Mar 8, 2017

At around 9 A.M. we learned that the autopsy was underway and there was no evidence of a cerebral hemorrhage. Since a doctor, who had seen Preval shortly after his collapse, said there were no traces expected in a cardiac failure we assumed that poison was a real possibility.

Shortly after, a specialist in poisons was flown in and the examination continued.

We have now heard that poison is indicated in the tragic death of Rene Preval at the moment he was reviving INITE, his political party, to take a greater part in today’s ongoing political crisis as the Jovenel Moise Presidency faces a variety of threats, internally and externally.

We are now faced with a murder investigation in a nation that favors the use of poison in killing, a practice that dates by to the Colonial Slave Period when specialist knowledge of poisons was imported with slaves. Macandal was the best known practitioner when he mounted a slave assault on his Colonial masters in which his followers poisoned their masters at the same moment. Some 6,000 French were murdered on this occasion.

WHO DONE IT?? As the American phrase goes.

MEANS – MOTIVE – OPPORTUNITY.

In U.S. criminal law, means, motive, and opportunity is a common summation of the three aspects of a crime that must be established before guilt can be determined in a criminal proceeding. Respectively, they refer to: the ability of the defendant to commit the crime (means), the reason the defendant committed the crime (motive), and whether the defendant had the chance to commit the crime (opportunity). Opportunity is most often disproved by use of an alibi, which can prove the accused was not able to commit the crime as he or she did not have the correct set of circumstances to commit the crime as it occurred. Motive is not an element of many crimes, but proving motive can often make it easier to convince a jury of the elements that must be proved for a conviction.

MEANS: Poison is readily available in the Haitian society and is often used in murders.

MOTIVE: Most of those can be eliminated for MOTIVE. However, one name stands out. A person who hated Preval and now feared the revival of Preval’s power in the community. JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE!

OPPORTUNITY: A substantial number of guests visited the Preval residence, on the day of his death, meeting with the ex-President to discuss the political situation, and what was to be done.

So we have his staff, family and the visitor. Any of these could have slipped poison into one of the many coffees he had that morning. Coffee is the favorite vehicle since it hides taste.

Preval would have been less guarded under the circumstances.

Any number of those at the Preval residence that morning could have introduced the poison.

Aristide is not a hands on guy and has often used others to commit his crimes, depending upon their dedicated loyalty or via the payment of cash. Aristide would have no problem paying someone a few million USD to relieve him of this reviving threat.

On a scale of 1 to 10 we vote a 9 for Aristide.

WHAT HAPPENS NOW?

PERHAPS THE AMEICANS WILL SAVE HAITI BY EXTRADITING ARISTIDE TO  THE STATES FOR HIS INVOLVEMENT WITH THE COCAINE INDUSTRY OR EARLIER MURDER OF THE HUSBAND AND  FATHER OF AMERICAN CITIZENS WHO HAD A 40 ACRE PROPERTY IN TABARRE THAT ARISTIDE WANTED – AND HAD KILLED. ARISTIDE THEN ABSORBED THE PROPERTY INTO HIS TABARRE ESTATE.

“Michel Gonzales, a prominent Haitian airline executive, lived with his horses on forty acres in the Port-au-Prince exurb of Tabarre. He rented the property from the wealthy, conservative Debrosse family. Gonzales’s next-door neighbor was a powerful Haitian, too: Aristide. On two occasions around the time of Aristide’s return to Haiti, Aristide’s advisers, Jean-Marie Cherestal and Leslie Voltaire, asked U.S. officials to obtain the land for Aristide’s use, according to two U.S. sources familiar with the events. The request was refused. (Voltaire denies this; Cherestal could not be reached.) At that point, Gonzales’s friends say, visitors began arriving and telling Gonzales pointedly to get out. He didn’t. On May 22, 1995, two men on a motorbike shot Gonzales dead in front of Aristide’s place, while Gonzales’s wife and daughter–both American citizens–looked on in horror. No one in Haiti is quite sure now who owns the property, but it appears to be vacant.”

Charles Lane, The New Republic Sep 25, 1997