Gérard Latortue

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Gérard Latortue (born June 19, 1934 at Gonaives) is currently the Prime Minister of Haiti. He was an official in the United Nations for many years, and briefly served as foreign minister of Haiti during the short-lived 1988 administration of Leslie Manigat.

In February 2004, the country suffered a coup d'état which saw the removal and exile of Jean-Bertrand Aristide as president; Latortue was appointed head of the new provisional government on March 9 while still living in the United States, and was sworn in on March 12. Breaking with the Haitian constitution a "council of the wise" was set up by the international powers to choose Latortue.

His administration has been denied recognition by a number of foreign states, including the governments of Jamaica and St Kitts and Nevis, as well as the African Union, Venezuela, and Cuba. Furthermore, his government has been beset with opposition from international human rights groups and the Fanmi Lavalas political party; an ongoing flight of foreign capital and human resources (especially by the country's economic elite, which, through the Group of 184, had steadfastly supported the coup against Aristide and had contributed a significant amount of personnel to the subsequent government); and violence by and between gangs, rebels, and militants (especially in Port-au-Prince and its metropolitan area), many of whom are either former members of the Haitian Armed Forces (disbanded by Aristide) and FRAPH or are supporters of the Fanmi Lavalas.

Multiple human rights investigations by Amnesty International, the National Lawyers Guild, and the University of Miami Law School have documented massacres carried out by the police death squads of the Latortue government. Journalists such as Abdias Jean and Jeremey Duplan were also murdered by police gunmen loyal to the Latortue government. Hundreds of Lavalas activists and politicans have been illegally jailed, while thousands more have been killed.

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