20280: (Arthur) IPI World Press Freedom Review 2003 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Tttnhm@aol.com

2003 World Press Freedom Review - Haiti
www.freemedia.at

As the political conflict between the Lavalas Family government, led by
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and his opponents intensified, 2003 was a
troubling and deeply depressing year for press freedom. In the previous year, there
had been an evident and worrying tendency for pro-government activists to view
certain sections of the media as political actors involved in the opposition
movement, rather than as observers or commentators. Most unfortunately, during
2003 this perception resulted in yet more threats against journalists and
attacks on media – particularly radio stations. These actions in turn prompted a
large section of the media to take an increasingly open position in favour of
the opposition movement. This mutually reinforcing spiral degenerated into
violence that endangered the lives of journalists and inflicted great damage on
Haiti’s once thriving media sector.

Nearly every publication and radio show was drawn into a fiercely contested
political arena in one way or another, and, in the process, objective reporting
gave way almost completely to propaganda and "spin". At a time when the
Haitian public, perhaps more than ever before, needed to be properly informed about
the events and ideas convulsing the country, it was sadly ill-served by the
media. News reporting, and even the issue of press freedom itself, became
little more than political footballs, kicked around by a narrow group of players in
a match without a referee.

Two events in particular hastened the Haitian media’s disappointing descent
into a position at the service of one or the other of the two sharply polarised
sides struggling over political power.

One was the closure of arguably the best radio station for independent news
and investigative journalism. On 22 February, Michèle Montas, the director of
Radio Haiti Inter, announced that she and her staff had decided to suspend
radio transmissions for an indefinite period of time in an attempt to thwart
imminent attacks against the stations’ reporters. Montas, widow of journalist Jean
Dominique, who was murdered along with the station’s security guard on 3 April
2000, was also victim to a failed assassination attempt in December 2002. She
survived, but her bodyguard was killed.

The other was the increasingly prominent and vocal participation of the
National Association of Haitian Media (l’association Nationale des Médias Haïtiens
– ANMH) in the opposition coalition, the Group of 184. By playing such a role
in an organisation leading anti-government demonstrations and diplomatic
initiatives, the ANMH, a grouping of media owners including those of most of the
established radio stations, surrendered much of the media’s objectivity and
severely compromised their journalists. (Richard Widmaier, director of Radio
Métropole - a station renowned for its hostility to the current government - was
elected the new president of the ANMH on 8 November 2003.)

Against this backdrop, there were frequent and repeated abuses of media
freedom, carried out for the most part by supporters of the government, but towards
the end of the year as the political situation grew ever more volatile, by
opposition partisans, too. In a statement issued on 30 October, Eduardo Bertoni,
the Organization of American States’ Special Rapporteur for Freedom of
Expression, condemned "aggressions" against the Haitian media, saying that the "acts
of harassment and threats directed against journalists are indicative of an
atmosphere of intimidation and intolerance for the exercise of journalism in
Haiti."

The following list of incidents is by no means comprehensive, but does give a
flavour of the situation:

In mid-February, it was announced that six journalists from the
conflict-ridden city of Gonaïves had left the country and claimed political asylum abroad,
four of them in the Dominican Republic, and the two others in the United
States and France. Their lives had been threatened by pro-government organisations
populaires in Gonaïves in November 2002.

Also in February, two reporters at Radio Métropole were the subjects of
violent intimidation. On 14 February, alleged armed supporters of the government
set fire to a vehicle in the garage of reporter Jean-Numa Goudou. On 16
February, unidentified individuals shouted insults, shot at, and threw bottles at the
house of the mother of reporter, Nancy Roc.

On 30 April, Lilianne Pierre-Paul, programming director and news anchor at
Radio Kiskeya, received death threats. A package, containing a letter along with
a 12mm cartridge, was sent to the station. The letter ordered Pierre-Paul to
read a statement calling on France to pay reparations to Haiti or face the
consequences. (For much of the year, the government has been actively campaigning
for France to pay back the money paid by Haitian governments to France in the
nineteenth century in return for French recognition of Haiti’s independence.)

On 23 August, while covering a mass attended by President Aristide in a
church in the southwestern town of Léogâne, the reporter Peterson Milord was
expelled from the church on the orders of the priest, Father Fritz Sauvaget, who
claimed that the reporter had spread false information about him. Four days later
Milord, who works for Radio Vision 2000 (another station known for its
stridently anti-government editorial stance) and also for Léogâne’s Radio Pasión,
disappeared. Two days later he was found unharmed, although naked and with his
hands tied, in a sugar cane field outside the capital, Port-au-Prince.

On 28 October, five men opened fire on the premises of Radio Caraïbes in
Port-au-Prince, while shouting slogans against the station. The gunmen’s vehicle
had a state license plate, but government spokesman, Mario Dupuy, told
reporters that the car could have been stolen, and that the gunmen may have wanted it
to look like the government was involved. The following day, the station
decided to suspend its transmissions for a week in order to evaluate the situation
and ensure the safety of its journalists.

Radio stations outside Port-au-Prince were also targeted. On 12 November,
anti-government activists set fire to the radio station, Radio Pyramide, in the
west coast town of St. Marc. No one was injured, but the fire gutted the
station. The attack came hours after the state Telecommunications Council closed
Radio Tete-a-Tete, a station in the town that had given voice to the opposition.
A government official said Radio Tete-a-Tete had been closed because the
station did not have proper legal authorisation to broadcast, not for political
reasons. Then, on 26 November, Radio Eko2000 in the southwestern town of
Petit-Goâve stopped broadcasting when according to the station’s news director, Louis
Jean Pierre, members of pro-government organisations populaires threatened to
kill journalists and fired at the station building.

On 27 November, four journalists working for Radio Timoun and Télé Timoun
(both sponsored by President Aristide) went into hiding after receiving death
threats. Guyler Delva, head of l’Association des Journalistes haïtiens (the
Haitian Journalists’ Association, AJH), said they had received threats after
refusing to report in a way sympathetic to the opposition.

Four radio stations in the capital - Caraïbes, Métropole, Vision 2000 and
Kiskeya - temporarily shut down their operations on 11 December after receiving
telephone death threats from government supporters. In the same week, as
massive anti-government demonstrations sponsored by the Group of 184 brought the
capital to a halt, Radio Solidarité, a station supporting the government,
suspended its broadcasts for six hours after it too received threats. On 17 December,
a crew of reporters from Radio Solidarité were attacked by demonstrators. One
of the targeted journalists, Alexis Eddy Jackson, was beaten up and had his
tape recorder destroyed.

On 20 December, two radio celebrities, Sylvain Bernier of Radio Galaxie and
Zagalo of Radio Télé-Éclair were shot at and seriously wounded by unknown
assailants as they drove to the southern town of Jacmel. The attack, during which
their car was riddled with bullets, took place only a few days after a group of
Haitian musicians and promoters of Haitian music, including Bernier, made an
appeal to the organisers of anti-government demonstrations to call a truce on
the occasion of the Christmas holidays and the celebration of the bicentennial
of Haiti's independence. They reminded the opposition that musicians and disc
jockeys wanted to be free to travel and honour contracts to perform at
parties and nightclubs.