REGINALD DUMAS

ANOTHER FRIEND has died. This time it's Gérard Latortue, unknown in TT, who in 2004 became the interim prime minister of Haiti after the exiling of the constitutionally elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and the dissolution of his government.

Things hadn't been going well in Haiti (though not as chaotically as today). A populist and a nationalist, but a poor leader, Aristide was deepening internal socio-economic divisions; politically, even left-wingers were now hostile. Externally, he was discomfiting the USA (remember the Monroe Doctrine?) and considerably irritating the French by calling for reparations (he calculated the French debt to Haiti at US$21,685,155,571. And 48 cents, which Haitian comedians said were for the people).

The two powers decided he had to go. This is Dominique de Villepin, the French foreign minister, writing about him: '(H)e bears heavy responsibility for the current situation…Everyone sees quite well that a new page must be opened in Haiti's history…' How would you interpret that second sentence?

And the US secretary of state Colin Powell wasn't far behind: yes, he agreed that Aristide had been elected democratically, but he hadn't governed democratically. How would you interpret that?

Out went Aristide; the Americans even had a plane waiting for him at Port-au-Prince airport. He was flown to the Central African Republic, and a bland announcement was made to the effect that he had resigned and left his country. Voluntarily, of course. In came Latortue, a Haitian living in Florida. At least one Aristide Cabinet minister, Leslie Voltaire, supported him: he was 'a pacifist, a good person, a man of compromise…I think he is both (independent and professionally competent).'

That wasn't at all how Caricom saw him. For the organisation, he was an interloper, a Franco-US puppet illegally replacing the real captain of Haiti, Aristide. Not that Caricom was totally pleased with Aristide; it had in fact been voicing unhappiness with his governance. It had drawn up a Plan of Action for Haiti, which the international community, France and the USA included, had endorsed.

Caricom's point man for overseeing the implementation of the plan was the Jamaican PM, PJ Patterson, who, with the rest of his colleagues, reacted with fury to Aristide's removal. I found myself in the middle of the brouhaha. Just a few days before Aristide's overthrow, I had been appointed the special adviser on Haiti to the then UN secretary-general, the late Kofi Annan; I was looking forward to meeting Aristide. But Aristide was suddenly gone, and although Caricom welcomed my appointment, I was faced with a new and politically very delicate scenario.

I survived. When my six-month contract was nearly up, Latortue told me and the UN he wanted me to continue; he rejected the person nominated as my successor. But I had originally told Annan I would stay for only six months, and I stuck to that. I was still prepared to help, but from a distance.

I kept in touch with Latortue, who soldiered on