a1921: Haitian president put on press predator list (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Michael Deibert

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, May 2 (Reuters) - For the first time, Haitian
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was named on an annual worldwide list of
predators against press freedom released on Thursday by the press watchdog
group Reporters Without Borders.
      Saying "impunity has been at the root of the authorities' strategy of
cowing the media," the Paris-based organization charged that the Haitian
leader had actively obstructed an investigation into the murder of Haiti's
most prominent journalist, Radio Haiti Inter director Jean Dominique.
     Dominique, an informal adviser to former Haitian President Rene
Preval, was shot to death along with his station's caretaker as he arrived
for work on April 3, 2000.
     The investigation into the killing has focused on prominent figures
within Aristide's ruling Lavalas Family political party, with the
investigating judge, Claudy Gassant, complaining of government interference
and intimidation.
     Gassant's mandate to investigate the case expired in January. Under
great public pressure, Aristide waited three months before renewing the
mandate on the second anniversary of Dominique's killing in April.
     "At best," Reporters Without Borders said, "Aristide is protecting the
killers."
     The report also cited the killing of another journalist, Brignol
Lindor, who was hacked to death by a pro-government mob in the provincial
city of Petit Goave on Dec. 3. No one has been jailed in the killing
despite an investigation conducted by the Association of Haitian
Journalists during which the alleged killers confessed to the crime.
     "We have (government) impunity in Haiti," said Pierre Esperance,
director for the National Coalition for Haitian Rights, a human-rights
organization with offices in Port-au-Prince and New York. "And elements of
the government seem to have a lot of problems with the independent press
informing the public about human rights abuses, corruption and the
politicization of the police, among other things."
     Guy Delva, secretary-general for the Association of Haitian
Journalists, said the press freedom group compiled the list independently.
"But if the president has a problem with appearing on that list, it's up to
him to prove he doesn't belong on that list, by assuming his responsibility
in making sure the Dominique and Lindor investigations come to a just end,"
he said.
     The Aristide government declined to comment on the report on Thursday,
saying it had not had a chance to review it.
     The Reporters Without Border list put Aristide in the company of
Cuba's Fidel Castro, Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Russia's Vladimir Putin,
among more than 30 others listed as world leaders hostile to press freedom.