a932: (a901) RSF in Haiti: Chamberlain replies to Pina (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

> kevin pina <kpinbox@hotmail.com wrote:


> I am absolutely certain that RSF's "mission", if there indeed was one in
> 1993, did not receive the same wide and substantial press coverage in
Haiti
> as it did during their last "mission." That's the difference between real
> dictatorships and campaigns that create imaginary dictatorships for
selfish
> political and economic motives.


Kevin, please allow me to lay to rest your doubts about my assertion that a

1993 mission took place.  I was part of that mission (as was another
Corbetteer,
Jean-Michel Caroit), so I am quite certain it happened, and also what took
place,
who we spoke to, where we went and what local media coverage we got.

The dozens of journalists we met (a few of them in hiding, but most of them
not)
were very glad of our solidarity in their day-to-day battle to get as much
news out
as they could of the repression.  We denounced the dictatorship's attacks
on the
media on both the privately-owned Tele-Haiti and the state-owned TNH and
radio
stations reported on our visit.  Of course, we escaped harm for doing this
because
we were foreigners.  But the Haitian journalists were only too delighted
that this
enabled us to speak out and speak up for them.

The most recent RSF visit was by the RSF secretary-general (who was not on
the
1993 mission, or on another one last year).  I'm sure you can understand
that after
the spectacular and still-unexplained murder of the country's leading
journalist
and, only a few weeks before the mission, the beheading of another, many
Haitians
were more than a little concerned about the direction being taken by the
supporters
of the "imaginary dictatorship" you refer to.  Those events, plus the freer
media scene
than in 1993 and the presence of RSF's blunt-spoken sec-gen., ensured
"good"
coverage of the visit.  How would you have the media present the murders of
Jean
Dominique and Brignol Lindor?  Unfortunate victims of The Glorious
Revolution?


        Greg Chamberlain