The government of Haiti, so cash-strapped that its teachers are going unpaid, has retained a high-powered, top-dollar international PR firm with ties to a former member of Hillary Clinton’s staff to boost the country’s image in Washington.
A week before Moïse’s February 2017 inauguration, Haiti’s independent anti-corruption agency reported his frequent, large — $40,000 — and unexplained cash transactions that looked a lot like money laundering. Moïse illegally fired the agency’s head, which ended the inquiry. Revelations of up to $2 billion in theft from the PetroCaribe fuel assistance from Venezuela have rocked the country, with no visible consequences to the thieves. A few days before the massive protests, a prosecutor ordered the police to destroy houses —without the required court order — on land next to Moïse’s personal home where he wants to build an access road and helipad.
Some in Haiti want to know why hire a public relations firm now when it didn’t use one last year when Trump administration’s was threatening to end Temporary Protected Status. His administration announced in November that nearly 60,000 Haitians living and working in Miami and across the U.S. would lose their protected status.
And many are raising questions about why Haiti would hire a firm with any connection to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton, as secretary of State, and former President Bill Clinton, as U.N. special envoy to Haiti, who headed the country's post-quake reconstruction, have not always been well received by Haitians and its U.S. diaspora.
Caitlin Klevorick is a managing director in Mercury’s New York office. Klevorick was a senior adviser to Clinton who served as a point person for the State Department following the 2010 Haitian earthquake.
Working closely with Clinton's chief of staff Cheryl Mills, who oversaw the Haiti portfolio for Clinton, Klevorick conceived and led a Haiti texting campaign that raised $36 million for relief efforts. She also pitched using Mercury’s public relations services in February 2016 to then-Haiti presidential candidate Jovenel Moïse, touting the firms vast knowledge of Haiti.
The Clinton connection, however, is not the only curiosity in the contract.
The client listed is not Haiti’s Ambassador to the United States, but Haiti’s Ambassador to France.
Klevorick was caught up in accusations that the Clintons were running a pay-to-play operation while reviewing incoming offers of assistance being funneled to the State Department by the Clinton Foundation, according to emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the Republican National Committee.
“Need you to flag when people are friends of WJC,” Klevorick wrote, referring to former President Clinton. “Most I can probably ID but not all.”
Sophie Co speaks with Haitian human rights lawyer Ezili Danto
SS: Are you saying that your government is in conspiracy with the United Nations? Because no organisation including the United Nations can’t be on a territory of a country without a consensus of the government of that country.
ED: Absolutely. After the earthquake we had Bill and Hillary Clinton essentially take over Haiti and take over the aid to Haiti. You know, there’s 13.3 billion…
SS: Why do you think they are so interested in Haiti? Why such an interest on behalf of the Clintons to your country?
ED: I am so happy you asked - because Haiti lies between two nations that the United States wants to become client states that they dislike and haven’t fallen in line with the Manifest Destiny in the Monroe doctrine and so on: that’s Cuba and Venezuela. We are right in between. We’re the weakest link in that horse shoe. This is what we say at the Haitian Lawyers Leadership which I lead - we say that the United Nations forces in Haiti are the AFRICOM on the Western hemisphere. They are the U.S. western military arm training Latin American and Central American soldiers on behalf of the Western powers and they use Haiti as a training ground. That’s number one. Number two: Haiti has massive oil. The head of Venezuelan oil is in Haiti’s water. In terms of riches, they say now, Haiti has 20 billion in gold. Haitian geologists say, it’s a hundred billion in gold. During the earthquake Bill and Hillary Clinton put in through fake elections - and you can see this, just google it - Michel Martelly who is a former carnival singer. If you look at the emails from Hillary and Bill Clinton, they show you that they created this fake election. And now in 2017 we have this new President Jovenel Moïse. Jovenel Moïse was handpicked by Michel Martelly who was put into office by Bill and Hillary Clinton under the Obama administration.
https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article204613419.html
https://haitiantimes.com/2018/07/20/if-haitis-government-does-not-confront-poverty-corruption-more-unrest-will-follow/
https://www.rt.com/shows/sophieco/422930-un-imperialism-earthquake-human/