14873: Sanba: Re:14836: (Chamberlain) Haiti's anti-drug chief charged with traffi cking (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: sanba@juno.com

Assuming it is true that along with five of his accomplices, Evans Brillant was arrested [The director of Haitian Police anti-drug task force was arrested after he had his men block off a stretch of highway in the capital to allow a Colombian plan carrying about a tonne of cocaine to land] that by itself should be indicative that law against narco-trafficking is being reinforced in Haiti as much as possible. Shouldn't it? We would wish to read such comment from Michael Diegbert, as an eminent editorialist from a high profile agency.

Deceptively enough the following is the shifting of subject he had to offer instead:
 [The arrest came on the same day two rumored drug kingpins in the affluent Port-au-Prince suburb of Petionville were shot dead by masked men allegedly wearing T-shirts and jackets bearing police insignias.]

Obviously the arrest of an influent police Officer would not fulfill his goal. It takes another story and another direction. Our eminent reporter thought he found this direction through the above quotation. Except that it has to pass the test:
Why would the police bear masks? Did it become unlawful for the police to subdue, arrest, or eventually shoot back in self-defense cases? Or was it the task to imply that the police were themselves part of a rival gang? Even then wouldn't the wearing of T-shits bearing police insignias raise suspicions?
Why should the victims be RUMORED DRUG KINGPINS? Shouldn't the reporter either do his homework and be able to state who the victims are or thoroughly investigate his source? In fact it is feasible that stories be based on witnesses. The question is: are they credible or not? Why is it that the reporter could not be sure of his witnesses since they have been following the action from the start to the end: from the busy street of Petion- Ville where [The masked men dragged the two, Hector Kitan and Herman Charles, off] to the [home of a woman they knew, where they killed them in a hail of automatic weapon fire]. The witnesses consulted with should know what they were talking about! Why then this precautionary measure of defining the victims as “rumored drug kingpins”?

Furthermore, one would expect a query for investigation or the police's reaction, or even a finger pointing at the government as usual that would at least appear as a pressure on the government to keep its eyes wide-open. After all, we know that the culprit is not the Police per se! Unfortunately, construction is not the purpose, here. The reporter is targeting gullible and/or bias readers, who won’t really care about yellowish journalism. That explains the end of the story through a reinforcement of the “oldies”. One does not even have a leg to stand on.  Read this:
[U.S. officials said two weeks ago that Haiti -- along with Myanmar and
Guatemala -- had failed to take sufficient action to fight drug trafficking
in the past year.]
Such declaration had been proved irrelevant at best since the US government not only has the right to order its boats in Haitian Seas and its planes in Haitian Sky for patrolling purposes, but it blocked the dirt cheap money (barely two-thirds of one million dollars compared to the billions unsuccessfully spent in U.S.A to starve off the market itself) earmarked for such operations by the government of Haiti.
To its credit, though, the reporting has acknowledged that “President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has denied the charges”, but it avoided to remind how puzzled the President was that all the patrolling can offer as a result is the prevention of boat-people to reach Miami’s shore and a pathetic failure to prevent entry of drugs in Haiti. On the contrary, the reporting showed such an urgency to bury the fact with the equally negatively suggestive list of officials whose visas have been suspended by the State Department. It did that without even mentioning of course, the vigorous protest from those officials. Isn’t that subjective journalism? Why?

Why should the arrest of a high profile Police Officer for wrongdoings (assuming it’s true) become an occasion to unleash negative profiles when it comes to Haiti?