{"id":48435,"date":"2021-02-22T07:14:06","date_gmt":"2021-02-22T07:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=165167"},"modified":"2021-02-22T07:14:06","modified_gmt":"2021-02-22T07:14:06","slug":"haitian-official-stashes-wealth-in-montreal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/22\/haitian-official-stashes-wealth-in-montreal\/","title":{"rendered":"Haitian Official stashes Wealth in Montr\u00e9al"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Recent media reports of a Haitian official stashing wealth in Montr\u00e9al property ignore a key element of the story: Canada\u2019s contribution to enabling Haitian corruption.<\/p>\n

As a neo-Duvalierist regime becomes ever more dictatorial it\u2019s also worth revisiting Canada\u2019s history in facilitating fraud and money laundering in the hemisphere\u2019s most impoverished nation.<\/p>\n

Recently La Presse<\/em> reported that the wife of a governing party senator, who works at the Haitian consulate in Montr\u00e9al, purchased a mansion in Laval. The story reported, \u201cas the<\/a> political crisis bogs down in Haiti, the wife of a senator belonging to the party of the contested president, Jovenel Mo\u00efse, has just bought a sumptuous $ 4.25 million villa in Laval, attracting a flood of criticism from Montreal to Port-au-Prince. The new property was paid off in full in one fell swoop, without a mortgage, and without their other house being sold, according to the Land Registry.\u201d Two follow-up Journal de Montr\u00e9al<\/em> stories<\/a> found that Senator Rony C\u00e9lestin and his spouse, Marie-Louisa C\u00e9lestin, spent $2 million<\/a> more recently on property and businesses in the Montr\u00e9al area.<\/p>\n

La Presse\u2019s<\/em> Vincent Larouche should be praised for covering a story that had been circulating in Montr\u00e9al\u2019s Haitian community for days. But, a lot of important context is missing from the story, as Larouche must know. (15 years ago, Larouche wrote a nice review<\/a> of my co-authored book on Canada\u2019s role in the 2004 coup when he was with left-wing L\u2019autre Journal<\/em>). Senator C\u00e9lestin was implicated in the 2019 killing<\/a> of journalist N\u00e9h\u00e9mie Joseph and threats<\/a> targeting the Director General of the Anti-Corruption Unit. More broadly, C\u00e9lestin\u2019s political party was founded by corrupt and violent Duvalierist Michel Martelly.<\/p>\n

But the broader Canadian angle is the most important omission. On Facebook, activist Jean \u201cJafrikayiti\u201d Saint-Vil explained: \u201cThe PHTK<\/a> regime headed by Michel Martelly and his self-described \u2018bandi legal\u2019 (legal bandits), came to power thanks to fraudulent elections organized, financed and controlled by the foreign occupation force established in Haiti since the coup d\u2019\u00e9tat of February 2004. The planning meeting for the coup d\u2019etat and putting Haiti under trusteeship was organized by Canadian Minister for La Francophonie Denis Paradis. The Ottawa Initiative on Haiti [January 31-February 1, 2003] succeeded in overthrowing the legitimate President as well as 7,000 elected officials from the region\u2019s most impoverished country. The elected officials were replaced by bandits such as \u2018Senator\u2019 Rony C\u00e9lestin of whom this article speaks.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a follow-up post Saint-Vil offers an alternative way of understanding Canada\u2019s relationship to political corruption in Haiti. He asks, \u201cCan<\/a> you imagine [Hells Angels leader] Maurice \u2018Mom\u2019 Boucher and [serial killer] Carla Homolka installed as Senators in Canada by fraudulent elections led by a coalition of Haitian, Jamaican, Ethiopian diplomats in Ottawa?\u201d<\/p>\n

Few Canadians would be happy with such an outcome. But it\u2019s a troublingly apt description of US, Canadian and French policy in Haiti.<\/p>\n

This is not the first time Canada has been implicated in Duvalierist corruption. Before fleeing to the French Riviera, Jean-Claude \u2018Baby Doc\u2019 Duvalier emptied government bank accounts. The Royal Bank of Canada and other Canadian financial institutions assisted the young dictator\u2019s theft. A US auditing firm hired to investigate and track down public funds concluded that Duvalier\u2019s financial advisors \u201chad set up an intricately concealed flow of money through a bevy of banks and accounts, most of them Canadian.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Royal Bank of Canada branch in Haiti assisted Duvalier. So did a Toronto branch of the bank. In Money on the Run: Canada and How the World\u2019s Dirty Profits Are Laundered<\/em>, Mario Possamai details Duvalier\u2019s turn to Canadian institutions when Swiss banks froze Baby Doc\u2019s accounts. At a Royal Bank branch in Toronto his attorneys converted $41.8 million in Canadian treasury bills, a highly secretive and respected form of money. Once converted, the Duvaliers\u2019 assets could no longer be scrutinized.<\/p>\n

In Canada: A New Tax Haven: How the Country That Shaped Caribbean Tax Havens Is Becoming One Itself<\/em> Alain Deneault summarizes: \u201cThe dictator\u2019s money was moved from Canada to Jersey [tax haven] where it was received by the Royal Trust Bank, a subsidiary of Canada\u2019s Royal Trust Company. The deposit was made to an account that was part of a larger account held by the Manufacturers Hanover Bank of Canada, a financial institution with its headquarters in Toronto a few steps away from the Royal Bank of Canada where the whole operation had been set in motion. The operation became more complex with securities being split from their ownership records and further movements between the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank in Jersey, the Royal Bank of Canada in London, the Banque Nationale de Paris, and sundry Swiss institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite guidelines requiring banks to determine customers\u2019 identity, RBC admitted it simply trusted Duvalier\u2019s lawyers. Bank officials later claimed they would have refused the transaction had they known who the beneficiaries were.<\/p>\n

This explanation is hard to believe. The only foreign bank in the country for a number of years, the Royal Bank financed projects by the Duvalier regime. Amidst the uprising against Jean-Claude Duvalier, Royal\u2019s senior account manager in Port au Prince, Yves Bourjolly, joined a long list of prominent businessmen who signed a statement expressing \u201cconfidence in the desire of the government for peace, dialogue and democratization \u2026 at a time when order and security appear to be threatened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the years Canada has empowered many other corrupt and violent politicians in Haiti. In response to the C\u00e9lestin story, intrepid tweeter \u201cMadame Boukman \u2014 Justice 4 Haiti\u201d noted, \u201cJustin \u2018Blackface<\/a>\u2019 Trudeau, like those before him, knowingly supports drug traffickers, money-launderers and assassins in Haiti. That is the only way Canadian mining vultures can loot Haiti\u2019s massive gold reserves.\u201d<\/p>\n

This about sums it up.<\/p>\n

\u2022 On February 28 the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute is hosting a discussion of<\/em> Haiti Betrayed<\/em><\/a>, a powerful indictment of Canada\u2019s role in the 2004 coup and subsequent policy in the country. In the week leading up to the event the film will be available to watch for free for those who<\/em> register in advance<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

This article was posted on Sunday, February 21st, 2021 at 11:14pm and is filed under Canada<\/a>, Haiti<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recent media reports of a Haitian official stashing wealth in Montr\u00e9al property ignore a key element of the story: Canada\u2019s contribution to enabling Haitian corruption. As a neo-Duvalierist\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91,657,4],"tags":[95,658],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48435"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48435"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48436,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48435\/revisions\/48436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}