9901: HAITI -- GRALIP Says: "Halt to Impunity" (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Max Blanchet <MaxBlanchet@worldnet.att.net>
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gotson Pierre" <gotson.crad@rehred-haiti.net>

 Halt to Impunity and the Criminial Projects Against Freedom of the
Press in Haiti

Published on  Friday, December 7, 2001

The Group of Reflection and Action on behalf of Freedom of the Press
-- GRALIP in French -- deeply outraged by the abominable lynching of
the journalist Brignol Lindor on December 3, 2001 in Petit-Goâve, located
68 kilometers South-West of Port-au-Prince, calls for the mobilization of
the
journalistic guild in order to bring to an end the impunity enjoyed by
backward-looking predators hell-bent on liquidating media workers.

GRALIP demands that judiciary authorities bring to justice the perpretators,
accomplices and masterminds of the murder -- stamped with barbarism and
primitiveness -- of our colleague Brignol Lindor, information director of
Radio
Echo in Petit-Goâve.

While expressing its indignation in the face of this new, bloody episode in
Haiti's
media history, GRALIP questions the multiple obstacles that paralyze
the judicial inquiry into the murder on April 3, 2000, of Jean Dominique,
the
director of Radio Haïti Inter, and its security guard, Jean-Claude
Louissaint.

GRALIP notes that no institutional steps have been taken to date
to prevent and punish the acts, announced and perpetrated since the
beginning
of the year, by members of all-powerful popular organizations who proclaim
without equivocation their affiliation with the Lavalas regime.

The end result has been a long period of political agitation marked, today
once
again, with the stamp of intolerance, inflamed fanaticism, personalism and
the will, many times proclaimed, to impose "la pensée unique."

GRALIP has serious doubts about the neutrality and impartiality of
judicial and police authorities' actions in the current context, which is
characterized by the intimidation and mistreatment since June 2001 of
more than 10 journalists, the setting up of some to public obloquy  and
the institution of vigilante justice according to the "zero tolerance"
formula.

GRALIP calls today for an active solidarity among media brothers and
sisters as well as all media engaged in the process of democratic
construction
in order to block the reemergence of anachronistic and authoritarian
practices
that have nothing but supreme contempt for fundamental freedoms and the
right of the public to be informed.

Journalists and the media will always endeavor to contribute to the progress
of society by reporting the real facts of national life, with
professionalism and
honesty, in the respect of democratic and constitutional norms, without
complacency.  Collective amnesia and capitulation -- in the face of the rise
of perils -- will turn us all into accomplices in the judgement of history.

GRALIP invites civil society to become engaged resolutely in the struggle
for freedom of the press, an indispensable corollary to all freedoms.

Signed by:

Vario Sérant
Principal Coordinator

Stéphane Pierre-Paul
Asssistant Coordinator

Ronald Colbert
Administrator