ARTICLE - PASSPORT SAGA

INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE!
(Haiti Libre) -

The Senate Commission of Inquiry on Nationality, "will work the whole weekend in order to return, Monday afternoon, according to what had been agreed, the passports to President Martelly, and produce a preliminary report by Wednesday or Thursday", indicated, Simon Dieuseul Desras, the President of the Senate after having transmitted the travel documents to the Commission.

Senator Moïse Jean-Charles affirmed Sunday, that contrary to the promises of the President of the Senate, the Commission will not give back Monday, the passports to President Martelly, because of the necessity to continue the investigations. The Senator says that a set of troubling elements denote surprising irregularities... like a passport issued in the name of the President in 1981, which expired 12 years later, when the normal period of validity of a passport is 5 years...

For his part, Senator François Anik Joseph (Alternativ / Artibonite), declared that the file is not ready to be classified, but on the contrary, it is just now that the file is opened.

"...Now that the President has decided to collaborate, we say thank you Mr. President for having decided to collaborate, but instead of the case being filed, it is now that it begins. In my opinion, the President presented 8 passports. The passports were there, why he did not present them earlier? Why now? Why is it that President Clinton entered Haiti on Wednesday, and it was Thursday that the President decided to present his passports? That is one question.

Secondly, the President has presented 8 passports. I think it is important for the Commission to take its time to review these passports; especially to determine the age of these passports. We must find a laboratory to analyze each page of of the passports with carbon 14, or with other more sophisticated techniques, [...] There is no game in this question, these are pretty serious things[...] We must determine the age of each passport to show compliance with the dates that are written. Also, we must determine the age of the ink seals that are on the passports, to see if the ink of these seals corresponds to the dates indicated; that's another question.

I insisted that the President of the Republic had traveled on November 21, 2007. The President of the Republic has spent all week refuting the information. The Minister responsible for relations with Parliament, Mr. Theano, denied the information. He even said that on November 21, 2007, the President was giving a show [...] Senators visited the immigration service of the airport and they asked for the list of passengers who were on American Airlines flight that day traveling to Florida. They found the list, and the name of the President was not on it [...] and now the President presents a Haitian passport which shows that he traveled that day. Who is lying now; the immigration service, [the senators?] or the President of the Republic? I refuse to believe that the President of the Republic could have lied to the nation; so I prefer to believe that it is the immigration service who is lying [...] The Commission now has the responsibility to investigate this question, to explore that lie at this level... I think the record is not ready at all to be filed;.... on the contrary, it is now that the file is opened."

Concerning the mystery that seems to surround the journey of 21 November 2007, the former Colonel Himmler Rébu, leader of the Grand Rally for Change in Haiti (GREH) said last week after the press conference of the Head of State "...the declaration that the President has made​​, in the form that he made ​​it, and the actors who spoke, strengthens my doubts. President Martelly during the presentation, showed that on November 21, 2007, he was on an American Airlines flight toward the United States; while precisely in the Commission investigation, American Airlines had provided a manifesto where President Martelly was not present on that flight. I think that the information [that was given by the Head of State] brings even more confusion than light, and makes me very uncomfortable,... as someone who always claims his ideological affiliation to the government of President Martelly. [...]"

Why do the the Senators who constantly talk about the passenger list of November 21, 2007, as a key element of their investigation, do they not show this document of American Airlines to the press?