Souvenir photo of Martellys and Obamas at 66th UN General Assembly Reception at New York Public Library. H.O. analysts do not consider this a bilateral or official meeting. The number of steps taken by Michel Martelly to secure an invitation for a visit with the U.S. President led to nothing.
Hopes he had wagered on the opportunity offered by the swearing in of Barack Obama to facilitate the realization of this dream faded away. Because not only has the tenant of the White House, about to begin his second term, had no intention to invite his Haitian counterpart to Washington, the Protocol to the White House and State Department limits the participation in the inauguration ceremonies of the President to the Diplomatic Corps.
Indeed, during the event to mark the inauguration of Mr. Obama, officially for his second presidential term, Martelly and his men put in their minds that a new opportunity would be offered to request an invitation. Intermediaries of whom the Haitian president had acquired to succeed in this project could not deliver. In truth, U.S. officials do not launch invitations to heads of states and governments for the occasion of the swearing in of the U.S. President. Because it is pointed out, the presence of so many foreign dignitaries would require leaders to mobilize resources that the country does not have to ensure the safety of foreign guests. This is why the invitations are for foreign diplomats who have to figure as representatives of their presidents and prime ministers.
Clearly, President Martelly has to find another opportunity to revive these efforts, forced to resign them, he has taken the risk of entrusting this initiative to other people, with the opportunity to find a favorable response. Because, immediately after his accession to the presidency, the singer of compas had made up his mind that a meeting with the U.S. president would be realized in the shortest possible time. This idea was reinforced by visiting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as the head of a delegation with among others, Laurent Lamothe, Daniel Supplice and Richard Morse (recently resigned from his position as Special Advisor to President Martelly, who is also the cousin of Martelly). This first meeting with Clinton, the president-elect dangled in the solemnity of a meeting with his U.S. counterpart. Throughout the year, people who had been conferred with the responsibility, feelers, had nothing positive to report to President Martelly.
Meanwhile, in the Haitian capital, people close to the President said that the Head of State of Haiti had always believed that the former U.S. President Bill Clinton could help arrange a meeting for him with President Obama. It is believed this was the benefit of his initial steps, but Mr. Clinton soon realized that he had to continue “to see”, because he would have no chance to “deliver the goods”.
But this also applies to Laurent Lamothe, who would be persona non grata with the Department of State. But for different reasons. Indeed, through the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, the State Department has followed the saga first lodged in the process of ratification of Lamothe as Prime Minister. Stunts he had done, especially complaints deemed “credible”, that he had distributed bribes to senators and deputies who were called to consider his case before voting for or against ratification.
The trip that Mr. Lamothe took to Washington did not take place in an atmosphere of serenity and conviviality, as was the case at the time of such visits by the predecessors of the current Prime Minister. In Washington, for example, when passing, Lamothe had failed to report the difference there was between the visit that he had made to the State Department as did Prime Minister Gary Conille during his brief occupation of the prime ministry.
It is also claimed that U.S. intelligence did not sleep nor were unemployed when the same Lamothe toured Africa distributing millions by way of bribes, kickbacks, to officials in order to obtain contracts for his company, which wanted to be implemented as a dispenser of services in the field of telecommunications.
In any case, it is argued, both in business and in the diplomatic circles of the capital in the U.S., that the numbers 1 and 2 of the Haitian Executive are worthy in the practice of corruption.
