Teleco, Haitel, Comcel, Aristide and US Politicians Unite !

The Wall Street Journal

A government file pertinent to two civil law suits alleging bribery
doesn't just get up and walk out of a supposedly secure federal-agency
record room in Washington. When said bribery allegations involve
politically influential individuals on both sides of the aisle and a
notoriously corrupt former Haitian president that the U.S. supported
for a decade, it's even more troubling.

In a December email to a lawyer in one of the law suits, the Federal
Communications Commission said that its "Haiti file" was missing. The
file is the record of which U.S. telecom companies that did business
with the government of former Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide
actually complied with U.S. law by submitting their contracts to the
FCC. An official at the commission told me on Friday that "we don't
have the file but we are continuing our active efforts to locate it."

I'm not sure whether the missing file would fit into Sandy Berger's
socks. But given the number of political heavyweights -- both
Republican and Democrat -- who might welcome the disappearance of
these documents, it's a bit difficult to write the whole thing off as
an accident.

Since 2000 I have followed allegations that Haiti's Mr. Aristide took
bribes from U.S. telecom carriers doing business in his country. These
charges arose first in conversations with Haitians familiar with
operations at the state-owned phone company, Teleco. More recently
they have been aired in two separate civil suits filed in two
different U.S. federal courts.

The alleged quid pro quo for the U.S. companies that agreed to pay the
bribes was access to the Teleco network at rates below the uniform
"international settlement rate" set by the FCC. During the course of
my investigations, two different long-distance suppliers told me that
Teleco officials offered them just such a special rate in exchange for
payment made to specially designated accounts.

If the allegations are true, it would mean that the Foreign Corrupt
Practices Act was violated, right under the nose of the FCC and the
Department of Justice, during Democratic and Republican
administrations. It would also mean that while Haitians were placing
their trust in Uncle Sam to help them construct a democracy, millions
of dollars that might have gone to building an infrastructure were
siphoned off by a corrupt tyrant and U.S. business partners with
friends in high places.

In 2000, questions arose about Fusion Telecommunications, which had a
concession to terminate calls in Haiti and which, according to
sources, had an office inside Teleco. Marvin Rosen (finance chairman
for the Democratic National Committee from September 1995 until
January 1997), former Democratic Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy II, and
Bill Clinton confidante Thomas (Mack) McLarty III were all on the
board of Fusion. Mr. Rosen was Fusion chief executive officer.

Rumors abounded in Haiti that Fusion had a sweetheart deal with Mr.
Aristide that gave the U.S. firm rates well below the international
settlement rate. When I inquired about the company's Haiti business
while preparing a Jan. 2001 op-ed, I was immediately referred to a
company lawyer who refused to either confirm or deny that the company
was even doing business in Haiti. In September 2005, Fusion told me it
had always filed what was required at the FCC and denied making any
illegal payments to Teleco.

In 2001 Mr. Kennedy's office released a statement that he had no
"joint venture, partnership or business arrangement with the president
of Haiti or for that matter, anyone in Haiti" and that he was not
involved in running Fusion. Nevertheless, in a Feb. 7, 2001 op-ed in
the Boston Globe, he wrote, "I was proud to help bring more than $1
million in private investment from Fusion into Haiti." That was
peanuts when you consider that Teleco once had annual revenues upwards
of $60 million. By the time Mr. Aristide was forced into exile by a
political uprising in 2004, the company was losing money.

The whole thing might have been swept under the rug if it weren't for
Michael Jewett, who in 2003 had been an employee at New Jersey-based
IDT, headed by former Republican congressman Jim Courter. Like Fusion,
IDT had a number of seasoned politicos on its board.

In March 2004 Mr. Jewett filed suit in federal court in Newark, N.J.
alleging that he was fired from IDT because he objected to an illegal
deal between the company and Mr. Aristide. Mr. Jewett's allegations
seem to echo the charges swirling around Fusion. IDT responded much
like Fusion, insisting that its arrangement with Haiti Teleco was a
trade secret. In fact, IDT had a legal obligation to make its
arrangement public and the information was unsealed, revealing that
IDT had been granted a rate of nine cents per minute versus the FCC
mandated rate of 23 cents. Mr. Jewett also claims in court documents
that IDT agreed to make payments to an offshore account in Turks and
Caicos called "Mount Salem," ("Mont Salem" in French) for the benefit
of Mr. Aristide.

After Mr. Aristide was driven from power in February 2004, the interim
government pried open Teleco's books and alleged that the company had
been looted. In November 2005 it filed suit in U.S. district court in
southern Florida. "The fraudulent scheme to steal Teleco revenues was
carried out in part through defendant Mont Salem," the government
claimed, adding that, "At Aristide's direction, Inevil, Duperval and
Beliard [Haitian nationals] directed at least two of the Class B
carriers, IDT and Skytel, to make their payments for Teleco's services
to Mont Salem. At Aristide's direction, Teleco's then-counsel also
caused Teleco to request at least one other Class B carrier, Fusion,
to make payments through Mont Salem."

Mr. Jewett's case has already revealed a lot, but it won't tell
Haitians where millions of dollars in lost Teleco revenues went
throughout the 1990s. That will require a more thorough airing, such
as the civil suit Haiti filed in Florida. Unfortunately, Haiti has had
to withdraw its suit for lack of funds. Its request for a share of
assets forfeited by Haitian drug kingpins -- which could be used to
reinstate the suit and pay legal fees -- has been resisted by the DOJ.
First DOJ said it couldn't release the assets because the cases were
on appeal. Now it says that it doesn't yet have the forfeited assets.

Another way to get at the truth would be if DOJ used the mountain of
evidence it seems to be sitting on to indict Mr. Aristide, since he
has often asserted that he won't remain silent about his dealings with
highly placed American politicians if he is brought to trial. Why the
DOJ would turn down an offer like that is a mystery, a little like the
missing file.

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