=?x-unknown?q?26730=3A__Fwd=3A_HA=CFTI__=3A3__d=E9cembre200?==?x-unknown?q?1_-_3_d=E9cembre_2005_?=

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: RSF AMERICAS <ameriques@rsf.org>


HAITI

Authorities urged to revive investigation on
fourth anniversary of Brignol Lindor's murder

Reporters Without Borders today joins the French
national assembly's France-Haiti Friendship Group
in appealing again for justice to be done in the
murder of a young radio journalist that has left
Haitian society outraged and traumatised by its
horrific nature and by the four ensuing years of
unexplained impunity and judicial paralysis.

Almost exactly four years ago today, on 3
December 2001, Brignol Lindor of Radio Echo 2000
was stoned and hacked to death in the southern
town of Petit-Goâve by some 10 members of Domi
Nan Bwa, a local grass-roots organisation that
supported then President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Reporters Without Borders and the France-Haiti
Friendship Group would like to recapitulate the
following points, for the most part based on a
report which the Citizens Committee for the
Implementation of Justice (CCAJ) handed in to the
justice ministry in July of last year.

Four days before Lindor's murder, a press
conference was held in Petit-Goâve on 29 November
2001 by several local figures linked to
Aristide's party, Fanmi Lavalas, including
Petit-Goâve mayor Emmanuel Antoine and his
deputy, Bony Dumay, who launched into a violent
verbal attack on the opposition Democratic
Convergence coalition and Lindor, considered to
be one of its allies. Another meeting was held on
2 December, the eve of his murder, this time
between municipal officials and members of Domi
Nan Bwa.

One of Domi Nan Bwa's chiefs, Joseph Céus
Duverger, was attacked the next morning by
presumed Democratic Convergence supporters. This
incident was used as a pretext for the targeted
reprisal against Lindor later in the day.
Evidence of this comes from the fact that around
10 Domi Nan Bwa members were on the point of
executing Democratic Convergence member Love
Augustin at his home but, when Lindor arrived on
the scene, they let him go and seized Lindor.

Despite all these facts, the indictment issued by
judge Fritzner Duclair on 16 September 2002
failed to bring charges against any of the
presumed instigators of Lindor's murder. No
Petit-Goâve  municipal officials were ever
questioned or detained. Charges were brought
against 10 Domi Nan Bwa members who took part in
the murder but, according to the Lindor family
lawyer, none of them was ever detained. One of
the presumed killers, Joubert Saint-Just, was
detained by the inhabitants of nearby Miragoâne
on 30 March 2005 and handed over to the police,
but that was for an unrelated reason.

The case is now held up in the supreme court, to
which the Lindor family referred its request to
be granted civil party status in the case on 21
April 2003 after being turned down by the appeal
court. More than two years later, the supreme
court still has not issued a ruling, although it
should have done so within two months. Does this
incredible delay indicate a desire to bury the
case for good? We cannot resign ourselves to this
hypothesis.
At moment when the population of Petit-Goâve is
getting ready to pay homage to Lindor and
inaugurate a square bearing his name, we appeal
to the Haitian authorities to relaunch judicial
proceedings in this case as quickly as possible.
This should be done so that the truth can be
known and remembered, and it should be done in
tandem with the electoral process that will soon
result in the installation of a new democratic
government.

Jean-Louis Bernard, deputy in the national
assembly and vice-president of the assembly's
France-Haiti Friendship Group

Christian Paul, deputy and member of the France-Haiti Friendship Group

Robert Ménard, secretary-general of  Reporters Without Borders