Former Haitian Prime Minister Gérard Latortue remembered for his service to country

Former Haitian Prime Minister Gérard Latortue was remembered Tuesday as a fervent optimist who loved his homeland and approached his job of governing it with the belief that everyone had a contribution to make.

The one-time United Nations diplomat who twice came out of retirement to devote himself to public service — once in 1988 to serve as minister of foreign affairs before a coup sent him fleeing into exile and again in 2004 to lead an interim Haitian government for 27 months as head of the government — died on Sunday, Feb. 27, in the middle of the night at his home in Boca Raton. He was 88.

He spent the last week of his life, his children said, with family and friends, who were with him on the evening before his death. Many of them were present at the service, as was the diplomat Juan Gabriel Valdés, Chile’s current ambassador to the United States, who served as the special representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations and chief of the United Nations’ peacekeeping mission in Haiti, known as MINUSTAH during Latortue’s tenure.

Also present were former Haitian prime ministers Joseph Jouthe, Jean-Henry Céant and Jack Guy Lafontant, all of whom served under assassinated President Jovenel Moïse, and Laurent Lamothe, who served as foreign minister and prime minister in the administration of Michel Martelly.

Connoisseur of Haitian history, former Prime Minister Gérard Latortue dead at 88

Haiti’s current government was represented by the country’s ambassador to the United States, Edmond Bocchit, and members of Prime Minister Ariel Henry’s Cabinet. Henry, among a group of seven who selected Latortue to govern the country from a field of applicants 19 years ago, wasn’t in attendance. He stayed back in Port-au-Prince and attended a Mass in Latortue’s memory at Eglise St. Pierre in Petionville.

During a tribute, Henry described Latortue as “an enlightened thinker” and an exceptional educator and college professor “whose intelligence, skill, and strength of conviction were unanimously respected and brought honor to our country. It symbolized so well what unites us and brings us together, beyond our differences and our diversities.”

In South Florida, Latortue’s family was joined by former ministers who served in his government and longtime friends — some of whom served as pallbearers — and scores of others as they remembered his gregarious charm and infectious laugh while celebrating his life during a funeral Mass at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Boca Raton.

“He helped to unite the country,” the Rev. Dominic Toan Tran said, as he remembered Latortue’s sense of duty, and paid homage to his wife of 56 years, Marlene, and his children and grandchildren.

Daughters Gaielle, Stephanie and Alexia eulogized their father, the latter saying at one point, “we will not attempt to give our version of this chapter” in his life, a reference to his 2004-2006 rule.

“Suffice to say, he approached this chapter as others, with heart and mind, with rigor ... with vision and foresight, with teamwork, with energy, with transparency and with purpose and determination,” Alexia Latortue, an assistant secretary at the Treasury for international markets in the Biden administration, said. “He was a man of integrity and he had the courage to act in alignment with his principles.”

Born in Gonaives, the city of Haitian independence, Latortue saw his career take him to Africa, Austria and to Haiti. But his rise to international fame came when he was plucked from retirement in 2004 to lead his homeland back on the path to democracy as it was overrun with gangs after the departure of its democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, amid a bloody coup following years of opposition protests and demands for his resignation.

A communicator, he arrived on the tarmac flanked by a team of mostly technocrats and full of promises to restore security and to hold elections. Over 27 months, he would strengthen Haiti’s finances, increase government revenues, get rid of no-show employees known as “zombies” and launch corruption investigations into members of the former administration.

On his way out of the door, he would publish the Livre Blanc, or white paper, covering all his administration had done between March 9, 2004, when he assumed power and June 9, 2006, when he left. The 545-page document became a reference work.

As he departed the country, he told the Miami Herald, “The people will need time to realize what has been done.”

On Tuesday, his brother Paul Latortue, a retired university professor who lives in Puerto Rico, said he believes that Haitians have done just that. It’s not just because of the current chaotic state of Haiti, which is far worse than when his big brother arrived or left after turning the reins of power over to an elected president, René Préval.

“By the time of his death, most people in Haiti have realized that he did a good job,” Paul said of the late leader, whose casket was draped with a Haitian flag. “It wasn’t clear for them at the beginning because they didn’t know him. But he has left several good legacies.”

One of them, Paul said, was the 2006 presidential elections that brought Préval to power and led to a period of relative stability, under the gaze of a United Nations peacekeeping force before the country’s devastating Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake and presidential elections upended everything.

“The guy who came out as president was the guy the majority voted for,” Paul Latortue said in reference to Préval, then added about his brother. “He did not try to influence the results of the elections.”

To further honor his legacy, the family asked that in lieu of flowers, a contribution gift be made to the Gérard R. Latortue Scholarship Fund to support a student from Haiti or of Haitian descent in his or her studies at the Fletcher School at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. Donors can specify “Latortue Scholarship” either under “designation” or in the check memo after making checks payable to “Trustees of Tufts College” and mailing it to The Fletcher School, Development Office, Tufts University, 160 Packard Ave., Medford, MA 02155-7082