Haiti's President Shamed, Denied Access To New York Meeting, Promises Consequences

By Joseph Guyler C. Delva

Haitian-Caribbean News Network

Photo of Leslie Voltaire, one of Haiti's 9-member Transitional Presidential Council (TPC)

Wed, Sept. 25, 2024

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (HCNN)-- One of Haiti's presidents has been humiliated during a United Nations assembly general's sideline meeting to which he was denied access in New York, where Brazilian leader and Haitian Prime minister were having a closed-door conversation on the Caribbean country's disastrous situation, according to reports by journalists who witnessed the incidents.

A colleague journalist, Jean Daniel Senat, who's part of the press pool, accompanying the Haitian government's delegation, explained that president Leslie Voltaire, one of the 9-member Transitional Presidential Council (TPC) was blocked from attending a meeting on Monday between Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and PM Garry Conille.

"There was a bilataral meeting between Haitian PM Garry Conille and Brazilian president Lula da Silva. They were about 20 minutes into the meeting when president Voltaire has arrived," reported journalist Jean Daniel Senat from 'Le Nouvelliste' newspaper.

"President Voltaire ( and the presidency Chief of staff, Harvel Jean-Baptiste) showed up and said he was there to take part in the meeting which was taking place behind closed-door, while security agents attached to President Lula stood guard in front of the door," reported our colleague.

"Mr. Voltaire insisted that he was president of Haiti and he had to participate in the meeting, but the guards continued to doubt his word, before resolving to go inside the room to ask whether Voltaire could get in," reported the journalist who has also detailed the incidents on haitian leading station Radio Metropole.

"President Lula's security guard came back and said that no president by the name of Leslie Voltaire was expected at the meeting. They had also checked and verified that Haiti's president's name was Edgard Leblanc. Therefore Voltaire could not enter," Daniel Senat had witnessed.

Voltaire - covered with shame, filled with anger and disappointment - had to give up, move away and disappear, as he later promised that some would have to face consequences.

At the same time the journalist - who works for the most credible, influencial and respected newspaper in Haiti, Le Nouvelliste - has also explained how president Lula's guards made fun of Leslie Voltaire when he said he was one of the nine (9) presidents actually in power in Haiti.

"When Lula's guards heard about that from someone working for the government, they started laughing, wondering how could a country have nine presidents at the same time. They could never believe it, they thought that was a joke!", the journalist reported.

"We never heard of any country being governed by 9 sitting presidents," ridiculed Lula's guards.

Voltaire said angrily that there will be consequences for those responsible for his humiliation.

"Some heads will be cut," said Voltaire without being specific. "This is is a diplomatic coup d'Etat," Voltaire has told Le Nouvelliste.

But some say Prime minister Conille and Foreign Affairs minister Dominique Dupuy could be his targets, because they are viewed by Voltaire as accomplices in what is seen as an act of humiliation.

All that was happening, on Monday, as Prime minister Conille and Foreign Affairs minister, Dominique Dupuy, were meeting with president Lula at the Brazilian permanent representative's office accredited to the UN.

First, the US State Department had at first written to Haitian authorities letting them know that president Edgard Leblanc would not receive the protocol due to a president, should he decide to travel to New York, as he had planned to, invoking internal planning issues.

Leblanc had already moved to call back Haiti's ambassadors from the US and the UN for necessary information.

But short afterwards, the State Department rectified by ensuring that president Edgard Leblanc would be welcome and duly protected as head of the haitian delegation to the 79th assembly of the United Nations.

As a matter of fact Leblanc left Port-au-Prince, on Tuesday Sept. 24, has traveled to New York where he is representing Haiti at the world event.

Leblanc has already participated in several high-level meetings, while he prepares to deliver his official address, on Thursday, on the podium of the United Nations.

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Article written by Joseph Guyler C. Delva

For fhe Haitian-Caribbean News Network (HCNN)

E-mail: delvahaiti@gmail.com

Tel: +509 3445 3535

Or +509 4635 4545 only on WhatsApp

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