was elected in 2013 do not go far enough in ensuring priests who commit sex crimes against children are dealt with under criminal law.

SNAP's Barbara Dorris said she suspected the latest initiatives were part of a PR campaign ahead of Francis's September visit to the United States.

"One or two or three small steps doesn't erase decades of complicity," she said.

Under the reform announced last week, bishops who fail to respond appropriately to allegations against priests in their dioceses will face judgement by a Church tribunal.

The move was welcomed by some survivors' groups as a significant step forward but others said it would not lead to change as clerics would remain in charge of dealing with other clerics.

Related Article:

Pope creates tribunal to judge bishops who cover up sex abuse

Vatican puts ex-envoy under house arrest in sex abuse case

Yahoo – AFP,  23 Sep 2014

General view of worshippers on St Peter's Square at the Vatican, on April 27,

2014 (AFP Photo/Vincenzo Pinto)

Vatican City (AFP) - A former Vatican ambassador to the Dominican Republic has been placed under house arrest in the first case of criminal proceedings by the Holy See over the sexual abuse of children, a spokesman said Tuesday.

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said Pope Francis had personally ordered swift action in the case of Polish former archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, who was convicted of sex abuse by a Church tribunal in June and defrocked pending further criminal proceedings.

Lombardi said the legal move was "the result of the pope's express wish for a case this serious and sensitive to be dealt with without delay, with the necessary scrupulousness and full undertaking of responsibility on the part of the institutions which head up the Holy See."

A picture taken in Santo Domingo, on 

August 12, 2011 shows Jozef Wesolowski
-- the Vatican's envoy to the Dominican 

Republic (AFP Photo/Erika Santelices)

Italian news agency ANSA said Wesolowski was being held under house arrest in an apartment within the same building as the criminal court.

If the case goes to trial, it will be the first for sex abuse within the tiny city state.

Wesolowski's defrocking came six months after the UN children's rights watchdog highlighted his case as an example of the Vatican's failure to take concrete actions to prove its commitment to stamp out the abuse of minors by priests.

The Vatican had been accused by some critics of attempting to protect Wesolowski from Dominican jurisdiction by recalling him to Rome.

Wesolowski, 65, had been ambassador to the Dominican Republic since 2008, but was recalled by Pope Francis last August following accusations of sexually abusing minors.

He was ordained in 1972 by then archbishop of Krakow, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, who later became pope John Paul II and was elevated to sainthood this year.

The late pontiff named Wesolowski the Vatican's envoy to Bolivia. He was later posted to several Asian countries before being dispatched to the Dominican Republic in 2008 by then pope Benedict XVI.

Press reports last year linked him with another Polish priest, Wojciech Gil, accused of raping boys while serving on the Caribbean island.

'No privileges'

The Church has faced a decade-long series of scandals over abuse by priests and lay officials, from Ireland to the United States and Australia.

It was fiercely condemned by the United Nations in January for failing to stamp out child abuse and allowing systematic cover-ups by simply moving around clergy suspected of raping or molesting children.

Francis has vowed to crack down on abuse in the Catholic Church, reiterating the zero-tolerance approach of his predecessor.

Last year he overhauled Vatican law, issuing a special decree declaring that sexual violence and sexual acts with children, child prostitution and child pornography were punishable by up to 12 years in prison.

In May he warned there were "no privileges" for bishops when it came to child sex crimes and likened sexual abuse to a "Satanic mass".

At a UN hearing earlier this year, Vatican officials revealed that 3,420 abuse cases had been handled over the past decade by the Catholic Church's Canon Law prosecutors.

As a result of these cases, 848 priests were defrocked while a further 2,572 were ordered to "live a life of prayer or penance", for example in a monastery.

The Vatican says it receives around 600 claims against abusive priests every year, many dating back to the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

Related Articles:

Former papal diplomat could face trial outside Vatican
Vatican recalls Dominican Republic envoy amid abuse claims

Pope slams Church complicity in child sex abuse

Dominican Republic revamps failing education system

Deutsche Welle, 12 May 2014

The Dominican Republic has one of the world's worst education systems. Now it is finally investing money in schools. Thousands of classrooms are due to be built, although there are too few teachers for the existing ones.

Yovanny Gomez escapes from a sticky hot courtyard full of teenage students. He teaches math at the Republic of Argentina School, a free public school with 1,000 students in the Colonial District, a middle-class area in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. Gomez plops down next to the breeze of a new air conditioner in the teacher's lounge.

"Two or three years ago this school was practically a cemetery of waste," he said. "There was trash, disorganization. The school wasn't painted. There wasn't air conditioning in the offices. Really everything was a mess because we didn't have any of the necessary resources to teach."

In the Caribbean nation of nearly 10 million people, the education system ranks among the worst in the world. Test scores in urban areas are as low as in rural areas. Poor students can't escape the failing public education system, making it difficult for them to break out of poverty.

Like its neighbors, the Dominican Republic struggles with overcrowded classrooms in shoddy facilities. There's a high dropout rate, an outdated curriculum, overage students who fail classes and have to repeat grades, among other problems. But perhaps the most worrying issue is poorly trained teachers.

Math teachers only understood 42 percent of the material they were supposed to be teaching, according to a recent study by education experts.

Felix Sanchez says that families need
 to do more to help their children at
school too

Low pay, tough conditions

Low pay makes the profession a tough sell. School teachers like Gomez earn a base salary of about 250 ($344) euros a month. The average university-educated worker earns 457 euros a month, according to the most recent figures from the Dominican Central Bank.

Gomez opted to get his master's degree in teaching anyway. But it hasn't been easy to be a teacher.

"We don't make a living wage for a family," he said. "A teacher can't have his own house, a car or support his family. A teacher might want to have children, but can't afford them. We can't even afford Internet with this salary. We want a salary that will pay for these things."

The Dominican Republic is the first country in the Caribbean to undertake a major education overhaul. In 2012, voters convinced all presidential candidates to promise - if elected - to double the education budget. Now President Danilo Medina is staking his reputation on education reform. The country will spend 4 percent of its GDP - almost 2 billion euros in 2014. Deputy Education Minister Luis Matos de La Rosa says the reform targets five problem areas.

"We can't say which part is the most important," de La Rosa told DW. "Everything is happening at the same time."

"Obviously first we need new spaces. We're also hiring people to fill these spaces, expanding preschool enrollment, teaching people to read and extending the school day.

But all efforts aren't funded equally. Construction gets four times more money than teacher training and hiring.

The government will build 28,000 new classrooms by 2016, but right now there aren't enough teachers for the classrooms they already have. Student-teacher ratios in schools with more than 500 students are 78:1 - this accounts for 68 percent of total enrollment for public schools.

Teachers have also protested and temporarily shut down schools to demand a 100-percent salary increase over the past few years, but they've gained little ground.

Maribel Hernandez, the communications director behind the education-funding increase, said the decision plays to politics.

Many kids are not used to the longer
 school day that has recently been
introduced

"The president usually wants to be re-elected. When he wants to get back in office, he'll say, 'This is what I built. This is what I did.' And they have concrete things to show, but training teachers, that's really intangible," said Hernandez.

Longer school days

The government is extending the school day to eight hours from five, aiming to have 80 percent of schools operating on an eight-hour day by 2016.

But students only learn for two hours and 40 minutes out of the five hours during the typical school day, according to a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) survey. They often hang out in class while they're supposed to be studying.

More class time won't mean better grades unless the extra time is invested in quality teaching and an extended curriculum.

"When you go to schools that have had their school days extended, what you'll find is a lot of boys and girls sleeping. They haven't figured out what the children should learn in these extra hours," said Hernandez.

Yirmel Sanchez, a skinny 13-year-old student at the Republic of Argentina School, started going to school for eight hours a day last year.

"It was a little exhausting, but I got used to it, and it's good to learn new things," he said.

Every day when he gets home, he goes online to learn outside the classroom. It also sharpens his tech skills, which he hopes will eventually help him land a job.

But unlike Sanchez, most students in the country don't have the luxury to take their education into their own hands. Only half of the population has Internet access.

In the poor, rural town of Mata Limon, just north of Santo Domingo, 550 students share two computers. Many children have to work to help make ends meet, and education often suffers.

One in four teenage girls in Dominican
 Republic get pregnant and many drop out
of school

A question of culture?

Behind the school, construction workers are laying down concrete blocks to build a new school. But principal Felix Sanchez said they'll need more than new buildings to turn things around.

"I would say it's something about our country's culture. A lot of the time, families don't understand the importance of their children's educational responsibilities."

Across the country, about 40 percent of boys and girls leave school before eighth grade. Even those who get through high school and complete 12 years of school start college at a sixth-grade reading level, according to a Dominican university study.

Despite its problems, Dominicans seem pleased with the reform. They say it's a step up from what they had before - an iron-fisted dictator, then human rights abuses and corruption.

US-Colombian op nets huge cocaine haul in Caribbean

Google – AFP, 4 November 2013

A package of cocaine is displayed during a press conference on April 15, 2013,

in Cali, Colombia (AFP/File, Luis Robayo)

Bogota — US and Colombian anti-drugs agents cooperated in a massive bust in the southern Caribbean that led to the confiscation of 1,450 kilos of cocaine, authorities said Sunday.

Police in Colombia said they tipped off their American counterparts that a "go-fast" boat suspected of carrying the drugs, allegedly belonging to the Los Urabenos gang, had departed from the town of Manaure, in Guajira.

"After we shared the info with the US DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) they alerted the US Navy which intercepted the (Colombian) boat in international waters," the statement added.

The boat had been bound for the Dominican Republic and was carrying 1,450 kilos (3,197 lbs) of cocaine, the police statement said.

So far, four Venezuelans and a Colombian have been detained in the case.

The five suspects were transferred to Tampa, Florida, where they are expected to be charged, the Colombian statement added.

Vatican recalls Dominican Republic envoy amid abuse claims

BBC News, 4 September 2013

Pope Francis has vowed to act against child abuse allegations within the Church

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The Vatican has recalled its envoy to the Dominican Republic and launched an investigation after local media accused him of sexually abusing children.

Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski had been the Apostolic Nuncio in Santo Domingo for nearly six years.

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told the Reuters news agency he had been "relieved of his duties" and the Holy See had "begun an investigation".

Archbishop Wesolowski had been recalled "in the last few weeks", he added.

But he did not give details about the allegations.

The attorney general of the Dominican Republic, Francisco Dominguez Brito, told the Associated Press that his office was investigating what he called "rumours" of abuse, and that it had received no formal complaints.

The whereabouts of the 65-year-old Polish prelate are unknown.

Following his election in March, Pope Francis said dealing with sex abuse allegations was vital to the Roman Catholic Church's credibility.

In July, he strengthened laws that apply to clerics and lay people working in the Vatican - broadening out the definition of "crimes against minors" to include child prostitution, sexual violence, sexual acts with children, and indecent images of children.

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Dominican Republic rejects mining project

BBC News, 4 June 2013

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• Dominican Republic profile

The Dominican Republic government has rejected a request by Glencore Xstrata to explore nickel in a mountainous area of the country.

The Loma Miranda project would have a negative impact on communities living there, the authorities said.

The area, in central Vega province, is mostly covered by tropical forest.

The Dominican Republic shares the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with Haiti, where great part of the original rainforest has been cut down.

The Canadian mining company Falconbridge had operated in the country for some years, before being bought up by Xstrata in 2006, which has now merged with Glencore to become Glencore Xstrata.

Environmental Minister Bautista Rojas Gomez said he had accepted advice from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which opposed the project and published a critical report two weeks ago.

The project "does not attend the country's social and environmental demands," said the UNDP in the report, which was presented to the Dominican authorities.

Residents feared that their water supplies would be contaminated and that their way of life, in a remote part of the island, would be compromised.

Fake Venezuelan Olympians arrested for drug smuggling

BBC News, 17 November 2012

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The men were getting ready to board
 their flight at Buenos Aires airport when
police detained them

Police in Argentina have arrested 10 Venezuelan drug mules who pretended to be members of the Olympic weightlifting team to avoid arousing suspicion.

The plot was uncovered when they went through a body scan before a flight.

The scan showed they had swallowed plastic capsules, which were later revealed to contain liquid cocaine.

Police had been alerted to the gang by a Venezuelan woman who told them her nephew, a weightlifter, had been recruited to smuggle drugs.

The woman provided police with information enabling them to trace the alleged recruiter of the gang.

After a four-month investigation, officers followed the man to Buenos Aires international airport where, along with nine other Venezuelans, he was about to get on a flight to Portugal via Brazil.

Police said the men were dressed in track suits and claimed to be members of Venezuela's Olympic weightlifting team, presumably because they suspected that a large group of young men travelling together on an international flight could arose the suspicion of customs officers.

Officers put them through a body scan which revealed all 10 had plastic capsules in their stomachs.

Tests performed on the capsules after they had been excreted showed they contained liquid cocaine, said police.

Three Dominicans have also been arrested in the course of raids linked to the investigation.

Liberal Democrats' biggest donor arrested in the Caribbean

Michael Brown detained by police in the Dominican Republic after disappearing while on bail for a £40m fraud

guardian.co.uk, Rajeev Syal, Friday 6 January 2012

Michael Brown is the Lib Dem’s biggest ever donor. He has been arrested
in the Dominican Republic after disappearing while on bail.
Photograph: Paul Grover/Rex Features

The Liberal Democrats' biggest donor, who has been on the run for three years after being convicted of a multimillion pound theft, has been arrested by police in the Dominican Republic, the Guardian can disclose.

Michael Brown, who bankrolled the party with £2.4m of stolen money, was detained near the resort of Punta Cana on the easternmost tip of the Caribbean island this week. Interpol has been informed.

Named by City of London police as one of Britain's most wanted fraudsters,

Brown, 45, disappeared while on bail for a £40m fraud and was sentenced in his absence to seven years in prison.

His arrest signals the end to an international hunt that has involved five law enforcement agencies across three continents, and could lead to his return to Britain to serve his sentence.

It will mean further embarrassment for Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister. The Lib Dems have refused to compensate Brown's victims, whose money went into the party's coffers to finance the 2005 election campaign.

The development could lead to renewed legal efforts by his victims to seek compensation from the Lib Dems and Brown through the British courts.

A City of London police spokesman confirmed Brown's arrest. "We are pleased to hear that Michael Brown has been detained by authorities in the Dominican Republic, and are currently establishing contact with them to find out further details about his arrest.

"Clearly, at some stage we will look for his return to the UK, so he can serve the sentence for the fraud offences for which he has been convicted in this country," he said.

Earlier, a diplomatic source said British authorities were informed of Brown's arrest on Thursday. "There has been considerable co-operation between the two countries. There is a belief that Brown should be returned to Britain but there are still hurdles to overcome," the source said.

There is no extradition treaty between Britain and the Dominican Republic. However, a Dominican government official indicated Brown could be deported without an extradition process. Brown is believed to have entered the island under a false identity, which is a breach of Dominican law, he said.

"If someone comes to the Dominican Republic on false documents he is breaking our laws and we do not want him here. That person can be deported," he said.

Brown, originally from Glasgow, appeared from nowhere when he approached the Lib Dems in November 2004 with an offer of money for Charles Kennedy's impending election campaign. The brash, ponytailed Brown lived in Majorca and claimed to be an offshore trader. He said his clients were vetted by US embassy officials. Despite not being a party member, not being registered to vote, and living abroad, he was welcomed with open arms by the party's grandees.

Within months, Brown was flying Kennedy across Britain in a private jet and was being invited to dinners in Mayfair. Former Lib Dem insiders say he dazzled them with stories of Gordonstoun public school, St Andrew's University and his connections with royalty.

The truth was that he had failed his maths O-level at his local school and completed a City and Guilds in catering at Glasgow College of Food Technology. He had no US government links – although he was wanted in Florida for cheque fraud.

The party received the donation through his company, 5th Avenue Partners. It remains the biggest ever received by the party from an individual. In the general election, the party increased its share of the vote by nearly 4% after his cash was spent on posters and advertising.

Brown was arrested in late 2005 after four former clients said he had duped them out of more than £40m in a high-yield fraud. His victims included Martin Edwards, the former Manchester United chairman, who had invested £8m with 5th Avenue Partners.

The court would later be told that 5th Avenue Partners was wholly fraudulent and that Brown had given money to the Lib Dems to give himself an air of respectability whilst duping his victims.

In June 2008, while awaiting trial for theft, false accounting and perverting the course of justice, Brown fled and a warrant was issued for his arrest. In the weeks before he disappeared, from his Hampstead bail address in north London, he changed his name on the electoral roll to Campbell-Brown and allowed his hair to turn grey.

City of London detectives have worked with Interpol, the FBI, and police in Spain, Switzerland and the Dominican Republic to trace his whereabouts.

Brown is believed to have been arrested because he had been living in the Dominican Republic on false documents, diplomatic sources said. The Guardian has obtained copies of Brown's false identity papers and passports using the name Darren Patrick Nally.

The fugitive enjoyed a millionaire's lifestyle while on the run. He lived in gated communities yards from some of the most pristine beaches in the Caribbean, drove a series of 4x4 vehicles and was a regular at exclusive golf courses.

In Punta Cana, he could often be seen walking his dog – named Charles, after the former Lib Dem leader.

Since 2008 Brown has used the name Nally to embark on a series of ventures that included a real estate business which has opened a subsidiary in the Bahamas.

Last February, he was investigated in the Dominican Republic over an oil deal after being accused of failing to honour a contract for 4,820 tonnes. He was ordered to be held in custody for three months.

If Brown is returned to Britain it will launch renewed high court claims for the Lib Dems to return his stolen money.

Tony Brown, managing partner at law firm Bivonas which represents US attorney Robert Mann who lost more than $5m (£3m), said that Brown would be asked to give evidence as part of his client's claim against the Lib Dems.

"We hope on Michael Brown's return he will be able to assist our client Robert Mann resurrect his claim in the High Court against the Liberal Democrats for the return of his stolen money," he said.

Mann's legal team was forced last year to drop a high court claim against the Lib Dems for the return of around $600,000 after running out of funds.

A Lib Dem spokesman declined to comment on any future high court action, but added that the donation was accepted in good faith and was cleared by an Electoral Commission inquiry. "There is no indication that the Electoral Commission will revise its opinion in this matter but any arrest abroad should lead to his [Brown's] extradition to the UK," he said.

A spokesman for the Dominican Republic embassy in London declined to comment. Edwards also declined to comment.

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Honduras drops ex-President Manuel Zelaya charges

BBC News, 3 May 2011

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An appeal court in Honduras has dropped all corruption charges against former President Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted and forced into exile in June 2009.

Mr Zelaya's removal left Honduras
politically isolated for several months

The court's decision clears the way for his possible return and could also see Honduras readmitted to the Organization of American States (OAS).

Honduras was expelled from the OAS and many countries broke off ties after Mr Zelaya was removed from power.

Prosecutors said they were considering an appeal against the court's ruling.

The appeal court dismissed the charges against Mr Zelaya, of fraud and of falsifying documents, charges he had described as politically motivated.

OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza said that the court's decision "put an end to the uncertainty over the former president's legal situation".

Mr Insulza said consultations would begin on readmitting Honduras, given that the main condition for the country's return had been fulfilled. A judge had previously revoked arrest warrants against Mr Zelaya.

Relative stability

Mr Zelaya, who currently lives in the Dominican Republic, had said he would not return home unless he was guaranteed legal immunity.

The former president was bundled out of Honduras by the military in June 2009 after he failed to abide by a Supreme Court order to cancel a non-binding vote on changing the constitution.

His critics said his planned constitutional consultation aimed to lift the one-term limit on serving as president - paving the way for his possible re-election.

Mr Zelaya repeatedly denied this and pointed out that it would have been impossible to change the constitution before his term in office was up.

His removal from office left Honduras politically isolated for several months.

However, a period of relative stability began with the election of Porfirio Lobo as president in elections in November 2009.

Many governments, including the US, have recognised the Honduran government's legitimacy and re-established the ties cut during the height of the crisis.

WikiLeaks cables: 'Baby Doc' Duvalier's possible return to Haiti concerned US

US envoy said in 2006 that return of 'Baby Doc' Duvalier could complicate ability of Haiti's new government to establish itself

guardian.co.uk, Mark Tran, Monday 17 January 2011

Jean-Claude 'Baby Doc' Duvalier in 1980. Photograph: Kathy Willens/AP

The US expressed its concern about the possible return of Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier to Haiti as far back as 2006, when the country was about to hold elections, according to a confidential US diplomatic cable.

Five years on, US fears have materialised with the shock return of the former dictator last night. Duvalier, who was toppled from power in 1986, returns at a time when Haiti is struggling to recover from a devastating earthquake and amid a fraught election campaign.

In 2006 Lisa Kubiske, the US charge d'affaires in the Dominican Republic, which neighbours Haiti, alerted the Dominican foreign minister, Carlos Morales Troncoso, about Duvalier's possible return.

"Kubiske expressed USG [US government] concern over a return to Haiti of either Duvalier or [Jean-Bertrand] Aristide [the former Haitian president]. Both potentially were provocative and could complicate the ability of any new government to establish itself," the February 2006 cable said.

"If the election were inconclusive, a return of either one could certainly make things worse. We thought that neither should be allowed back into Haiti until a newly established, functioning democratic government could make a decision itself."

The election – to replace the interim government of Gérard Latortue put in place after the 2004 Haiti rebellion – had originally been scheduled for 2005 but was delayed four times. It went ahead on 7 February 2006 and was won by René Préval.

Duvalier, who succeeded his father, Francois "Papa Doc" Duvaier, in 1971, has re-appeared in Haiti as it is in throes of a disputed election. A runoff vote scheduled for last week was delayed because two candidates, Jude Celestin – Préval's preferred candidate – and Michel Martelly, each claimed the right to run against the frontrunner, Mirlande Manigat. Street clashes in recent days have left several people dead.

According to the 2006 US cable, Morales Troncoso agreed with Kubiske – now the deputy chief of mission in Brazil – about the undesirability of having Duvalier back on Haitian soil. "Morales Troncoso agreed that Aristide and Duvalier supporters would get upset if their opponents returned to the scene. Anti-Duvalier Haitians might seek revenge, even after 20 years, he noted. He said he had warned the Dominican embassy in Port-au-Prince among others against Duvalier coming to or through the Dominican Republic."

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