Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, accused members of the U.N. Security Council of blocking U.S. efforts to impose sanctions against Youri Latortue, a former senator and head of the Haitian Senate, in a statement posted on her website Friday, July 12.
“The Council must promote accountability by considering sanctions against individuals and entities responsible for or complicit in actions that threaten peace and security in Haiti,” said Linda Thomas-Greenfield. “On this point, we were deeply disappointed by the unexplained blocking of the nomination of Youri Latortue to the 2653 Sanctions Committee,” she added.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield also cited a report by experts on Haiti indicating that Youri Latortue exercises significant control over the political and economic life of the Artibonite department through financial and armed support for violent gangs, insisting on the need to lift the blockade. “We urge that this measure be lifted as soon as possible,” she insisted.
In October 2022, Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly, announced, in coordination with the United States, that Canada was imposing targeted sanctions under the Special Economic Measures (Haiti) Regulations. The sanctions targeted two individuals: Senate Speaker Joseph Lambert and former Senate Speaker Youri Latortue.
“Canada has reason to believe that these individuals are using their status as former or current public office holders to protect and enable the illegal activities of armed criminal gangs, including through money laundering and other acts of corruption,” reads a press release dated November 4, 2022.
Let us recall that in a press release published on Thursday, October 19, 2023, the former senator of the Republic Youri Latortue had refuted the conclusions of the report of the UN group of experts revealing his links with gangs.
In the report, the panel revealed that Latortue had financed the Kokorat Sans Ras gang and that the gang had used these gangs for close protection and destruction of property. According to the document, the panel had received a video in which Barbecue, the gang leader, said that Youry Latortue had given him $30,000.
