Tuesday, March 7, 2023 in the morning, Prime Minister Ariel Henry attended the celebration of the solemn requiem mass celebrated in the Saint-Pierre church in Pétion-Ville, in memory of the late Prime Minister Gérard Latortue who died on February 27 at his residence in Florida, at the age of 88 and took the opportunity to pay him a last tribute.

Intervention by Prime Minister Ariel Henry :

"The tribute that we pay today to Prime Minister Gérard Latortue constitutes, for us, a duty of gratitude, a testimony of admiration and respect for the man and the immense work that he bequeaths to our generation and to posterity.

Prime Minister Latortue, through his perfectionist vision and his bold reforms, was a man of intellectual synthesis, an enlightened thinker. An educator of an exceptional class, a university professor whose intelligence, competence and strength of conviction were unanimously respected and brought honor to our country, he symbolized so well what unites us and brings us together, beyond our differences and our diversities.

We recognize that he was a man of duty, an indefatigable, a faithful and loyal servant of the State, a man of action, a rectilinear patriot. He possessed, to a high degree, that intelligence capable of understanding everything, that natural elegance made up of delicacy and proven moral uprightness.

Gérard Latortue has dedicated a life of dedication, sacrifice and pragmatism, both here and abroad. His undeniable merits come from the fact that he had to overcome the many daily turpitudes of Haitian political life by favoring the interests of the Republic over anything else.

The Nation and the Republic lost in him a model administrator and an outstanding visionary. He was a brilliant intellectual, arousing in all esteem, consideration and sympathy.

I reiterate the affectionate expression of the heartfelt condolences of the entire nation and of the highest authorities of the country, particularly, to his courageous and sympathetic now widow, to his children and to his bereaved family."

See also :

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-38986-icihaiti-notice-3-days-of-national-mourning-in-memory-of-prime-minister-gerard-latortue.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-38950-haiti-flash-death-of-former-prime-minister-gerard-r-latortue.html

IH/ iciHaiti