21907: Lemieux: The Dissident Voice: The Murder of Cassey Auguste (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JD Lemieux <lxhaiti@yahoo.com>

The Murder of Cassey Auguste
by Justin Felux
www.dissidentvoice.org
May 16, 2004

Cassey Auguste was a twenty-year-old American
citizen.  His mother had moved back to her home
country of Haiti after working for paltry wages
for over twenty years in the United States.  Her
dream was to run a successful family business in
the country that she loves.  That dream came to a
crashing halt on the morning of March 3rd when
her son, who had come to Haiti to help her, was
gunned down in cold blood and had his mutilated
body dumped over a ravine by men who were members
of U.S.-supported death squads.  Will the White
House vow to bring Auguste's killers to justice,
just as it has vowed to bring those who beheaded
Nick Berg in Iraq to justice?

According to his sister, Natasha Michaud, Cassey
and a friend were sitting outside his mother's
business in Pont Sonde when four cars full of
armed men showed up.  Casey immediately put up
his hands and said, "I am an American. I have
nothing to do with politics."  His father rushed
inside to retrieve Cassey's passport, hoping that
proof of Cassey's American citizenship would
dissuade the men from causing any harm.  By that
time it was too late.  Cassey and his friend were
mowed down by machine guns while his mother's
cries for mercy fell on deaf ears.  When the
family eventually found the bodies they didn't
give them a proper burial, saying they "feared
that these people may find out about the funeral
and do some more damage to our lives."

The reason for this atrocity?  The killers
alleged that the family used to serve Lavalas at
their business.  Their hatred of the political
party of deposed president Jean-Bertrand Aristide
indicates that these men are likely members of
the so-called "rebels" that overran the country
under the leadership of Guy Philippe.  Michaud
said the men "had something like a gun that shot
out water and cleaned the blood."  That makes
sense.  If pictures of bodies and pools of blood
started showing up in the news it might cause an
outrage.  Is this what the New York Times was
referring to when they noted the "media savvy" of
Guy Philippe and his thugs?

Marguerite Laurent of the Haitian Lawyers
Leadership Network has written to U.S. Ambassador
James Foley requesting an investigation into the
incident.  Thus far, it has received no media
coverage.  If the major media's coverage of Haiti
thus far is any indication, Cassey's murder will
go virtually unnoticed.  He is not by any means
alone.  The "rebel" forces, with the active
support of the Bush administration, have
unleashed a campaign of terror on the Haitian
people, particularly supporters of Lavalas.  Some
estimates have the body count as high as 3,000.
One report from the National Lawyer's Guild found
that over a thousand bodies were dumped in a mass
grave by the state morgue in March, which is more
than ten times the usual number of bodies.

None of this has received any coverage in the
mainstream media.  Compare their utter silence on
the wholesale massacres currently being carried
out to the widespread coverage given to the rare
attacks against Aristide's detractors.  A few
days after Cassey's murder the former opposition
to President Aristide held a rally celebrating
the coup.  Five of the demonstrators were shot by
alleged Aristide militants.  The New York Times
put the story on the front page and devoted over
a thousand words worth of column space, complete
with grizzly descriptions of the dead bodies and
victims' wounds.

Cassey probably also won't be helped by the fact
that he is black.  While the media is quick to
respond with tons of coverage and outrage when
something bad happens to a white American, they
tend to be less enthusiastic when the shoe is on
the darker foot.  For example, in 2002 the
national media gave heavy coverage to the
kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart while paying scant
attention to Alexis Patterson, a young black girl
who was also missing at the same time.

The so-called "progressive" media is also guilty
in this regard.  Rachel Corrie, an activist for
the International Solidarity Movement, was
brutally crushed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza
last year.  Her death justifiably sparked outrage
and activism that even caught the attention of
Congress.  On the other hand, hardly anyone knows
about Suraida Saleh.  Saleh, like Corrie, was a
young woman, an American citizen, and was
brutally killed by the IDF.  She was shot in the
face and chest while holding her 9-month-old baby
in her lap.  Where was the outrage over her
murder?  Could it be that activists thought they
could get more political mileage out of the
killing of a girl named Rachel than they could
out of the killing of a girl named Suraida?

One has to wonder whether or not Cassey Auguste's
murder would not already be front page news if he
were an American citizen of the lighter-skinned
variety.  At any rate, if the story his family
tells is true, it deserves to be investigated and
the perpetrators should be brought to justice.
It's the least this government could do after
arming, training, and giving a wink and a nod to
the thugs who viciously robbed him and his family
of their future together.

Justin Felux is a writer and activist based in
San Antonio, Texas. He can be contacted at
justins@alacrityisp.net.






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