Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now to Haiti. A month and a half into an ongoing fuel blockade of the capital, Port-au-Prince, by armed gangs. Many in the country face a heightened risk of hunger and a cholera outbreak has forced some hospitals to close their doors. It seems like we've been talking about political crises in Haiti for decades, so here with some perspective on where Haiti has been and where it needs to go is former prime minister from 2012 to 2014 Laurent Lamothe. Hi, Prime Minister. Welcome to WNYC. Glad to have you with us.

Prime Minister: Thank you. Same here.

Brian Lehrer: You're in Miami. What have you heard from friends, loved ones, and associates in Haiti about life pretty much under gang rule right now?

Prime Minister: The situation is a very difficult one as you well said and stated. Since the assassination of the president of Haiti that happened in July of last year, we've seen a spiral of violence and an increase of gang activity related to basically the situation of despair because most of the projects, the electrification projects, social projects have been blocked for the past 15 months. That's created a situation of frustration, despair, and issues that have boiled into today, that have allowed the gangs to gain ground and currently control mostly the capital and are blocking off 40% of the country.

If you're in the capital today, you cannot go to four departments in Haiti because the gangs are blocking the main road and are asking for taxes, and fees to pass. Those that refuse to pay they're being either kidnapped or sometimes assassinated. It's a very tricky and difficult situation. The police has been very weak and the army has been neglected for years, so this has created the situation that we have today, which is the only game in town are the violent armed gangs.

Brian Lehrer: What do the armed gangs want? Is it just about money and looting everybody to the maximum possible degree, or is there ideology involved, or what did the gangs really want?

Prime Minister: Well, ultimately the gangs are involved mostly-- they fund themselves through multiple income streams. Some political, some through kidnappings, some through contraband of gasoline. It's a host of different things, but ultimately some of them, just want money and some of them want control of their areas to get more money. Some of them also want the prime minister to resign because the prime minister has tripled the price of gas. That also triggered this crisis that we have today because Haiti being a very vulnerable country, tripling the price of gas overnight would certainly not go well.

There was a lot of violent protests, people went to the street, reacted, they cut roads and really violent protests occurred. The gangs are using that now to ask-- they're saying they're blockading all of the gas until the prime minister resigns.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we have this rare opportunity to allow you to talk to the former Prime Minister of Haiti Laurent Lamothe. 212-433-WNYC is our phone number. Prime Minister, you may not know we've done many segments over a bunch of years on Haiti. You're in Miami. You know we have many Haitian Americans in the New York area as well and we'd love to take their calls. Haitian listeners or anyone with ties to Haiti, the phones are yours if you have a question or just something you want to say to Prime Minister Lamothe. 212-433-WNYC is our phone number, 212-433-9692.

Our lines are open for you our Haitian American listeners or anyone else with ties to Haiti, 212-433-WNYC. Six weeks into this fuel blockade of the capital by armed gangs, if you want to recommend something, if you want to ask a question, if you just want to vent, 212-433-9692. Prime Minister, should foreign troops be deployed in your opinion? The United Nations Security Council, I see, is considering some kind of international intervention.

Prime Minister: There is a consideration happening between countries that historically have helped Haiti in the security aspect. The US, Canada, and Mexico, are the main leading voices. Now, Haitians are split with the military intervention segment of it. I think, rather than calling it a military intervention, having assistance to train, equip and help enhance the police and the Haitian armed forces would be better received and accepted. Although Haitians are in a dire situation, but they are very susceptible, and they're very sensitive to military intervention, especially after the last one that happened.

My belief is an international special force to assist the police is inevitable and is necessary, but we have to avoid it. In the terms of reference and in the rules of engagement it's very important to avoid coining it a military intervention because it will not go well with the Haitian population at large.

Brian Lehrer: I understand.

Prime Minister: In terms of whether it's needed, yes, it is, the police assistance.

Brian Lehrer: Should have mentioned earlier that besides being former Prime Minister of Haiti, you are the author of the book, The Hands of the Prime Minister, and founder of the LSL World Initiative, a global development organization. I just want to give you that cred there, author of the book, The Hands of the Prime Minister, and founder of the LSL World Initiative, a global development office organization. To follow up on what you just said, how do you avoid the excesses and the failures of the past in international intervention in Haiti?

You're the second former head of state of Haiti who we've had on the show. Once upon a time, we had Mr. Aristide, at the time after the coup before he was reinstated. Of course, way back then the Clinton administration was portraying itself and probably earnestly trying to be a positive actor by sending US troops into Haiti and other things, but that per many, many, many, many Haitians did not go well. There has been this feeling that you were just referring to of occupation and plunder when outsiders have come in even in the name of doing something positive. How can a future presence be better?

Prime Minister: Well, learning from the past mistakes would be one, understanding the Haitian culture is two. The special force should be limited in scope and it should be focused on building and helping the Haitian forces do the job, rather than to substitute it from the force. I think that's a big mistake that was done the last time because the UN with multiple countries sent a host of different soldiers from different countries and sometimes that basically created more harm than good because there was a cholera epidemic that came as a result of that that killed 8,000 Haitians and infected 800,000 of us.

There was a bit of sour taste in Haitians' views. Now, how do you reconcile that is basically by focusing on the scope, training the police, and also, and I emphasize that this time not to make the mistake of 1994, which was leaving the country without a military. Now, the fact that there is only a civilian police and a very weak one, it's been proven that the police alone in Haiti cannot do the job. It's like any city in the US. When you have gangs and riots, when the riots get out of hand, well, what do you do? You don't call the police again. You call the National Guard to come in, provide a law and order. In Haiti, it is the same. Haiti, historically, we've had a very violent history. We've had a history that has been politically unstable, to say the truth. Also, it's important to have this dual force to deal with this new element, which is very strong and well-financed gangs. The gangs right now, if you just take what happened in the past 18 months, they've done about 1500 kidnappings and charging $20,000 per kidnapping. That's $30 million in their hands.

In Haiti, $30 million goes a long way into establishing themselves, buying favors, buying off their network, buying weapons, and things like that. That has to be stopped ASAP and at all costs. The police in the army can do it with support from any national special force.

Brian Lehrer: One thing the UN has already done, I understand, is to impose sanctions against gang members. What do those sanctions entail? Considering the decentralized nature of gang rule, I presume it's decentralized, can sanctions be effective.

Prime Minister: Well, this sanction sends a message that the international community now, they're on their radar. I think it sends a positive message in terms of a positive political message. Now, the sanctions to be effective it has to be accompanied on the ground with actions and actions targeting the gangs and putting them out of business. Now, I know it's a tricky, very, very tricky situation as well, and that's why probably it's taking some time to decipher and for that force to come simply because the gangs reside in heavily populated areas where hundreds of thousands of the poorest Haitians live, and sometimes it's difficult to distinguish who's a gang member and who's a member of the population.

So long as he drops the gun and he acts normal, they will blend in. It's not like El Salvador where they have tattoos and things like that. They're part of their population. That's going to be intelligence work that has to be done to identify who they are and to be able to translate the sanctions into actions underground. The underground action will be key to success into-- Also, disrupting their network. They have a very heavy money laundering network. They have a very strong network of gasoline contraband that they resell.

If you calculate, they made over $15 to $20 million only this year, and that is combined with the kidnapping money. This is a significant problem, and it's not undoable. It's just that you need good intelligence and strong actions and political will to do so. Now, in Haiti, there is also a perception that the international force would be supporting the current government, which is illegitimate. That's another layer of complications that has to be dealt with.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Marjorie in Garden City, you're on WNYC with the former Prime Minister of Haiti, Laurent Lamothe. Hello, Marjorie.

Marjorie: Hi. Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. First, we want to thank you for having served us well. The first question. Are you thinking of applying to become president again? The second question. What can we do now as Haitians living abroad to help out? Some of us have organizations that are well established here, and it's hard to get as established over there. What can we do to help as citizens of the country?

Prime Minister: Well, first of all, thank you for your comments. I appreciate them. The diaspora has a very, very, very, very important role to play, simply because you are the one representing over 50% of the GDP of the country. You're supporting families and keeping over, I would say, over 6 million Haitians alive. You have your word to say. Now, the first things first. I think what's important for the diaspora to understand is the rule in this particular [unintelligible 00:14:59] that the country is going through.

Talking to your local senators and congressmen here in the US and emphasizing that the security situation needs to be solved, elections need to be held, and a new constitution where the diaspora will have its full rights restored is key to the immediate future development of our country. That's what I would recommend because the diaspora, there is over 3 million Haitians living in the US, so you are a powerful force, a powerful voice.

Just needs to be a little bit less fragmented and more united and pushing for the agenda of pushing for security and having certainly a legitimate government. Now, as far as the question, I'm going to run, I get that question every day, and my answer is, I've done it before. I give it my all, and I'm not interested in going back, but I am interested in seeing my country doing well and getting out of this mess that it's in right now.

Brian Lehrer: This is WNYC FM, HD, and AM, New York, WNJT FM 88.1, Trenton, WNJP 88.5, Sussex, WNJY 89.3, Netcon, and WNJO 90.3, Toms River. We are New York and New Jersey Public Radio and live streaming at wnyc.org. Few minutes left with the former Prime Minister of Haiti Laurent Lamothe, and then Siddhartha Mukherjee will be our next guest, the poet surprise winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.

I know many of that book and the Ken Burns documentary that was made from it. Same with his other acclaimed book, The Gene, and she's got a new one called The Song of the Cell. Dr. Mukherjee coming up in a few minutes, but let's take another phone call for former Prime Minister, Lamothe, and it's George in Hempstead. You're on WNYC. Hi, George.

George: Hi. Thank you for having me, and I appreciate your program. I appreciate what you are doing. For former Prime Minister, Lamothe, I would like to say to you, you are part of the problem. Your political party, [unintelligible 00:17:30] had its own game. You come from the elite. Let me finish. You come from the elite. Even the American government that works with the Haitian elite has called it the most repugnant elite that he knows.

The situation in Haiti is a direct result of the gap that exists between the bourgeoisie and the general population. The bourgeoisie takes everything, every resource that exist in Haiti for itself. You are the prime minister of Martelly, one of the most corrupt regime in Haiti that caused the situation that we are experiencing now. You had your own gang. How can you talk about restoring democracy constitution in all this crap now? This is not the time to talk about these things. The session that should be imposed to be imposed on the bourgeoisie in Haiti. I'm not for the gang, but understand why they exist and who are responsible for their existence in Haiti.

Brian Lehrer: George, thank you very much. I will say with due respect, Prime Minister, that we have a number of callers who are saying that the elite in Haiti, including you, are part of the problem. How would you look back on your own time as Prime Minister for two years around a decade ago, and your resignation amid many protests at that time and the larger picture, though, that the caller is painting of the bourgeoisie or the elite, he used both words, and the mass of people in Haiti who are suffering?

Prime Minister: Well, I think it's a legitimate point to address. To George's point, there is a couple of corrections that have to be made. Number one, when I was there, the records speak for itself, there was zero gangs, there was zero kidnappings. We managed to bring it to a zero-kidnapping level. People could come and go as they wish in the country. I don't think that anybody that's fair could ever compare to what's going on today to during the time that I was the Prime Minister because we came in being actually the second safest country in the Caribbean. Facts do matter in this case and numbers do matter. That's the number one point. The second point is, of course, there has been a collective failure of the elites, and I think that's undeniable. There has been a collective failure of the political parties. That's a fact. This is why, of course, we're in the situation that we are today.

I don't think it can be pinned on one person, one group, one party. I think it's been collective failure and collective failure that have led us to the disaster where it's at today. However, within the failure, you have to look at the facts. During my government, since you asked the question, we had for the first time in many years foreign investment coming, jobs being created. We had a growth of over 4% in the economy, which now basically we've been in a recession ever since, and we had security.

Now, we're talking about a 2 1/2 period of time. Haiti is a 20-year has been systemic failure. Now we can look at the areas in the past and fix them. Now, the elites, you spoke about the bourgeoisie, the elites in the country. I think, to me, we can pinpoint who is responsible. Certainly, we haven't had enough investment from the private sector in Haiti. We could have more, but ultimately it's a collective failure. I think one can have more blame.

Certainly, the elite has its lion's share of the blame, but it's a collective failure.

Where do we go from now and how do we fix that? The elites also, they're Haitians, the people are Haitian, the diaspora, they're Haitian. I think that the spirit of division as well has led us to where we are today. I think that the issues of the gangs haven't been brought, because, under my government, there was not one gang. George who called I wish he stayed still on the call to admit that. The gangs have been created since the 1990. We've had all types of different forms of gangs and we've had all types of different forms of weakening the police and the armed forces and canceling the armed forces, and that has led to where we are today.

When you look at Haiti, and I'm sure as a foreigner, you look at it and you're like, "This country is a mess, and it's always problems reporting." You know why it starts, because the people, among themselves, there is not a collective, I would say agreement as to-- There is too much division within the society, within the political party, within the elite. There is divisions everywhere. Now you're trying to get a consensus to move it forward, and then you have people also keep dividing us. With this division, it's going to be hard to move the country forward. It's not going to be a positive outcome, for sure.

This is why it's important, amongst the chaos, to try this positive and to try to see an outcome to this. The outcome is what we've been discussing today. Now we can dwell about the past. That's fine, and see where the mistakes are. Yes, there are. You know what, we need to focus on today and tomorrow and try to fix it by learning from the mistakes of yesterday.

Brian Lehrer: Former Prime Minister of Haiti, Laurent Lamothe. He is also the author of the book, The Hands of the Prime Minister and Founder of LSL World Initiative, a global development organization. Prime Minister, thank you for your time today and best of luck to you and everyone in Haiti at this difficult time.

Prime Minister: Thank you, Brian. I appreciate it.

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