MINUSTAH supports Jude Celestin through Elisabeth Preval

Haiti is a country of rumors; this is the way people get their news. It takes time getting used to it, but after visiting Haiti, one learns that these rumors, in their vast majority, are solid facts that merit distribution via the formal media

It’s no secret Rene Preval, the current President, supports the official candidate: Jude Celestin. Preval’s support will allow continuity to the inefficiency and corruption of his own government.

Celestin was an unknown politician in Haiti until a few weeks ago, in fact, on the first poll released; he did not even reach 8% of voter intention. He has come quite far since then, manipulated polls place him at 24% voter intention.

Prior to his candidacy, Mr. Celestin was in charge of infrastructure reconstruction in Haiti. Anyone visiting Port-au-Prince and its surroundings, very rapidly can realize that Jude Celestin’s performance while in government was a clear and utter failure. In the capital, Port-au-Prince, not only is it hard to see any signs of reconstruction, there are no signs of any infrastructure projects.

One cannot find any signs of reconstruction or progress, even after the hundreds of millions of US dollars spent in Haiti for relief efforts by the international community, via the government of Haiti. One wonders, where has all the money gone?

One answer, attributed to published reports and rumors is the President’s wife: Elisabeth Delatour Preval. Let’s analyze why this is…

The First Lady is a principal stakeholder in SANCO Haiti, a company that offers services to the MINUSTAH (UN contingent in charge of keeping the peace in Haiti).

Through a very generous contract that this company has with the MINUSTAH, Mrs. Preval is filling her personal coffers with millions of dollars, at the expense of the impoverished people of Haiti.

It is also rumored (and was published in the Haiti-Observateur in Aug 2009) that the First Lady purchased a $2million dollar home, with funds from this impoverished nation, where millions of families live in misery.

This inexplicable enrichment is not limited to Mrs. Preval. Jude Celestin, the official candidate has also acquired multimillion dollar homes in Florida, where in recent weeks, the Miami Herald has published articles regarding Celestin’s financial hardships, presumably since he left his official government post where he controlled multi-million dollar budgets for the reconstruction of the infrastructure (http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/20/1883603/preval-protege-faces-s-fla-financial.html).
With this in mind, it is easy to conclude Celestin’s financial hardship comes from the fact that he no longer controls multi-million dollar government budgets, where he was taking a cut from each project through corrupt practices.

Over the past few weeks, actions by SANCO Haiti, the First Lady’s company, have been questioned regarding their work disposing of human excrements from a Nepalese UN base into the Artibonite River. It is suspected this could be the source of the cholera epidemic that is affecting the poor nation.

The primary worry is that SANCO Haiti simply had dumped fecal excrements into the river without any chemical treatment of the wasted, as established per their services contract.

Even more worrisome is the despicable illicit enrichment by the First Lady, asides from the gravity of the health situation due to her negligence, are the rumors that the MINUSTAH is unofficially supporting the official candidate, Jude Celestine.

There is major worry due to the massive acts of corruption between SANCO Haiti, the First Lady’s company, and workers of the MINUSTAH, who fear that if an opposition candidate were to reach the Presidency, this massive corruption sham would become public.

It is for this reason that there is fear and doubt that the elections will be free and fair, even with an overwhelming presence by the OAS/CARICOM election observation team, to ensure the electoral process is free and fair.

It is not clear if high-ranking officials at MINUSTAH are aware of these unacceptable acts of corruption, it is plausible that only the local MINUSTAH staff are the one mainly involved in these massive acts of fraud and corruption, which, at the end of the day, continues to hurts the already battered people of Haiti.