Journalism in Haiti
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Journalism in Haiti
March 17, 2001
BOB GARFIELD: Since the mid-90s, Haitian journalists have been cultivating a free press. That freedom grew more fragile last year when reporters were subjected to a round of death threats, culminating in the shooting death of Jean Dominique, a hero of Haitian radio, right in front of his station. His passionate and candid reports had earned him equally fervent enemies, any one of whom could have arranged for his murder.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Some of the accused have tried to cast suspicion on his widow and co-host who was not with him as she usually was on the morning he died, but Michele Montas is doing all she can to make sure the investigation goes forward, despite the challenges posed by Haiti's fledgling democracy. On the Media's Marianne McCune traveled to Haiti and brought back this report.
MARIANNE McCUNE: Michele Montas says she believes in love at first sight. It happened to her one evening in 1972 - the first time she saw Jean Dominique.
WOMEN: I go to first movie -- I see him. I go to second movie -- I see him. I go to 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 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 nightstand and takes her morning coffee alone, facing the front door. She awaits the arrival of a car full of gunslinging 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 [sp?] into the parking lot where one morning almost a year ago she rushed to her husband's aid, too late to hear his last words. [MUSIC, GREETINGS] 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. [RADIO "SIGNAL" SOUND UNDER] His voice still opens the morning news show.
JEAN DOMINIQUE: Il est sept heures. A tous-- je dit bonjour.
TRANSLATOR: It's 7 o'clock. To all I say good morning.
MICHELE MONTAS: Bonjour Jean. Bonjour a tous. Nous sommes aujourdhui le ....
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.
MAN: [...?...] actualite. [MUSIC]
WOMEN: La priorite du gouvernement....
MAN: A chaque fois....
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.
MARIANNE McCUNE: Jean Dominique and Michele 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.
MICHELE 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 ON AIR: The culprits are believed to be a loose alliance of Duvalier loyalists....
MARIANNE McCUNE: Victoria Corderi of CBS News.
VICTORIA CORDERI ON AIR: ...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.
MICHELE 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 ON AIR: 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.
MAN: [...?...] seras juger par....
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: La verite toujours [...?...] la face du diable.
TRANSLATOR: The truth always makes the face of the devil blush.
JEAN DOMINIQUE: Merci.
MARIANNE McCUNE: Jean Dominique's voice is still ubiquitous on Radio Haiti in a daily promotional spot he tells listeners...
TRANSLATOR: They've tried everything to sink us - to electrocute us - to drown us - to seduce us!
JEAN DOMINIQUE: [LAUGHS]!!!! Il y- a [...?...]. Y a t'il raison [...?...]? Une! Il faut que les choses changes en Haiti.
TRANSLATOR: 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.
MAN: 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.
MAN: 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 [KEES gay AH] referred repeatedly to last year's Parliamentary elections as rigged they found a warning next to the front door.
MARVEL DANDIN: C'est la quand on a...
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.
MARVEL DANDIN: [LAUGHS]
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.
LEOPOLD BERLANGER: Il y a trois. Il y ca-- il y ca....
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.
LEOPOLD BERLANGER: A ce moment la police peut....
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 [KEES gay AH] host.
MAN: Et ils ont dits que les gens....
TRANSLATOR: They said that the people on this list need to explain themselves or they will be killed.
MARIANNE McCUNE: Though a government flack 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.
MAN: 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.
MICHELE 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 Michele 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 strongarm tactics and machete-bearing Tontons Macoutes.
MICHELE 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.
MICHELE MONTAS: A crime is punished. You have to pay for it. That notion does not exist in Haitian Society. [RADIO "SIGNAL" SOUND UNDER]
JEAN DOMINIQUE: Il est sept heures. A tous-- je dit bonjour.
MICHELE MONTAS: Bonjour Jean. Bonjour a tous....
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.
MICHELE 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: Michele 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.
March 17, 2001
BOB GARFIELD: Since the mid-90s, Haitian journalists have been cultivating a free press. That freedom grew more fragile last year when reporters were subjected to a round of death threats, culminating in the shooting death of Jean Dominique, a hero of Haitian radio, right in front of his station. His passionate and candid reports had earned him equally fervent enemies, any one of whom could have arranged for his murder.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Some of the accused have tried to cast suspicion on his widow and co-host who was not with him as she usually was on the morning he died, but Michele Montas is doing all she can to make sure the investigation goes forward, despite the challenges posed by Haiti's fledgling democracy. On the Media's Marianne McCune traveled to Haiti and brought back this report.
MARIANNE McCUNE: Michele Montas says she believes in love at first sight. It happened to her one evening in 1972 - the first time she saw Jean Dominique.
WOMEN: I go to first movie -- I see him. I go to second movie -- I see him. I go to 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 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 nightstand and takes her morning coffee alone, facing the front door. She awaits the arrival of a car full of gunslinging 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 [sp?] into the parking lot where one morning almost a year ago she rushed to her husband's aid, too late to hear his last words. [MUSIC, GREETINGS] 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. [RADIO "SIGNAL" SOUND UNDER] His voice still opens the morning news show.
JEAN DOMINIQUE: Il est sept heures. A tous-- je dit bonjour.
TRANSLATOR: It's 7 o'clock. To all I say good morning.
MICHELE MONTAS: Bonjour Jean. Bonjour a tous. Nous sommes aujourdhui le ....
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.
MAN: [...?...] actualite. [MUSIC]
WOMEN: La priorite du gouvernement....
MAN: A chaque fois....
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.
MARIANNE McCUNE: Jean Dominique and Michele 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.
MICHELE 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 ON AIR: The culprits are believed to be a loose alliance of Duvalier loyalists....
MARIANNE McCUNE: Victoria Corderi of CBS News.
VICTORIA CORDERI ON AIR: ...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.
MICHELE 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 ON AIR: 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.
MAN: [...?...] seras juger par....
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: La verite toujours [...?...] la face du diable.
TRANSLATOR: The truth always makes the face of the devil blush.
JEAN DOMINIQUE: Merci.
MARIANNE McCUNE: Jean Dominique's voice is still ubiquitous on Radio Haiti in a daily promotional spot he tells listeners...
TRANSLATOR: They've tried everything to sink us - to electrocute us - to drown us - to seduce us!
JEAN DOMINIQUE: [LAUGHS]!!!! Il y- a [...?...]. Y a t'il raison [...?...]? Une! Il faut que les choses changes en Haiti.
TRANSLATOR: 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.
MAN: 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.
MAN: 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 [KEES gay AH] referred repeatedly to last year's Parliamentary elections as rigged they found a warning next to the front door.
MARVEL DANDIN: C'est la quand on a...
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.
MARVEL DANDIN: [LAUGHS]
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.
LEOPOLD BERLANGER: Il y a trois. Il y ca-- il y ca....
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.
LEOPOLD BERLANGER: A ce moment la police peut....
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 [KEES gay AH] host.
MAN: Et ils ont dits que les gens....
TRANSLATOR: They said that the people on this list need to explain themselves or they will be killed.
MARIANNE McCUNE: Though a government flack 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.
MAN: 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.
MICHELE 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 Michele 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 strongarm tactics and machete-bearing Tontons Macoutes.
MICHELE 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.
MICHELE MONTAS: A crime is punished. You have to pay for it. That notion does not exist in Haitian Society. [RADIO "SIGNAL" SOUND UNDER]
JEAN DOMINIQUE: Il est sept heures. A tous-- je dit bonjour.
MICHELE MONTAS: Bonjour Jean. Bonjour a tous....
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.
MICHELE 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: Michele 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.
Produced by WNYC Studios