21464: (Hermantin) Sun-Sentinel-Film pays homage to Haitian journalist (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Film pays homage to Haitian journalist



By Alva James-Johnson
Staff Writer

April 21, 2004

For almost three years, Michele Montas opened her news program on Radio
Haiti Inter with a reverent "good morning" to her dead husband, Jean
Dominique.

It was a way to keep the memory of the legendary Haitian journalist alive.
Now, four years after her husband's death, she lives in New York, telling
his story in exile.

"I live every single day of my life close to him in all that I do," she said
in an interview.

Montas spoke Tuesday night at a fund raiser for the Florida Immigration
Advocacy Center in Miami, and will appear at the Tower Theater tonight at a
preview of The Agronomist, a documentary on Dominique's life that opens
April 30.

Produced by director Jonathan Demme, the documentary ends with Dominique's
death on April 3, 2000. He and a station security guard were gunned down as
they arrived at the radio station. Montas came minutes later and found the
two men dead. His killers have never been prosecuted.

The title refers to Dominique's early profession as an agronomist, which
exposed him to the plight of the masses. When he tried to educate the
farmers, he was arrested by Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier's Ton Ton
Macoutes.

He later began working as a freelance journalist at Radio Haiti Inter, and
purchased the station in 1968.

He began broadcasting in Haitian Creole at a time when the French-speaking
elite had a monopoly on broadcasting.

Montas joined the staff in the 1970s. Their broadcasts inspired landowners
who were being manipulated by the government to stand up for their rights.

In 1980, the military police were ordered to kill Dominique on sight and
arrest everyone at the station. Dominique and Montas fled to Venezuela, then
went to New York, where they married in 1983.

They returned after the ouster of Baby Doc in 1986, hoping for a new day in
Haiti. But they went into exile again in 1991 after a coup d'etat toppled
the first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Montas said Dominique and Aristide became close friends while the couple
lived in New York and Aristide lived in Washington, D.C. And Dominique
helped negotiate for Aristide's return.

But they were disappointed with Aristide's performance after he returned in
1994, she said. Her husband openly criticized Aristide for using political
gifts to win support.

Meanwhile, she waits for justice in the assassination of her husband.

Six people were arrested, including a senator belonging to Aristide's Fanmi
Lavalas party. But she said five were freed when the prisons were emptied
during the country's recent political crisis.

Still, she remains optimistic that justice will prevail.


Copyright © 2004, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

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