#3103: Gunmen Kill Haiti Radio Journalist (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From:nozier@tradewind.net

Gunmen Kill Haiti Radio Journalist 
By Michael Norton Associated Press Writer
  Monday, April 3, 2000; 10:14 a.m. EDT

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti ?? Two gunmen shot and killed Haiti's most
prominent radio journalist as he pulled into the courtyard of his      
radio station for a Monday morning newscast. Jean Dominique, who was in
his 60s, died at the Haitian Community Hospital in suburban Petionville,
where Radio Haiti Inter in located.  A station worker also was killed in
the attack, said Radio Haiti journalist Assad Volcy. There were no
immediate arrests. The attack came amid a wave of insecurity and
scattered violence last  week in Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital, as
Haitian officials try to organize elections to install a new parliament.
No date has been set. In the 1970s, Dominique spearheaded a free-speech
movement against the dictatorial regime of Jean-Claude Duvalier.
Duvalier shut his station down in 1980, and Dominique fled into exile.
He returned after a popular uprising toppled Duvalier in 1986. 
Dominique's station was closed down again in 1991 when the army      
ousted then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whom Dominique          
followed into exile in the United States. A U.S.-led intervention
restored democracy and Aristide to power in 1994. Dominique was a close
ally of Aristide and his successor,President Rene Preval.  The
acid-tongued Dominique had often received death threats. His       
enemies ranged from far-right partisans of the 1991 army coup to    
some far-left supporters of Aristide's fragmented populist movement. 

"The only weapon I have is my journalist's profession, my microphone,
and my unshakable faith as a militant for change, veritable change,"
Dominique said in an Oct. 17 radio editorial.