15249: Hermantin: Former Aristide loyalist is now a leading voice for change in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Fri, Apr. 04, 2003

Former Aristide loyalist is now a leading voice for change in Haiti
By JACQUELINE CHARLES
jcharles@herald.com

She is a prominent Haitian journalist who has made a name for herself
attacking the very regime she once supported.

And as one of Haiti's more well-known radio journalists, Nancy Roc isn't shy
about speaking her mind.

Not about the endangered plight of Haitian journalists.

Not about the dismal failures, as she sees them, of Haitian President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his Lavalas Family Party.

And certainly not about ''the profound revolt'' she feels when she sees the
current conditions people in Haiti are living in: misery, corruption,
destruction of the environment.

''I do not have any more hope,'' says Roc, who served as Aristide's press
secretary in the early 1990s and has since become one of his harshest
critics. 'People ask, `Nancy if you do not have any more hope, then why do
you fight?' ''

The answer, says Roc, is simple: Haiti needs more courageous souls.

''If each of us do half of our duty to that country, we would not be in this
state,'' says Roc, who is in South Florida at the invitation of the
Weston-based Haitian Resource Development Foundation to promote her new
book, Les Grands Dossiers de Métropolis (Large Files of Metropolis).

Roc, 40, believes one person who did his duty was Jean Dominique. An
internationally known Haitian journalist, Dominique was killed three years
ago Thursday after being gunned down outside his Radio Haiti Inter station
in Port-au-Prince. Most private radio stations in Haiti suspended newscasts
Thursday to commemorate Dominique's death.

CONSTANT THREAT

Roc says Dominique's death and the failure of a recent government indictment
to say who ordered it serve as a reminder of the constant threat Haitian
journalists face.

The book, written in French, is a compilation of 20 of Roc's commentaries,
all of which appeared as topics on Métropolis, the 90-minute French-language
radio show she hosts on Port-au-Prince-based Radio Métropole. Written from
the perspective of a Haitian intellectual, the pieces are highly critical of
Haiti's political and social conditions and relay Roc's disappointment in
the Aristide government, the Lavalas party and even the Haitian people.

She will have book signings from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday at Sant La Haitian
Community Center, 5000 Biscayne Blvd., and from 6 to 9 p.m. Sunday at
Broward County Main Library, 100 S. Andrews Ave., sixth floor.

''Haiti is a country that is totally disintegrating,'' Roc says. ``2004 is a
very important year for us. It's a year of challenges and pain if we do what
we have to do -- search for our real identity. I don't think we have cut the
abscess -- racism, corruption -- that came from 1804.''

Born in Port-au-Prince, Roc grew up in Africa, where her father worked as a
surgeon in several countries. She returned to Haiti at age 23. She has been
educated in France and the United States, and holds a fine-arts degree from
the University of Arizona.

HER CALLING

Journalism, she said, is more than a job. It's a vocation, which she chose
because of her love for people and passion in helping good win over evil.

Like many Haitian journalists, she has been the victim of harassment and
attacks, including an incident in April 2001 when someone ran her car off
the road, leaving her with 18 stitches. She alleges the culprit was a
government official.

''I choose to stay in my country,'' says Roc, who has had to hire two
security guards. 'I will not get in this game of leaving. We need some
people to dare to say `No' and not accept the unacceptable.''

Still, she doesn't blame those who have left. According to the Paris-based
watchdog group Reporters Without Borders, 29 journalists have fled Haiti
since 2000.

''Being a journalist in Haiti right now is one of the most dangerous
professions. It is very, very dangerous,'' Roc says. ``Once the media is in
danger, the whole society is in danger.''









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