Haitian Journalist
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Haitian Journalist
August 4, 2001
BOB GARFIELD: Since the mid-90s Haitian journalists have been trying to forge a free press, but that freedom was threatened last year when reporters were subjected to a round of death threats. It culminated in the spring of last year with the killing of Jean Dominique, a national gadfly and hero of Haitian radio.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Some of the accused tried to cast suspicion on his widow and co-host Michelle Montas who was not with him as she usually was on the morning he died. Still, she is doing all she can to push the investigation forward, despite the challenges posed by Haiti's fledgling democracy. On the Media's Marianne McCune produced this piece for us in March, and she'll be back with us in a few minutes with an update.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Michelle Montas says she believes in love at first sight. It happened to her one evening in 1972, the first time she saw Jean Dominique.
MICHELLE MONTAS: I go to first movie, I see him. I go to second movie, I see him. I go to a third movie, which I love to do -- go to see three movies in a row! -- I go to a third movie and here he is again! I said that man cr--is crazy!
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Twenty-nine years later as the first streams of sunlight creep in among the purple Bougainvillea bordering her garden, Montas climbs out of bed, says goodbye to the photograph on her night stand, and takes her morning coffee along, facing the front door. She awaits the arrival of a car full of gun-slinging government bodyguards to back up the two with her at all times. [CAR HORN] Only then will she drive through the gates of Radio Haiti Inter, [CAR DOORS OPEN/CLOSE] into the package lot where one morning almost a year ago she rushed to her husband's aid too late to hear his last words. [MUSIC] In the on-air studio across from her engineer, Montas leans bony elbows on the table under a bigger than life black and white photograph of Jean Dominique, his voice still opens the morning news show. [RADIO "SIGNAL" SOUND UNDER] [JEAN DOMINIQUE SPEAKING IN FRENCH]
TRANSLATOR: It's 7 o'clock. To all I say good morning.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: She raises her eyes between phrases, as if speaking to someone in the room. It's been 326 days, she says, since a journalist who at times risked his life so others could gain the right to speak was assassinated in the courtyard of this radio station. It's been 326 days since a free man fell. [SNIPPETS OF FRENCH FROM PROGRAM]
TRANSLATOR: Each time you enter this radio station, the first thing that hits you is that Jean was murdered here.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Gregorie Casimir is one of the dozen or so journalists who work with Montas.
TRANSLATOR: And now you, you could be another victim. [RADIO HAITI THEME MUSIC]
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Jean Dominique and Michelle Montas reported the news through far more nerve-wracking times in Haiti. During the 1970s and '80s under the dictatorial regimes of the Duvaliers, Radio Haiti was one of the single sources of news to push beyond official public statements. To avoid being closed down, reporters approached their stories indirectly, for example using Nicaragua as a metaphor for Haiti.
MICHELLE MONTAS: We couldn't talk about the eventual fall of Jean Claude Duvalier, but we talk about the fall of Somoza. The Sandinista song was played on our airwave! We had a reporter in Managua!
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Montas had studied journalism at Columbia University in New York, but found reporting in Haiti was not the objective craft her professors would have had her believe. It was a battle. After the fall of Jean Claude Duvalier in 1986, that battle was for free Democratic elections, but by the night before Haitians were to cast their ballots the following year, fires set by the military burned across Port-au-Prince.
VICTORIA CORDERI: The culprits are believed to be a loose alliance of Duvalier loyalists...
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Victoria Corderi of CBS News.
VICTORIA CORDERI: ...military who are being blamed for the months of violence.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Montas and her team watched in frustration from the station's roof until they found they themselves were being shot at.
MICHELLE MONTAS: There was that feeling that whether you were a journalist or not, it's called rage. There were some rocks on top of that roof. We picked them up and started throwing the rocks, and it was, I have to say, extremely enjoyable to see armed men running. One of them dropped his gun!
VICTORIA CORDERI: ...most of the radio stations have been sabotaged. The radio is a unifying force here.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: It was 1990 before Haitians finally did get to vote. That was a victory for Radio Haiti. Dominique supported the election of Jean Bertrand Aristide. He told listeners he was for Aristide's party called Lavalas, but Dominique never stopped battling, and neither has his station. [RADIO HAITI THEME MUSIC]
MARIANNE MCCUNE: They've covered the poisoning of 70 children from faulty cough syrup and the push to prosecute the owner of the company at fault. They've reported on corruption among Haitian officials and businessmen and on the U.S.'s refusal to extradite the Haitian leader of a paramilitary group. Among those Dominique slammed in his commentaries were Haiti's most powerful. Now some are suspects in his murder. [JEAN DOMINIQUE SPEAKING IN FRENCH]
TRANSLATOR: The truth always makes the face of the devil blush. [JEAN DOMINIQUE SPEAKING IN FRENCH]
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Jean Dominique's voice is still ubiquitous on Radio Haiti in a daily promotional spot he tells listeners...
TRANSLATOR: They have tried everything to sink us - to electrocute us - to drown us - to seduce us! This has lasted more than 50 years. Is there a reason it should stop? Yes. One--: Things must change in Haiti.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Whether Haiti can put Jean Dominique's killer on trial is a test of just how much the country has changed. The Judge charged with investigating his murder travels through Port-au-Prince followed not only by a police van but by a government swat team. Of the half dozen who've been arrested so far, one died mysteriously on an operating table. Of the 70 called for questioning, some are finding ways to resist. A Lavalas senator against whom evidence is piling up says he's willing, but his senate colleagues are debating whether he has immunity.
BRIAN CONCANNON: When democracy was restored in the fall of 1994, the justice system was absolutely in shambles.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Brian Concannon's group of international attorneys is working for the Haitian government.
BRIAN CONCANNON: Throughout its history the people running the system had always taken the sides of whoever had the guns and the money.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Concannon says in this case top officials have assured him there are no untouchables, but Haitians don't believe the government can or will investigate.
BRAIN CONCANNON: So someone might have information that if they were sure that their information would put the person in, in jail, they would give it; but they're not sure that's going to happen, and they're afraid of antagonizing somebody.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Local journalists are certainly skeptical that a killer will be found and punished, especially those who've themselves been threatened with death or damage to their stations in the past year and believe the ruling party is responsible. When a station called Radio [KESE kay AH] referred repeatedly to last year's Parliamentary elections as rigged, they found a warning next to the front door. [MAN SPEAKING IN FRENCH]
TRANSLATOR: That's where someone left a gallon of gas....
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Marvel Dandin is co-founder of the station.
TRANSLATOR: They were saying we can burn you down. [LAUGHTER]
MARIANNE MCCUNE:The facade of another radio station, Vision 2000, is punctured with small holes after protesters shouting slogans of the ruling party pelted it with rocks. [MAN SPEAKING IN FRENCH]
TRANSLATOR: There are three holes -- there's that, there's that, and there's a third.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Station owner Leopold Berlanger is a wealthy supporter of the opposition.
TRANSLATOR: These days police can cross their arms and do nothing! Who's responsible? Are they following an order from someone powerful? We don't know. And our leaders say nothing. They close their mouths.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: In January, just before President Aristide was newly inaugurated, a list of people suspected of favoring the opposition was read over government air. Two journalists were named, one a radio [KESE kay AH] host. [MAN SPEAKING IN French]
TRANSLATOR: They said that the people on this list need to explain themselves or they will be killed.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Though a government flak denounced the reader, no one seemed to claim responsibility for the list. Two reporters at Vision 2000 fled to Canada last year. Radio stations have closed for days or weeks at a time. Some reporters sleep in a different bed every night.
GUY DELVA: If you knew that okay, this was - it was the government, it was the police chief, it was a minister, maybe when you are reporting the news you know how to present it -- but now you don't know who! And you don't know which news will bother who!
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Newspaper reporter Guy Delva recently revived The Association of Haitian Journalists, disbanded during the military coup of 1991.
GUY DELVA: When press freedom exists, now it can be threatened.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Delva's aim is to get journalists to stand together against threats, but the journalists themselves are divided. Berlanger's Vision 2000 is funded by wealthy investors who support opposition leaders. It's even rumored to receive American money. People say Guy Delva of the Association of the Haitian Journalists is an even-handed reporter, but they also say he's on the government payroll.
MICHELLE MONTAS: A few years ago you know it was-- when you had money, you know you'd buy yourself a bank. Now you buy yourself a media. A radio station.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Radio stations and newspapers are themselves political players, reminds Michelle Montas, whose station has received death threats from all sides. The media are enmeshed in the same violent culture that plagues Haitian politics. They grew up under Duvalier's strong-arm tactics and machete-bearing Tontons Macoutes.
MICHELLE MONTAS: I don't think it is amazing in any way that you have a little bit of the Macoutes left in the mentality of a lot of Haitians, whatever the political parties! You don't overturn mentalities overnight!
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The threats will go away says Montas only when the justice system has squeaked into action.
MICHELLE MONTAS: A crime is punished. You have to pay for it. That notion does not exist in Haitian Society. [RADIO "SIGNAL" SOUND] [JEAN DOMINIQUE SPEAKING AT START OF PROGRAM] [MICHELLE MONTAS GREETING HER HUSBAND ON AIR]
MARIANNE MCCUNE:There is a myth that Jean Dominique loved, says Montas -- the myth of Sisyphus, condemned by the gods to roll a boulder up a mountain.
MICHELLE MONTAS: It didn't matter to Sisyphus that the rock was going to roll down again after he had brought it up the mountain. What mattered was-- the shape of the rock, was the way the rock felt under your hands, was the effort of pushing it.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Michelle Montas may not know whom she's fighting, but she knows what she's fighting for. Backing down now, she says, would make her an assassin in the second murder of her husband. For On the Media, I'm Marianne McCune.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And Marianne is back with us now in the studio. So how is the investigation going several months hence?
MARIANNE MCCUNE:Well it continues to be plagued by delays. As the lead judge investigating the case got closer and closer to an indictment, he and some of the journalists reporting on the issue were feeling more and more under pressure. In June, just as he submitted his recommendations to the government for approval, he fled the country saying he was too much in danger. His report was rumored to include the indictment of a very, very prominent senator, someone Jean Dominique had thoroughly criticized a few months before his murder, but nothing could be done with the report in his absence, so that stalled any action for a while. Since then he's returned to Haiti and is back on the case. [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The judge has.
MARIANNE MCCUNE:The judge, Judge Gasson [sp?] has returned to Haiti and is back on the case, but he's still facing many obstacles. The government has told him to continue the investigation, but Dani Toussaint [sp?], the senator many think will be indicted, has accused him of bias, and another investigation into that possible bias may prevent him from further questioning Toussaint. So there seems to be barrier after barrier to getting to the bottom of this case.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: How about the pressure on the Haitian press in general -- has that eased up?
MARIANNE MCCUNE:I don't think it's eased up particularly. One journalist from Radio Haiti Inter called me from Canada saying he'd become too afraid to stay in the country because of his reporting on the investigation. There are reports that the government is threatening and/or buying out stations that would otherwise report critically. So politics in Haiti are so chaotic it's still difficult to tell who's responsible for trying to control what's said in the press.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Well Marianne, thank you very much!
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Thanks.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Marianne McCune, a reporter for On the Media and for WNYC in New York. [MUSIC]
August 4, 2001
BOB GARFIELD: Since the mid-90s Haitian journalists have been trying to forge a free press, but that freedom was threatened last year when reporters were subjected to a round of death threats. It culminated in the spring of last year with the killing of Jean Dominique, a national gadfly and hero of Haitian radio.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Some of the accused tried to cast suspicion on his widow and co-host Michelle Montas who was not with him as she usually was on the morning he died. Still, she is doing all she can to push the investigation forward, despite the challenges posed by Haiti's fledgling democracy. On the Media's Marianne McCune produced this piece for us in March, and she'll be back with us in a few minutes with an update.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Michelle Montas says she believes in love at first sight. It happened to her one evening in 1972, the first time she saw Jean Dominique.
MICHELLE MONTAS: I go to first movie, I see him. I go to second movie, I see him. I go to a third movie, which I love to do -- go to see three movies in a row! -- I go to a third movie and here he is again! I said that man cr--is crazy!
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Twenty-nine years later as the first streams of sunlight creep in among the purple Bougainvillea bordering her garden, Montas climbs out of bed, says goodbye to the photograph on her night stand, and takes her morning coffee along, facing the front door. She awaits the arrival of a car full of gun-slinging government bodyguards to back up the two with her at all times. [CAR HORN] Only then will she drive through the gates of Radio Haiti Inter, [CAR DOORS OPEN/CLOSE] into the package lot where one morning almost a year ago she rushed to her husband's aid too late to hear his last words. [MUSIC] In the on-air studio across from her engineer, Montas leans bony elbows on the table under a bigger than life black and white photograph of Jean Dominique, his voice still opens the morning news show. [RADIO "SIGNAL" SOUND UNDER] [JEAN DOMINIQUE SPEAKING IN FRENCH]
TRANSLATOR: It's 7 o'clock. To all I say good morning.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: She raises her eyes between phrases, as if speaking to someone in the room. It's been 326 days, she says, since a journalist who at times risked his life so others could gain the right to speak was assassinated in the courtyard of this radio station. It's been 326 days since a free man fell. [SNIPPETS OF FRENCH FROM PROGRAM]
TRANSLATOR: Each time you enter this radio station, the first thing that hits you is that Jean was murdered here.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Gregorie Casimir is one of the dozen or so journalists who work with Montas.
TRANSLATOR: And now you, you could be another victim. [RADIO HAITI THEME MUSIC]
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Jean Dominique and Michelle Montas reported the news through far more nerve-wracking times in Haiti. During the 1970s and '80s under the dictatorial regimes of the Duvaliers, Radio Haiti was one of the single sources of news to push beyond official public statements. To avoid being closed down, reporters approached their stories indirectly, for example using Nicaragua as a metaphor for Haiti.
MICHELLE MONTAS: We couldn't talk about the eventual fall of Jean Claude Duvalier, but we talk about the fall of Somoza. The Sandinista song was played on our airwave! We had a reporter in Managua!
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Montas had studied journalism at Columbia University in New York, but found reporting in Haiti was not the objective craft her professors would have had her believe. It was a battle. After the fall of Jean Claude Duvalier in 1986, that battle was for free Democratic elections, but by the night before Haitians were to cast their ballots the following year, fires set by the military burned across Port-au-Prince.
VICTORIA CORDERI: The culprits are believed to be a loose alliance of Duvalier loyalists...
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Victoria Corderi of CBS News.
VICTORIA CORDERI: ...military who are being blamed for the months of violence.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Montas and her team watched in frustration from the station's roof until they found they themselves were being shot at.
MICHELLE MONTAS: There was that feeling that whether you were a journalist or not, it's called rage. There were some rocks on top of that roof. We picked them up and started throwing the rocks, and it was, I have to say, extremely enjoyable to see armed men running. One of them dropped his gun!
VICTORIA CORDERI: ...most of the radio stations have been sabotaged. The radio is a unifying force here.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: It was 1990 before Haitians finally did get to vote. That was a victory for Radio Haiti. Dominique supported the election of Jean Bertrand Aristide. He told listeners he was for Aristide's party called Lavalas, but Dominique never stopped battling, and neither has his station. [RADIO HAITI THEME MUSIC]
MARIANNE MCCUNE: They've covered the poisoning of 70 children from faulty cough syrup and the push to prosecute the owner of the company at fault. They've reported on corruption among Haitian officials and businessmen and on the U.S.'s refusal to extradite the Haitian leader of a paramilitary group. Among those Dominique slammed in his commentaries were Haiti's most powerful. Now some are suspects in his murder. [JEAN DOMINIQUE SPEAKING IN FRENCH]
TRANSLATOR: The truth always makes the face of the devil blush. [JEAN DOMINIQUE SPEAKING IN FRENCH]
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Jean Dominique's voice is still ubiquitous on Radio Haiti in a daily promotional spot he tells listeners...
TRANSLATOR: They have tried everything to sink us - to electrocute us - to drown us - to seduce us! This has lasted more than 50 years. Is there a reason it should stop? Yes. One--: Things must change in Haiti.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Whether Haiti can put Jean Dominique's killer on trial is a test of just how much the country has changed. The Judge charged with investigating his murder travels through Port-au-Prince followed not only by a police van but by a government swat team. Of the half dozen who've been arrested so far, one died mysteriously on an operating table. Of the 70 called for questioning, some are finding ways to resist. A Lavalas senator against whom evidence is piling up says he's willing, but his senate colleagues are debating whether he has immunity.
BRIAN CONCANNON: When democracy was restored in the fall of 1994, the justice system was absolutely in shambles.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Brian Concannon's group of international attorneys is working for the Haitian government.
BRIAN CONCANNON: Throughout its history the people running the system had always taken the sides of whoever had the guns and the money.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Concannon says in this case top officials have assured him there are no untouchables, but Haitians don't believe the government can or will investigate.
BRAIN CONCANNON: So someone might have information that if they were sure that their information would put the person in, in jail, they would give it; but they're not sure that's going to happen, and they're afraid of antagonizing somebody.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Local journalists are certainly skeptical that a killer will be found and punished, especially those who've themselves been threatened with death or damage to their stations in the past year and believe the ruling party is responsible. When a station called Radio [KESE kay AH] referred repeatedly to last year's Parliamentary elections as rigged, they found a warning next to the front door. [MAN SPEAKING IN FRENCH]
TRANSLATOR: That's where someone left a gallon of gas....
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Marvel Dandin is co-founder of the station.
TRANSLATOR: They were saying we can burn you down. [LAUGHTER]
MARIANNE MCCUNE:The facade of another radio station, Vision 2000, is punctured with small holes after protesters shouting slogans of the ruling party pelted it with rocks. [MAN SPEAKING IN FRENCH]
TRANSLATOR: There are three holes -- there's that, there's that, and there's a third.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Station owner Leopold Berlanger is a wealthy supporter of the opposition.
TRANSLATOR: These days police can cross their arms and do nothing! Who's responsible? Are they following an order from someone powerful? We don't know. And our leaders say nothing. They close their mouths.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: In January, just before President Aristide was newly inaugurated, a list of people suspected of favoring the opposition was read over government air. Two journalists were named, one a radio [KESE kay AH] host. [MAN SPEAKING IN French]
TRANSLATOR: They said that the people on this list need to explain themselves or they will be killed.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Though a government flak denounced the reader, no one seemed to claim responsibility for the list. Two reporters at Vision 2000 fled to Canada last year. Radio stations have closed for days or weeks at a time. Some reporters sleep in a different bed every night.
GUY DELVA: If you knew that okay, this was - it was the government, it was the police chief, it was a minister, maybe when you are reporting the news you know how to present it -- but now you don't know who! And you don't know which news will bother who!
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Newspaper reporter Guy Delva recently revived The Association of Haitian Journalists, disbanded during the military coup of 1991.
GUY DELVA: When press freedom exists, now it can be threatened.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Delva's aim is to get journalists to stand together against threats, but the journalists themselves are divided. Berlanger's Vision 2000 is funded by wealthy investors who support opposition leaders. It's even rumored to receive American money. People say Guy Delva of the Association of the Haitian Journalists is an even-handed reporter, but they also say he's on the government payroll.
MICHELLE MONTAS: A few years ago you know it was-- when you had money, you know you'd buy yourself a bank. Now you buy yourself a media. A radio station.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Radio stations and newspapers are themselves political players, reminds Michelle Montas, whose station has received death threats from all sides. The media are enmeshed in the same violent culture that plagues Haitian politics. They grew up under Duvalier's strong-arm tactics and machete-bearing Tontons Macoutes.
MICHELLE MONTAS: I don't think it is amazing in any way that you have a little bit of the Macoutes left in the mentality of a lot of Haitians, whatever the political parties! You don't overturn mentalities overnight!
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The threats will go away says Montas only when the justice system has squeaked into action.
MICHELLE MONTAS: A crime is punished. You have to pay for it. That notion does not exist in Haitian Society. [RADIO "SIGNAL" SOUND] [JEAN DOMINIQUE SPEAKING AT START OF PROGRAM] [MICHELLE MONTAS GREETING HER HUSBAND ON AIR]
MARIANNE MCCUNE:There is a myth that Jean Dominique loved, says Montas -- the myth of Sisyphus, condemned by the gods to roll a boulder up a mountain.
MICHELLE MONTAS: It didn't matter to Sisyphus that the rock was going to roll down again after he had brought it up the mountain. What mattered was-- the shape of the rock, was the way the rock felt under your hands, was the effort of pushing it.
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Michelle Montas may not know whom she's fighting, but she knows what she's fighting for. Backing down now, she says, would make her an assassin in the second murder of her husband. For On the Media, I'm Marianne McCune.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And Marianne is back with us now in the studio. So how is the investigation going several months hence?
MARIANNE MCCUNE:Well it continues to be plagued by delays. As the lead judge investigating the case got closer and closer to an indictment, he and some of the journalists reporting on the issue were feeling more and more under pressure. In June, just as he submitted his recommendations to the government for approval, he fled the country saying he was too much in danger. His report was rumored to include the indictment of a very, very prominent senator, someone Jean Dominique had thoroughly criticized a few months before his murder, but nothing could be done with the report in his absence, so that stalled any action for a while. Since then he's returned to Haiti and is back on the case. [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The judge has.
MARIANNE MCCUNE:The judge, Judge Gasson [sp?] has returned to Haiti and is back on the case, but he's still facing many obstacles. The government has told him to continue the investigation, but Dani Toussaint [sp?], the senator many think will be indicted, has accused him of bias, and another investigation into that possible bias may prevent him from further questioning Toussaint. So there seems to be barrier after barrier to getting to the bottom of this case.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: How about the pressure on the Haitian press in general -- has that eased up?
MARIANNE MCCUNE:I don't think it's eased up particularly. One journalist from Radio Haiti Inter called me from Canada saying he'd become too afraid to stay in the country because of his reporting on the investigation. There are reports that the government is threatening and/or buying out stations that would otherwise report critically. So politics in Haiti are so chaotic it's still difficult to tell who's responsible for trying to control what's said in the press.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Well Marianne, thank you very much!
MARIANNE MCCUNE: Thanks.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Marianne McCune, a reporter for On the Media and for WNYC in New York. [MUSIC]
Produced by WNYC Studios