29850: Haitianalysis (News) Two Years Since the Killing of Abdias Jean (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Haitianalysis@gmail.com



January 14, 2007: Two Years Since the Killing of Abdias Jean

By: Joe Emersberger and Jeb Sprague
www.haitianalysis.com


He was murdered on January 14, 2005 shortly after finishing his lunch near
his home in the Village de Dieu slum.

The killing of Abdias Jean, a young Haitian journalist who reported from
Haiti for WKAT radio in Florida, was quickly condemned by Amnesty
International, the Director General of UNESCO and the Inter American Press
Association. It was reported by Reuters and Associated press wire services.
The Secretary General of the Association of Haitian Journalists (AHJ),
Guyler Delva, also condemned the murder and expressed dismay at the
indifference of the Haitian commercial media to the death of a journalist.

Delva did not share Jeans' political views but the brazen nature of the
crime against a fellow journalist impacted him. Delva was part of the
opposition that helped to overthrow Haiti's democratically elected
government on February 29, 2004 and bring to power de-facto Prime Minister
Gerard Latortue, but Delva's protests provoked Latortue's displeasure.
According to US based researcher Tom Reeves, who spoke with Reuters
employees, Latortue complained to Reuters about an article Delva had written
about the murder.

Delva was also a close associate of Reporters San Frontiers' (RSF) Secretary
General Robert Menard whose organization failed to mention the killing of
Jean and many other assaults on grassroots journalists during the interim
period. In August of 2006 the Paris based group RSF was questioned on its
failure to report on the murder of Abdias Jean.

RSF's Haiti expert responded "We asked the police about the killings of
Abdias Jean and we were told by the police that it was an attack made by the
police but that they didn't know he was a journalist. He was taking
pictures." The RSF representative admitted that it had not met with a single
witness to the murder but that all the information they had on the case was
based on the testimony of the police, known for their widespread killings
and abuses. The damming police testimony was never published. In a response,
Jean-François Julliard, RSF's News Editor, again failed to mention the
murder of Jean.

Haitian police spokeswoman Gessy Coicou, speaking for the RCMP trained
perpetrators said of Abdias Jean: "I haven't heard of him and I haven't seen
his name in any of the files I have. Many journalists have reported that
there are many witnesses. I would advise them to file a complaint." The
victim's mother filed numerous complaints but nothing has come of them.

In the moments prior to his death, Abdias Jean was investigating murders
carried out by the Haitian police, specifically the killing of two young
boys. After taking photos of the victims, he hid in a friend's house when he
saw police approaching. But the police spotted him; ordered him out of the
house, and shot him in front of several witnesses. Reed Lindsay, a US
journalist based in Haiti, reported: "They tied his wrists with his own
belt, dragged him a block away and put a bullet through his head"
Yet the police claim not to have heard of him. Perhaps they didn't. The
police and other armed groups that backed Latortue's de facto government
were responsible for 4000 political killings in the greater Port-au-Prince
area, according to a scientific study published in the Lancet Medial Journal
in August 2006. However, Brian Concannon of the Institute for Justice and
Democracy in Haiti asserts "The police know very well who Abdias Jean was.
His family filed complaints with the police, the Haitian justice system and
the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights."

Violence against poor journalists, often those with cameras continued on
during the interim period. A young Haitian photojournalist, Jean Ristil, who
had photographed MINUSTAH and Haitian police violence in Cite Soleil, said
that in November of 2005 he was arrested for the second time. He has been
interrogated, tortured and had much of his equipment destroyed by police. On
April 7 2005 journalist Robenson Laraque died from injuries suffered while
observing a clash between UN troops and members of the disbanded Haitian
military in the city of Petit-Goâve. Later that year unknown assailants
murdered another Haitian journalist, Jacques Roche.  The killing was used by
interim government officials to justify the vilification and imprisonment of
a prominent liberation theologian and critic.

The failure to achieve justice for the victims of violence by the interim
government's forces and their armed supporters has been widely ignored by
the corporate press, many academics and some press freedom groups like RSF
which claim impartiality. The killers of Abdias Jean, much like the killers
of thousands of Haitians after the coup of February 2004, remain at large.
Concannon, a lead lawyer on the historic Raboteau massacre trial, observes,
"Abdias Jean's killing is yet one more example of the double standard, where
the lives of poor black men in Haiti matter least. Had he been a journalist
with a prominent Haitian or foreign outlet visiting Cite de Dieu, he would
have been eulogized for his courage in going into that neighborhood. But he
was a poor journalist covering his neighbors, so he has been forgotten."

Mario Andersol, chief of the Haitian national police, was unavailable for
comment.