23111: (Hermantin) Miami-Herald-A wounded journalist suffers (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Tue, Sep. 07, 2004


CORAL SPRINGS
A wounded journalist suffers
A Haitian journalist who was shot in the rebellion that drove President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide out of Haiti struggles day to day with his condition.
BY TRENTON DANIEL
tdaniel@herald.com

Elie Sem Pierre shuffles along the floor in his friends' crowded West Little
River home.

The 39-year-old's body has gone stiff and frail, and he doesn't move his
limbs much. The thick scar on his neck is still prominent, as if a red-hot
necklace burned his skin.

Pierre's work as a journalist nearly got him killed in February when Haitian
government loyalists allegedly shot him point blank, a week before a
rebellion forced President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to flee Haiti.

How the director of Radio Hispagnola got to South Florida three weeks ago is
the fortuitous account of a radio broadcaster surviving two bullets to the
neck and several journalist organizations securing his safe departure out of
Haiti.

Back in February, armed Aristide supporters were pouring into Port-au-Prince
streets and targeting journalists. Rebels to the north had their cross hairs
set on the National Palace. Aristide said he wasn't leaving.

On Feb. 21, one day before rebel leader Guy Philippe took Haiti's
second-largest city, Cap Haitien, seven men whom he recognized in a red jeep
cut him off while he was driving with one of his sons, he said. The gunmen
shot him twice in the neck.

The next day, humanitarian aid workers, with rebel help, put Pierre on a
Port-au-Prince-bound airplane, said Richard Widmaier, director of the
privately owned Radio Métropole, where Pierre worked as a correspondent.

Pierre lay almost paralyzed -- only his eyes moved -- in Canape Vert
hospital, a facility that was anything but immune to the surrounding
maelstrom. Thugs were bursting into emergency rooms to finish off their
injured foes.

Several dozen journalists found themselves threatened, attacked and shot at.
An especially precarious spot was the northern suburbs of Port-au-Prince --
where the embattled president lived and where his street militants patrolled
roadblocks to keep an imminent rebel attack at bay.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists intervened. The rights
group worked with Widmaier to see how they could get Pierre out of Haiti
since flights had been canceled.

'We were stuck with, `Who might be able to help this guy?' '' CPJ Americas
program director Carlos Lauria said. ``We were running out of options.
Talking to the doctors, we really felt that we needed to do something.
Doctors said there was nothing to do in the hospital and we didn't know
about the extent of his injuries, but we were told by different sources that
he was in really, really bad shape.''

The CPJ doesn't ordinarily medevac journalists because of the exorbitant
costs -- this one would cost $6,500. Widmaier found a pilot to fly Pierre to
the neighboring Dominican Republic.

''He told me he would wait only 15 minutes on the airstrip to get Elie Sem
on the plane,'' Widmaier said about the pilot's concern for his own safety.

Widmaier's brother Joel, a Radio Métropole reporter and the International
Red Cross navigated the roadblocks to get Pierre to the airport, Widmaier
said.

Once in Santo Domingo, Pierre received treatment for a number of infections.
Near the end of March, he was released from the hospital and opted to stay
in the Dominican Republic even though his wife, Elaige, and five children
were still at home and in hiding.

In July, a friend of Pierre's called to relay a familiar refrain: They're
coming to finish you. Pierre left Santo Domingo for Miami on Aug. 13 using
his tourist visa.

Pierre still faces hurdles. His friends brush his teeth and bathe him. They
clip his fingernails. A little pot belly is there, but he's still thin. He
has lost 20 pounds.

And while Pierre expected to find painkillers and therapy when he arrived in
the United States, the medical treatment he sought remains out of reach. The
aches, he says, have been severe since his medicine supply went dry.
Currently, his friends are helping to support him.

''I don't have medication, I don't have anything at all, and I'm suffering
so much,'' said Pierre.

Pierre plans to live with friend Kettely Deshommes and her husband and two
teenage children in their Coral Springs apartment.

In the three-bedroom West Little River house, where seven people lived, he
shared a bed.

''It's hard [taking care of Pierre], but we try to do our best,'' said
Deshommes, 33, a medical biller.

``He doesn't have anywhere else to go but us.''

_________________________________________________________________
Check out Election 2004 for up-to-date election news, plus voter tools and
more! http://special.msn.com/msn/election2004.armx