14042: Edouard- News -4 Haitian journalists hiding from pro-Aristide gang (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Felix Edouard <loveayiti@hotmail.com>


Posted on Mon, Dec. 09, 2002
Miami Herald


4 Haitian journalists hiding from pro-Aristide gang
Plight of group underlines peril facing profession across nation
BY MARIKA LYNCH
mlynch@herald.com

PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Esdras Mondelus named his station Radio Etincelle,
literally Radio Spark, because he wanted his broadcasts to illuminate
people's lives. But the light has gone out.

The station's four reporters, plus three others, are in hiding here, living
in fear.

Two weeks ago, the so-called Cannibal Army, a gang that supports President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, went hunting for them at their station in the
northern town of Gonaves. The journalists jumped a wall and hid in the local
bishop's house until police escorted them to the capital.

Meanwhile, their headquarters was torched.

The group represents some of the 64 Haitian journalists threatened over the
past two years, says the Haitian Journalists Association, which filed a
complaint on their behalf to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission. In
other cases, journalists were beaten by police, attacked by protesting
university students, and one says he was assaulted by members of the
presidential guard, according to association documents.

In Haiti, where nearly 85 percent of the population can't read, radio is
king -- a powerful and often feared force.

DANGERS REAL

Reporters risk their lives, or even lose it like Jean Dominique, the popular
news director at Radio Haiti Inter who was shot to death in his station's
courtyard.

A year later in 2001, another reporter, Brignol Lindor, was hacked to death
with a machete after the local mayor denounced him.

''You have armed groups linked to the government constantly threatening
journalists. What's worse is that the government often doesn't make sure
these people are punished. That's the most serious threat to press
freedom,'' said Joseph Guyler Delva, head of the association.

The government realizes that ''some journalists are being persecuted for
voicing criticisms,'' said presidential spokesman Luc Especa. The violence
is part of the political polarization in Haiti right now, Especa said.

''The government is doing the best it can to establish order and to urge
everyone to remain calm,'' Especa said.

Delva concedes there is a measure of press freedom in today's Haiti. For
example, he said, unlike Haiti under the Duvalier regime, reporters can
criticize the government and not worry about officials shutting down the
station. Yet, he said, there are still grave problems.

GANG'S BASE

The journalists in hiding are from Gonaves, a northern port city four hours
by car from the capital.

It is the headquarters for the Cannibal Army, a pro-Aristide gang led by
Amiot Metayer, who escaped from jail in August.

The government refuses to rearrest him.

Reporters at Radio Etincelle said they've been getting threats since their
live coverage of a protest in Cap-Hatien Nov. 17, which turned out to be the
largest anti-Aristide march the country has seen.

So on Nov. 21, the crew was in the streets of Gonaves again, covering a
student march. Word spread that the Cannibal Army was after them, Mondelus
said.

The reporters went back to the station and opened up the telephone lines to
get callers' reaction to the day's political events.

Soon after, members of the Cannibal Army ran toward the station, and seven
reporters -- including three that work for other stations but use the office
-- jumped the station's wall. They hopped on the back of motorcycle taxis,
common in Haiti's countryside, and went to the bishop's house.

''We thought we were already dead,'' said Mondelus, 31, Radio Etincelle
owner and executive director.

The reporters say they cowered in the courtyard for two hours until the
bishop finally let them in.

The bishop feared reprisals for hiding them. At one point, church leadership
wanted the reporters to leave, but the head of Haiti's Organization of
American States mission intervened.

The reporters stayed for seven days, eating meals of spaghetti brought by a
church member, praying they wouldn't be found. They called their wives,
their mothers, every day.

The mother of reporter Jean-Robert François was in tears. Michelin François
told her son and local radio that she'd received threats. We know where your
son is; we're going to kill him, the callers said.

''Try not to cry too much,'' Jean-Robert François said, trying to console
his mother. But she too had to leave her home and go into hiding.

The Haitian Journalists Association called the police, which sent three
high-level officers on a rescue mission to pick up the group by helicopter.
The aircraft was supposed to whisk them to safety Friday, Nov. 29, but
couldn't take off. It needed to be serviced.

The reporters had to move, though: Their hide-out at the bishop's house had
been discovered.

They went to a hotel, but thugs came and started firing outside. Delva, of
the journalists association, was on the phone with Haiti's head of police at
the time.

''We could see people from our room, running, falling down, trying to
flee,'' Delva said. ``The journalists panicked. They had nowhere to run.''

REFUGE IN CAPITAL

The police immediately sent two jeeps, which took the reporters to Haiti's
second largest city, Cap-Hatien. There they boarded a small plane for the
capital, where they continue to be in hiding.

The reporters want to go back to work but say they won't until the
government meets some conditions.

They want Haiti's police to arrest the gang leader Metayer and take away the
Cannibal Army's weapons. They haven't heard an answer.

''We're still waiting,'' Mondelus said.





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