Joseph michel martelly citizenship interview

By Kim Ives, published in Haiti Liberte weekly newspaper, Jan 11,

Senator Moise Jean-Charles says that he has proof that Haitian President Michel Martelly is a citizen of the U.S. and Italy. If the charge is true, it means that Martelly would have lied to Haitian electoral authorities when submitting his candidacy in Haitian presidential candidates cannot hold dual citizenship under Haiti’s unamended Constitution, which was still in force when Martelly ran his presidential campaign.

The U.S.

State Department gave an evasive response to Haiti Liberte’s request for clarification of Martelly’s alleged U.S. citizenship.

Senator Jean-Charles, who represents Haiti’s North department, also said he has evidence that three other high-ranking officials in the government of Martelly’s Prime Minister Garry Conille also have dual nationality.

Joseph michel martelly citizenship interview President Martelly visited the united states to promote trade and cooperation and to thank the us for being a great partner to Haiti. Now if the president looks familiar it's because he was one of the top Haitian music performers in the world known as sweet mickey. Comments Joseph Unelus says Haiti is multicultural. Haiti likes diversity.

According to the senator, Foreign Minister Laurent Lamothe is Bolivian, Tourism Minister Stephanie Balmir Villedrouin is Venezuelan, and the Interior Ministry’s Secretary of State Georges Racine is a U.S. citizen.

Meanwhile, Sen. Jean William Jeanty of the Nippes department said in a radio interview that he suspects Prime Minister Conille of being Canadian because Conille’s passport, when inspected by senators in his nomination review process, showed no markings of his travel to Canada, where many of his close family members reside.

Conille provided no other documents indicating any travel to Canada, which makes Jeanty suspect that Conille holds a Canadian passport.

Sen. Jean-Charles told Haiti Liberte that he had received a copy of Martelly’s foreign passport from a woman residing in the Dominican Republic named Maria Vultudes. She is allegedly a former girlfriend of Martelly and now feels wronged.

On Jan.

9, the Haitian Parliament began its new session. Up until then, Jean-Charles chaired the nine-member Senate Commission investigating the possible dual nationalities of high-ranking Haitian government officials. But on that Monday, Southeast Sen. Joseph Lambert and Artibonite Sen. Youri Latortue, both Martelly allies, were installed as the Commission’s new president and secretary respectively.

“They carried out a coup d’etat in the Commission while I was not there,” Senator Jean-Charles told Haiti Liberte.

Jean-Charles has submitted what he believes to be incontrovertible evidence to the Commission, which should issue a report soon.

“My parliamentary colleagues, Commission members, are in front of a fait accompli,” Jean-Charles told the Haitian Press Agency.

Joseph michel martelly citizenship On August 20, , the United States sanctioned the former president for trafficking drugs, in particular cocaine, into the United States, and for sponsoring several gangs based in Haiti. Martelly was one of Haiti's best-known musicians for over a decade, going by the stage name Sweet Micky. For business and musical reasons, Martelly has moved a number of times between the United States and Haiti. When travelling to the United States, Martelly mostly stays in Florida. As a singer and keyboardist, "Sweet Micky" is known for his Kompa music, a style of Haitian dance music sung predominantly in the Haitian Creole language, but he blended this with other styles.

“They will not be able to back-up even if they are personal friends of the chief of state.”

Latortue and Lambert helped Martelly last month by using their powerful positions on the Commission looking into the illegal arrest of Deputy Arnel Belizaire in November. The two senators effectively blocked the likely removal of Interior Minister Thierry Mayard Paul, a close Martelly advisor and ally, who personally played a role in and was directly responsible for Belizaire’s arrest.

In July, a source who had been in close contact with the Haitian president in the past told Haiti Liberte that Martelly has had a U.S.

passport since the s. The source asked not to be identified.

Pursuing other leads and rumors about Martelly’s U.S. passport last May just days before his inauguration, Haiti Liberte was given the following response from a State Department official: “To the best of our knowledge, the Department of State has no reason to believe that Haitian President-elect Martelly now holds, or has ever held, U.S.

citizenship.”

The State Department’s curiously conditional and open-ended response to what should be a simple yes-or-no question only increases suspicion about Martelly’s U.S. citizenship.

A State Department spokeswoman told Haiti Liberte that it cannot reveal information about people’s citizenship due to U.S. privacy laws.

If he does hold foreign citizenship, Martelly could be forced to step down by the Parliament established as a High Court of Justice.

Other high-government officials, like Lamothe, Villedrouin and Racine, would also have to be removed under the Haitian Constitution.

Article of the unamended Haitian Constitution states that to “be elected President of the Republic of Haiti, a candidate must never have renounced Haitian nationality.” Article 15 stipulates: “Dual Haitian and foreign nationality is in no case permitted.”

Faced with persistent rumors prior to his inauguration, Martelly denied ever “renouncing” his Haitian citizenship but never explicitly denied having had U.S.

citizenship. “I'm Haitian,” he declared in April “I never renounced my citizenship.”

Martelly has not publicly reacted to Jean-Charles’ latest charges.

Beginning in May , a purported photograph of the identification page of Martelly’s U.S. passport – numbered and dated for only five years – circulated on the Internet, but it was quickly flagged as a fake.

If Martelly does have a foreign passport, his disqualification as president would be straightforward because the transgression would have occurred prior to his May 14, inauguration.

The matter is more complicated if the allegations about the other ministers and the suspicions about Prime Minister Conille prove true.

This is because the Haitian Constitution is presently in limbo.

In , the Parliament amended the Constitution to allow dual citizenship, among many other changes. But amendments passed under one president don’t take effect until after the inauguration of the next head of state.

Joseph michel martelly us citizen Opinion Politics. News Politics. Life News Politics. Seeking to end rumors that he is a US citizen, President Michel Martelly showed his Haitian passport on national television. Martelly lived in the United States for some time and obtained a US residency card, which he said he surrendered upon being elected to office.

The amended Constitution was signed by then President Rene Preval and published on March 16, in the government journal Le Moniteur. That publication makes Haitian laws official.

But some senators cried foul because the wording of seven of the amendments had apparently been changed. The amendments were set aside for review, and Haiti has since been functioning under the original charter.

After months of haggling, reviewing tapes, and rewriting with civil society oversight, the Parliament sent a corrected, amended Constitution to the executive for signing, but a new dilemma emerged.

Who should sign the document: Preval or Martelly?

The legal community, human rights groups, and even the Parliament are gravely split on how to resolve this new constitutional conundrum, leaving the old Constitution still in effect.

Meanwhile, Sen. Moise Jean-Charles claims he has been receiving many death threats since leveling his charges against President Martelly.

Call-in radio talk shows buzzing with speculation about the confrontation inevitably end with callers warning Jean-Charles to take strong measures to ensure his security.

“I am not afraid and will see this matter through to the end,” the senator declared.