18135: Blanchet: Haiti: A Lonely Search For Justice (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Max Blanchet <MaxBlanchet@worldnet.att.net>


 A Lonely Search For Justice

 By Ron Howell - New York Newsday Staff Writer
January 24, 2004, 5:17 PM EST

 Michele Montas has traveled a long way since she was homecoming queen at
the
University of Maine in 1965.

 She became a journalist, returned to her native Haiti and married a
crusading
 radio announcer.

 Now Montas is on a solitary quest to get Haiti to prosecute and punish
those
 who assassinated her husband, Jean Dominique, as he was about to begin the
 station's morning news broadcast nearly four years ago.

 Her tale is a lonely search for justice.

 "Beyond that," Montas says, "there is a love story, a very strong one."

 She recounted that story in a recent interview, and does so in "The
 Agronomist," a documentary being considered for an Oscar nomination. Final
selections will be announced on Tuesday.

 The documentary captures the mostly tragic sweep of Haiti's modern history
 through Dominique's life, from his privileged childhood to his journalistic
 campaign against corruption and human rights abuses.

 These days, Montas' greatest hope is that thousands will see the Jonathan
 Demme film when it is released for general viewing in April, and they will
 pressure Haiti to conduct a serious investigation into the Dominique case.

 "If we can't find justice in the courts of Haiti, then we have to find it
in
 the court of public opinion," Montas, 57, said at her Upper East Side
 residence, where she is living in exile and working for the United Nations.

 Montas earned her master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate
 School of Journalism in 1969, but soon after returning to Haiti in 1972,
she would learn how risky the reporting business was.

 Then in her early 20s, Montas fell in love with a charismatic radio
announcer
 who, like her, came from the mulatto upper classes. She and Dominique, 17
 years older than she, shared a passion for movies, and in fact met at a
theater.
 More ominously, they shared a desire to end decades of abuses suffered by
 Haiti's poor.

 An agronomist, or agricultural expert, who had spent his younger years
 working with peasants, Dominique valued Montas for her formal training in
 journalism. She began working with him at Radio Haiti Inter, a station he
had recently  purchased, and they began living together.

 Angry over the couple's populist newscasts, henchmen of dictator
Jean-Claude
 Duvalier laid siege to the station in 1980, torturing a staffer and causing
 Montas and Dominique to flee for their lives.

 In exile in New York City, their love affair deepened and they married in
 1983 at City Hall. "Jean was extremely idealistic," Montas recalled last
week. "I
 used to call him Don Quixote, but what he was fighting was stronger than
 windmills."

 Montas and her Don Quixote returned to their parched nation in the sun in
 1986 after Duvalier gave up power and moved to France, and they quickly
became  enamored of a Catholic priest who seemed fearless in his demand for
justice.

 Jean-Bertrand Aristide's election as president in 1990 was "a tremendous
 moment of hope for Jean," Michele says in "The Agronomist."

 But the moment was brief.

 The husband and wife team went into a second exile in New York in 1991,
after
 soldiers overthrew Aristide and began a bloody campaign of terror against
his
 supporters. Three years later they followed Aristide back to Haiti when he
 was restored to power by U.S. troops.

 By most accounts, Aristide changed as the years passed, tolerating, even
 appointing, politicians linked to the old Duvalier regime.

 Back at his radio station, Dominique began to rail against corruption he
saw
 in Aristide's Lavalas party. In one eerie recording before his death, the
 agronomist-turned-journalist complained about threats from Dany Toussaint,
a
 former top military officer and Lavalas politician, who today is a senator.
 Dominique suggested he might be killed by Toussaint loyalists. In truth,
Dominique  made many enemies of left-wingers, right-wingers and
businesspeople. The list of those who might have wanted him dead was long,
his wife acknowledges.

 On the morning of April 3, 2000, as he walked through the doors of Radio
 Haiti Inter, Dominique, 70, was shot seven times by a gunman. A security
guard
 also was killed. Montas, arriving in her own car minutes later, saw the
carnage.

 Days later Montas took Dominique's cremated remains to the fertile
Artibonite
 Valley, where he was adored by peasant farmers, and poured his ashes into
the
 river. Then she went back to work, starting each morning by playing an
 audiotape of Dominique's voice saying, "Bonjour, Michele." She would
answer, "Bonjour, Jean," and announce the number of days elapsed since the
killing.

 She reported the news and she criticized Aristide and the Lavalas party for
 not demanding a serious investigation into her husband's murder.

 On Christmas Day 2002, Montas' bodyguard was fatally shot by assassins
 minutes after he dropped her off at her home. Last February, she succumbed
to
 threats against her and her staff and closed the station, fleeing once
again to New
 York.

 About three weeks after Montas' departure, Haitian Justice officials
 announced indictments of six men. But critics say those men were street
criminals who were almost certainly acting on orders. Authorities released
three of the men on a legal technicality and a fourth escaped from prison
three weeks ago.

 "Since the beginning of this investigation the Haitian government has shown
 no willingness to deeply investigate the case and find the authors," said
 Carlos Lauria, a program coordinator for the New York-based Committee to
Protect Journalists.

 A Haitian Justice official told Newsday that the High Court of Justice is
 reviewing the case.

 "After the decisions are presented the judicial system will continue to
move
 the case forward in the pursuit of justice," said Privat Precil,
 director-general of the Ministry of Justice, in an e-mail statement.

 Montas, who lives alone but has two brothers in the New York area, is
working
 these days at an administrative job at the United Nations. Seven other
Radio
 Haiti Inter employees also are in exile.

 Some say Montas' search for justice is hurt by spiraling unrest in Haiti.
 Opponents are demanding that Aristide leave office. Two weeks ago, Mayor
Michael Bloomberg canceled a trip to Haiti after warnings that it was too
dangerous.

 Though dissatisfied with Aristide's lack of passion for solving her
husband's
 murder, Montas does not want to see him toppled. "There could be worse than
 Aristide," she said. "There could be chaos."

 Don't expect a resolution of the Dominique deadlock anytime soon, one human
 rights advocate said.

 "With the current crisis, and all energy going into that, I do not see the
 government or justice system making bold moves in any arena for the time
being," said Brian Concannon Jr., a human rights lawyer in Haiti.

 But Montas is optimistic. To her, obstacles are so many windmills that can,
 with determination, be taken down. After all, she once won a homecoming
crown without knowing a thing about football.

 "Jean gave his life fighting for good things in Haiti," Montas said. "I'm
 hoping this film will at least make people aware of Haiti and aware of that
fight
 that he fought. Maybe the film will accomplish things that he wasn't able
to
 do in his life."