a1573: Two years after unsolved murder of influential journalist, widow denounces Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

FROM: Kevin Pina       <kpinbox@hotmail.com>



Two years after unsolved murder of influential journalist, widow denounces
Haitian authorities
Wed Apr 3,11:56 AM ET
By MICHAEL NORTON, Associated Press Writer

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Michele Montas has worn black since gunmen shot and
killed her husband Jean Dominique, one of Haiti's most influential
journalists, two years ago Wednesday.


His murder remains unsolved, and Montas holds the government of President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide partially responsible.

"I won't stop wearing black till justice has been done," Montas, a
55-year-old graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism in New York, said
Tuesday. She has been running Radio Haiti Inter since Dominique's death
April 3, 2000.

An outspoken advocate for change for 40 years, the 69-year-old Radio Haiti
commentator made many enemies before he and radio station guard Jean-Claude
Louissaint were gunned down in the station courtyard.

Montas accuses no particular group or individual of the assassination.

But "Jean was killed under the democratic regime he had fought to establish,
not under the dictatorial regimes he had fought to overthrow. This clearly
indicates the complicity of the powers that be," she said, denouncing
Aristide, the Senate, and the judicial system.

In January, the mandate of investigating Judge Claudy Gassant, who had been
on the Dominque case for 16 months, was not renewed and he went into
self-imposed exile in the United States, saying he feared for his life.

Jacques Maurice, a spokesman for Aristide's office, said Gassant's mandate
was recently renewed, but it was unclear whether Gassant would be willing to
return to Haiti.

"The Dominque case will be confided to Judge Gassant, and he will be given
the means to continue the investigation," Maurice said. Gassant was the
second investigator in the case, after predecessor Judge Jean-Senat Fleury
quit for security reasons after just five months.

Montas hailed Gassant's renewed mandate as a "positive step," but remained
cautious.

"For two years promises have been made and broken," she said. "But the
renewal proves pressure at home and abroad works, and that it should be
intensified so that justice can finally be done."

Montas said her husband never lost faith in the popular movement that first
brought Aristide to power in 1990 and that resisted the army in the bloody
1991-94 period of military-backed rule.

But after U.S. troops restored Aristide to power in 1994, Dominique had
second thoughts about the Lavalas Family party Aristide set up.

By the time he was killed, Dominique, who was never a party member, "had
begun to openly oppose the deterioration of Lavalas," Montas said.

Dominique was killed in the turbulent period that preceded flawed May 2000
local and legislative elections that were swept by Lavalas and denounced as
rigged by the opposition.

Although some 100 people have been questioned in the case, the political
influence of some suspects has impeded the investigation.

In January, the Haitian Senate refused to lift the parliamentary immunity of
pro-Aristide Sen. Dany Toussaint, with whom Dominique had a dispute months
before he was killed. Had the immunity been lifted, Toussaint could have
been indicted in the case.

Amnesty International on Tuesday criticized the Haitian government, saying
the Dominique investigation "has been hampered by obstacle after obstacle,
in effect denying effective remedy for the crime."

It has "become symptomatic of nearly all the human rights issues plaguing
Haiti today," Amnesty said, questioning the government's commitment to the
rule of law.

In December, a pro-Aristide grass-roots group allegedly hacked provincial
journalist Brignol Lindor to death. No one has been brought to trial.

Later that month, commandos attacked the National Palace in what Aristide
has called an attempt to assassinate him. The opposition said the event was
staged for an excuse to clamp down on dissent.

After the attack, rampaging Aristide activists burned down opposition party
headquarters and threatened at least a dozen journalists.

Subsequently, 15 fled Haiti fearing for their lives. This year, some 15
incidents of government harassment of journalists have been reported.



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