24540: Blanchet: <news) Fw: Haiti 2004 - World Press Freedom Review (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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

From: <Tttnhm@aol.com>


2004 International Press Institute - World Press Freedom Review

Haiti
By Charles Arthur

In early 2004, the political conflict between the Lavalas Family party
government and its opponents came to a head when an armed insurgency broke
out,
eventually forcing President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to leave the country on
29
February. As in 2003, during the first two months of the year the media was
heavily involved in the political conflict - a large section of the media
taking an
open position in favour of the opposition movement, while a smaller section
took a pro-government line. As a consequence, many journalists were victims
of
threats and physical attacks.

Unfortunately, the collapse of the Aristide government, the appointment of a
new interim administration, and the arrival of international military forces
mandated to re-establish a stable and secure environment, did not mean an
end
to abuses of media freedom. Amnesty International, in its June report on
human
rights in Haiti, reported that whereas previously it was journalists
perceived
to be working for anti-Aristide media whose rights were abused, since March
"threats and intimidation have been directed primarily against journalists
who
worked in pro-Aristide private media or in government media during the
Aristide regime." In July, the New York-based Committee to Protect
Journalists (CPJ)
detailed the great dangers faced by Haitian journalists, months after the
new
government was installed. The CPJ report stated, "The threats are, in part,
a
legacy of Haiti's polarised media environment - one in which news outlets
themselves became closely tied to political positions at either extreme.
While the
targets of attacks may have changed, analysts say, Haitian journalists will
never be able to pursue their work freely until all of them can work without
the threat of violence."

In the early part of the year, with the Lavalas Family party government
facing mass demonstrations in the capital, and threatened by the emergence
of an
armed opposition in the border region and in the important central city of
Gonaïves, relations with the media worsened considerably. The openly
anti-government position taken by the National Association of Haitian Media
(Association
Nationale des Médias Haïtiens, ANMH) - a grouping of media owners including
those
of most of the established radio stations - did much to aggravate the
situation, and made journalists vulnerable to threats and attacks from
government
supporters. As the situation became more volatile, opposition partisans were
also
involved in a number of incidents of abuse of journalists' rights.

The following list, detailed in a 23 January press release from the Groupe
de
Réflexion et d'Action pour la Liberté de la Presse (Group for Reflection and
Action for Press Freedom), gives a flavour of the situation across the
country
as rival groups struggled for control of the airwaves:
In Petit-Goâve, the pro-government gang that had admitted responsibility for
the 2001 murder of the journalist Brignol Lindor, but not been brought to
justice, continued to circulate and threaten the lives of journalists in the
town;
in Saint Marc, over the course of just a few weeks, five radio stations -
pro- and anti-government - were attacked or set ablaze; elsewhere in the
central
Artibonite department, the director of Radio Atlantique was forced into
hiding
because of death threats; and in Les Cayes, Radio Sud FM was forced off the
air by death threats to its director, Roody Balan.

The seriousness of the situation was highlighted on 21 February, when in the
second city of Cap-Haïtien, Pierre Eli Sem, owner and manager of Radio
Hispagnola in the nearby village of Trou du Nord and correspondent for Radio
Métropole in the northeast, was shot several times by pro-government gunmen.
Elie Sem
said he had begun receiving threats some days earlier when his station had
started broadcasting news from the anti-government Radio Métropole. The
following
day, when the city fell to anti-government rebels, groups of demonstrators,
protected by the rebels, ransacked and set fire to Radio Africa and Radio
Télé
Kombit (RTK), both belonging to leading Lavalas Family members.

In the capital, Port-au-Prince, where scores of local and foreign
journalists
covered the succession of demonstrations and the street clashes between
demonstrators and police, there were a vast number of violent incidents. For
example, on 16 February, Assad Volcy, a journalist at Radio Solidarité, and
Alphonse
Dieuliphène, a cameraman for Télé-Éclair, were beaten up and had their
equipment damaged by opposition demonstrators; on 20 February, Claude
Bellevue of
Radio Ibo was hit in the back by shell fragments fired from a 12 calibre gun
fired by government supporters, and, during the same demonstration, a
Spanish
cameraman suffered an ear injury as a result of a machete blow, and an
Agence
France-Presse photographer was also injured. Around the same time, on the
outskirts of the capital, Roberto Andrade of the Mexican television channel,
Televisa, and another reporter working for the Mexican network, TV Azteca,
had to flee
when they were stoned by government supporters, who then chased and caught
them, and forced them to hand over their film.

In the last days of February, as rumours of an impending rebel advance on
the
capital gathered strength, the situation seriously deteriorated. On 25
February, Radio Solidarité received death and arson threats, and two days
later, on
the night of 27 February, government supporters machine-gunned and partially
burnt the offices of Radio Vision 2000. On 29 February, amid scenes of
rioting
and looting in many parts of the city, Radio Ibo was attacked and forced to
suspend news broadcasts, and armed men ransacked the offices of Télé Haïti,
the
one television channel independent of the government. On 1 March, the day
after President Aristide's departure, the offices of Radio and Télé Timoun,
both
owned by Aristide's Foundation for Democracy, were ransacked, and according
to
Amnesty International, following the attack, some of their journalists
received threatening phone calls. Radio Solidarité stopped broadcasting news
on 1
March after receiving threatening telephone calls, and did not resume
broadcasts
until 6 April.

One of two murders of media workers in Haiti during the year was the fatal
shooting of Ricardo Ortega, the 37-year old correspondent for the Spanish
television station, Antena 3. Ortega was shot twice in the chest on 7 March
while
covering a demonstration celebrating the end of the Aristide regime. He died
from his wounds later the same day. International press reports concluded
that
Ortega, and Michael Laughlin, a photographer with the Florida-based daily
Sun
Sentinel, who was also shot and wounded during the disturbances, were
victims of
pro-Aristide gunmen blamed for shooting at the crowd, killing a total of
seven people and wounding dozens more. However, after conducting its own
investigation and interviewing witnesses in Haiti, Antena 3 aired a special
report on
27 October that concluded that Ortega was shot an hour or so after the
initial
shooting, and that the fatal bullet could have come from the U.S. military,
which had deployed thousands of marines to Haiti on the day of Aristide's
departure. Adding weight to this controversial conclusion was the irregular
treatment of Jean-Michel Gaspard, a Haitian police inspector arrested on 28
March on
suspicion of being involved in the attack, who was later released, without
being investigated, by U.S. soldiers who at that time controlled the
national
penitentiary.

Despite the change in government, journalists continued to suffer
intimidation and threats, particularly in areas outside the capital where
illegal armed
groups and former members of the disbanded Haitian army became the de facto
security forces. A Human Rights Watch report dated 22 March cited interviews
with
a number of radio journalists in Cap-Haïtien, including journalists with
state-owned Radio Nationale, who had gone into hiding. These journalists
described
the lack of security and the resultant fears for their safety. They gave the
names of another dozen journalists also said to be in hiding. Human Rights
Watch also reported that, as of 19 March, Augustin Joseph, an employee of
the
pro-Lavalas Family radio station, Radio Voix Paysanne Milot, was one of 16
prisoners held by the armed irregular forces in Cap-Haïtien.

On 30 March, Lyonel Lazarre, a correspondent for Radio Solidarité and Agence
Haïtienne de Presse in the southern city of Jacmel, was abducted by a group
of
ex-soldiers after he reported information relating to abuses they were
allegedly involved in. The kidnappers beat him and only released him the
next day
after forcing him to indicate the location of the home of a colleague
working
for Radio Ginen, whom they accused of being close to the deposed President
Aristide.On 16 April, a group of ex-soldiers seized Jeanty André Omilert,
the local
Radio Solidarité correspondent in the central town of Mirebalais. Omilert
was
detained in front of the premises of Radio Excelsior, the local station
where
he hosts a discussion programme, and then incarcerated for three days in the
town police station. Guyler Delva, head of the Association des Journalistes
haïtiens (Haitian Journalists' Association - AJH) said the kidnapping took
place
because Omilert had broadcast news deemed contrary to the interests of the
armed irregular forces in control of the Central Plateau region since
mid-February. A month later, the ex-soldiers abducted and, for two days,
detained
Charles Prosper, the Mirebalais correspondent for Radio Tropic FM. The group
said
they objected to Prosper's reports about the volatile political situation,
and
accused him of having ties to the Lavalas Family party.

At the end of June, the Radio Métropole commentator and journalist, Nancy
Roc, was shot at as she drove to Jacmel. Her car windscreen was shattered,
but
she was unhurt. There is speculation that the attack was a reprisal
following
her recently broadcast, negative comments about Guy Philippe, a leader of
the
anti-Aristide insurgents. There was further concern for Roc's safety in
early
November when a leader of the armed group controlling much of the central
city
of Gonaïves publicly linked her to an alleged plot leading to the 2003
murder
of one its leaders.At the end of July, Jacques Mathelier, a former
Aristide-appointed departmental delegate, reported that Radio Paradis, his
station in the
southwestern town of Tiburon, had been machine-gunned, and that his house in
the city of Les Cayes had been ransacked. On 30 August, ex-soldiers in
Jacmel
took over the offices of the Aristide Foundation's Radio Timoun, and
transformed it into what they described as the local headquarters of the
re-constituted
army.

In the context of these post-Aristide incidents, Amnesty International
concluded that in the provinces and the countryside, many journalists have
"simply
stopped reporting about the political situation for fear of reprisals". How
far
the government of interim Prime Minister, Gérard Latortue, can be held
responsible for this situation is a matter for debate. On the one hand,
officials
have not issued any overt threats to media outfits, nor have they allowed
police
to harass journalists. On the other hand, government leaders have failed to
speak out against abuses and when questioned about the issue have flatly
denied
that any problems exist. At the same time some members of the government
enjoyed close relations with the armed former rebels and ex-soldiers who
helped
overthrow the Aristide regime. Latortue clearly stated his debt to the armed
groups in Gonaïves whose uprising helped oust his predecessor when, on a
visit to
the city in March, he called them "freedom fighters".

Furthermore, by taking steps to suppress pro-Lavalas Family party media, the
Latortue government effectively encouraged a general climate of lack of
respect for freedom of speech. On 18 May, the interim government closed the
offices
of Radio and Télé Ti Moun because of alleged financial irregularities that
are
still being investigated, and on 28 May, police arrested Aryns Laguerre, a
Télé Ti Moun cameraman, on what the AJH called dubious grounds.The 2 October
arrest of three leading Lavalas Family party officials at the studios of
Radio
Caraibes, in the capital, was also a cause for concern. Two senators, Yvon
Feuillé and Gerard Gilles, and a former parliamentary deputy, Rudy Hérivaux,
had
just finished participating in a live discussion programme with other
politicians, when police surrounded the station. Radio Caraïbes station
manager, Patrick
Moussignac, refused to allow the police entry, citing the Haitian
Constitution's protection of free speech, but after a daylong standoff the
three were
finally apprehended on suspicion of involvement in anti-government violence.
The
director of Radio Kiskeya, Liliane Pierre-Paul, criticised the arrest of
participants in a political discussion programme at a radio station, saying
it was
"a very bad precedent … a terrible day for the media." Radio Caraïbes ceased
broadcasting for a day as a mark of protest against the action. (All three
were
eventually released from police custody without having being charged).

There was disappointment, too, with the interim government's failure to make
any progress with the judicial investigations into the earlier murders of
journalists, Brignol Lindor and Jean Dominique. Michele Montas, the widow of
Jean
Dominique - shot dead in April 2000 - is sceptical that justice will ever be
done. In December, she told the Los Angeles Times, "People are dragging
their
feet as much now as before. With so much at stake for the reputation of
Haiti,
you have to ask yourself, why?"

Evidence that political divisions are still keenly felt by Haitian
journalists themselves surfaced in June at the annual AJH awards ceremony.
Although
efforts were made to assemble a panel representing a variety of political
viewpoints, its decision to grant one of the awards to Jeanty André Omilert,
the Radio
Solidarité correspondent who had earlier been detained by ex-soldiers,
caused
great controversy. Some AJH members were outraged that a station regarded by
many as pro-Aristide had been selected. Such was the strength of feeling
that
AJH president, Guyler Delva, who refused to bow to pressure to reverse the
decision, received death threats. Eventually Omilert rejected the award,
saying
that to accept it was too divisive. Delva lamented, "Reporters on both sides
think that some colleagues should not have a voice or an opportunity to
speak
out because of their political background. This division has created
additional
risks for Haitian journalists and will be very difficult to overcome in the
near future."

The nation mourned the 13 September murder of a Baptist minister who was one
of the country's most popular radio personalities. The Rev. Jean Moles
Lovinsky Berthomieux, better known to listeners as "Pastor Moles", was shot
several
times as he was leaving his Port-au-Prince home for Radio Caraïbes FM, where
his religious programme, "The Morning Manna", was a top-rated show. Police
later
announced the arrest of three people suspected of killing him while
attempting a robbery.

http://www.freemedia.at/wpfr/Americas/haiti.htm


For further information on the IPI World Press Freedom Review 2004, please
contact IPI Editor David Dadge, Tel: + 431-512 90 11, Fax: + 431-512 90 14,
or E-mail: ipi@freemedia.at
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