/REPEAT/MEDIA-HAITI: Journalism Paralysed by Threats and Attacks

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Ives Marie Chanel

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jan 8 2002 (IPS) - Haitian journalists say they have been hobbled by a series of attacks and threats perpetrated by government supporters over the past month and a sense of uncertainty, anxiety, and fear now reigns in most newsrooms.

Shortly after radio journalist Brignol Lindor was attacked and killed with machetes and stones Dec. 3, members of grassroots organisations loyal to the government of President Jean Bertrand Aristide have threatened to burn down radio stations here in the capital and in Cap-Haitien, Haiti’s second largest city.

Lindor worked for the privately run radio station Echo 2000 in Petit Goave, 68 kilometers southwest of the capital. Since his death, journalists have been threatened and forced to shout “Long live Aristide”. Some radio stations have suspended all news programming for fear of reprisals should their reporting on the country’s deteriorating political situation arouse anyone’s ire.

The Association of Haitian Journalists (AJH) has documented the cases of more than a dozen journalists who have been forced to flee the country with their families and seek refuge in the United States or in France during the last few weeks.

The owners of media outlets are concerned for the safety of their journalists and some are distraught because of the “brain drain” of individuals who were likely to become Haiti’s next generation of top journalists.

Patrick Moussignac, director of the popular, privately owned Port- au-Prince radio station Caraibes, says “fear and uncertainty” accurately sums up the present atmosphere felt by most news gatherers.

“The situation is difficult”, he adds. “The journalists who want to stay and work are getting their visas in order. They’ll tell you the visas are escape hatches in case there’s a problem. Reporters have been hesitating to go out in the field to report because they’re afraid of the ‘chimera’, a sort of civilian militia, which operates with total impunity”.

“The failure to punish these people makes them afraid, too, when they write their stories. They are frustrated by the fact that people without any training or education become rich because of corruption, while they see no future for themselves in a country which has little to offer”, Moussignac says.

His radio station, which was stoned and threatened Dec. 17, plans to resume its news programming this week although two of its journalists have already left the country.

The country’s main media owners’ group, in a year-end statement, has condemned the growing violence and actions they say threaten the democratic process, civil liberties, multiparty government, ideological pluralism, and freedom of expression.

Herold Jean Francois, president of the National Association of Haitian Media Outlets (ANMH), says that working conditions for journalists have deteriorated because of attacks perpetrated by fanatical government supporters.

“Reporters are avoiding covering certain types of stories,” he told IPS. “After the political parties, the press has been the main victim of the violence. In 14 years of democratic transition, this is the first time so many journalists have had to seek refuge in foreign embassies. The situation is catastrophic. Young reporters who are the future of journalism in this country are quitting the profession prematurely.”

Jean Francois says some media outlets have been sorely affected by the departure of journalists in whom they’ve invested several years’ training. He feels that the orchestrated campaign against the press comes from the highest levels of government.

“Telephone threats to editorial offices create a bad atmosphere in which to work. They sow panic and create a permanent sense of psychological stress, which affects the journalists’ work”, he says.

At the end of the year, the Haitian press itself took stock of the situation. The theme for the final issue for 2001 of the country’s number one daily paper, Le Nouvelliste, was “The press dismantled”. The newspaper presented an account of all the threats and attacks experienced during the course of the year by both reporters and media outlets.

“We chose not to go into an account of political news to avoid the Manichean view of just Lavalas (the ruling party), and the Democratic Convergence (the opposition coalition). We chose instead to go into projections for the new year to provide some hope of life beyond those folks”, Pierre Manigat Jr., the paper’s editor-in-chief, told IPS.

Manigat says he thinks young journalists have had to absorb a depressing lesson, last meted out to their forebears during the 1980s, under the Duvalier dictatorship, about the limitations of the media as a force for public discourse and political change.

“The young journalists who have been threatened recently have reacted by leaving the country, since journalists here are no longer considered prime movers for social change. They see the example of their elders, who sacrificed their youth for a change that never happened. They’ve also figured out that in a country in economic crisis, journalism is not a profession with a future”, Manigat says.

Journalists, owners, and other media workers have been little reassured by Aristide’s most recent reaffirmations of his commitment to the freedom of the press.

“The ones accused of having assassinated Lindor go around Petit Goave without a care in the world. Right now, there are no longer any journalists in that town – they’ve all left”, a technician for Radio Echo 2000 says on condition that his name not be revealed.

After Lindor’s funeral, the radio station shut down and its director, Arbrun Alezi, had to leave town. Lindor’s family remains in hiding.

“We have to hide in order not to get caught by the ‘chimera’. We cannot go back to Petit Goave”, a family member of Lindor’s told IPS. He says officials, whom he declines to name, tried to bribe family members to remain silent by offering them a house in the hills of Petion Ville, among other benefits.

Dumerzier Bellande, the head of Petit Goave’s public prosecutor’s office, says he issued arrest warrants for the suspected killers but that the police failed to act on these.

“You’d better ask the police about that. I did what I was supposed to do on the case. It’s up to the police to do their job”, he said during an appearance last week on the private station Radio Ibo.

AJH Secretary-General Guy Delva says the situation remains very serious because of ongoing threats against journalists by unidentified armed individuals since Dec. 17.

“The government can always say it has nothing to do with these acts but the armed groups perpetrating them who have identified themselves (as allied) to the government seem to never have anything to worry about. These people know they will never be punished, and they target journalists who, on the other hand, cannot identify them”, says Delva.

Other journalists note that an official investigation into the April 2000 killing of leading media commentator Jean Leopold Dominique remains stymied by politics, with the Senate refusing to lift parliamentary immunity for Senator Dany Toussaint, who is wanted for questioning.

The mandate of Judge Claudy Gassant, in charge of the inquiry, expired Jan. 3. Minister of Justice Louis Gary Lissade has said whether or not to renew the judge’s commission is solely a matter for Aristide to decide.