12541: Kidnapped Haitian journalist found beaten (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Michael Deibert

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, July 17 (Reuters) Israel Jacky Cantave, an
investigative reporter kidnapped on his way home from work, was found on
Tuesday night, beaten and bound with duct tape in an abandoned lot in the
Haitian capital, local police said.
     Cantave, a reporter for Radio Caraibes, was seized along with his
cousin by a group of armed men late on Monday night as he was driving home
shortly after completing his radio program. His car was found abandoned.
     Local residents stumbled across the pair and alerted police, who
transported them to a police station, and to a hospital, where they
received treatment for cuts and bruises.
     A source with the Delmas police, speaking on condition of anonymity,
said that several arrests had been made in the abduction.
     "I think that this is a victory for the Haitian press," said Guy
Delva, Secretary General of the Association for Haitian Journalists after
visiting Cantave in the hospital.
     "We think that the mobilization of journalists and their supporters
has paid off. The attention is focused on this problem and the criminals
know they cannot act with impunity," he said.
     Cantave had been receiving death threats recently, family members and
radio personnel said, with some speculating that the threats were tied to
his work in the Cite Soleil and La Saline slum areas of the capital.
     Both areas are zones of heavy drug traffic and gang activity. A
Canadian journalist reporting from the area was shot and wounded and a
reporter for local radio Haiti Inter was allegedly beaten by police in the
same neighborhood last year.
     Groups from several impoverished neighborhoods, including cite soleil,
held spontaneous demonstrations to celebrate Cantave's release.
     Earlier in the day, Haitian National Police spokesman Jean-Dady Simeon
said, "We will mobilize all elements to work on this case because the
government is determined to ensure the security of journalists."
      Two high-profile murders of journalists in recent years have caused
human rights and press freedom organizations to condemn what they consider
a "climate of impunity" to develop in the country.
     Jean Leopold Dominique, director of Radio Haiti Inter, was gunned down
along with his station's caretaker on April 3, 2000. Brignol Lindor, news
director of Radio Echo 2000, was hacked to death by a pro-government mob on
Dec. 3 of last year in the provincial town of Petit Goave.
     Two judges investigating the Dominique murder resigned, claiming they
received death threats, and two material witnesses were murdered.
     There has been one arrest in the Lindor killing, but no trial date has
been set as yet.