/ARTS WEEKLY/FILM-HAITI: Scientist Transformed Radio Into Weapon Against Abuses

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Ella Turenne

NEW YORK, May 4 2004 (IPS) - “I have no weapon other than my journalist’s profession, my microphone and my unshakable faith as a militant for change,” said famed Haitian radio personality and human rights advocate, Jean Dominique, who was assassinated four years ago.

That faith in change would cost Dominique his life, but not his legacy, asserts ‘The Agronomist’, a documentary about the scientist- turned-journalist, which opened to packed houses in New York theatres in April.

In a series of intimate interviews with Dominique before his death and with the activist’s wife, Michelle Montas, director Jonathan Demme – famous for ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ – paints a picture of a man driven by his need to give the Haitian people a voice – and the opportunity to decide their own affairs.

Born in 1931 to a well-to-do family in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, Dominique grew up with a father who instilled in him extreme pride and nationalism. He studied agronomy in France and practiced his trade for six years after returning to his homeland.

As time went on, Dominique began to question some practices of the governing Duvalier regime as he worked to improve the condition of the land. As a result, he was jailed for six months.

After his stretch in prison, Dominique went looking for other opportunities. In 1968, while working in radio, the chance came for him to purchase the country’s oldest station, Radio Haiti Inter, and he seized it.

Dominique had a vision. He planned to change the face of Haitian radio, which at that time, still under the Duvalier regime, was used solely for entertainment. Dominique wanted to introduce Creole to the French-speaking medium and, most importantly, to provide information about his native land. This he described as “risky business.”

Risky it was. Over the course of Dominique’s time at Radio Haiti Inter, the station was shot at on numerous occasions, lives were threatened, staff arrested, and Dominique and his wife forced into exile on two occasions. What was extraordinary about the personality, the man, the human being behind the fight, was the unshakeable, almost fearless, nature of his belief in the Haitian people.

Dominique told his listeners about struggles for human rights in other countries, knowing that Haitians would make the connection between their own plights and those of others around the world. And when Haitians did take up their own struggle, Dominique was there, broadcasting it all live and direct.

He survived the regime of Francois ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier (1956-71) and that of the ruler’s son, Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier (1971-86). After the latter was overthrown, Dominique returned to Haiti from his exile in New York and rebuilt Radio Haiti Inter. Those were optimistic times: when it seemed the rise of Jean-Bertrand Aristide would finally return some semblance of democracy to Haiti.

But those times did not last. Dominique began to smell danger in the air before he was killed in April 2000. His murderers have yet to be brought to justice.

What would drive a man such as Jonathan Demme to make such a film? As a director of big-budget Hollywood movies like ‘Silence of the Lambs’ and ‘Philadelphia’ he could easily spend his time on mainstream topics. But Demme says his relationship with Haiti is personal.

“I’m a filmmaker who loves Haiti,” says the director. “The press has been so negative. I need to be making films that show the positive side.”

Demme met Dominique in 1987 while working on ‘Haiti: Dreams of Democracy’, a 1988 documentary on celebrations as the country marked a year of freedom from the Duvaliers. He became interested in telling the story of the man who had started his career as an agronomist and became a human rights activist via radio.

Demme told the audience at the premiere he hopes the new film will educate people not only about Dominique, but about Haiti and Haitians’ struggle as well.

Audience members at the premiere asked what they could do to improve the situation in Haiti, where a U.S.-led multinational force has patrolled since Aristide was ousted Feb. 29. Demme said they could express outrage to their elected officials about Washington’s manipulation of the Caribbean nation.

Jocelyn McCalla, executive director of the National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR) was also at the event, a benefit for NCHR and Radio Haiti Inter.

“It is time for Haiti to live in democracy,” he said, “not dream about it. I hope that people will continue to tune into this issue.”

McCalla feels that when people see the film, “they cannot remain unmoved”, and hopes the movie will be a catalyst to rebuild Radio Haiti Inter, a still much-needed vehicle for communication in Haiti.

Haitian-born hip-hop artist Wyclef Jean was also moved by Dominique’s story and wrote the score for the film. “We have to bring some sort of awareness, start some form of revolution,” he told the audience.

Dominique’s wife, Michelle Montas, was also a personality at Radio Haiti Inter. After an attempt on her life in 2002, she fled to New York and now works at the United Nations.

Equally as militant, equally as fearless as her husband, her support of the Haitian people while at Radio Haiti Inter and her courage and defiance after Dominique’s death are a testament to her work.

“His assassination became the emblematic case,” Montas said. Recognising that Dominique’s death was not an isolated incident, she has pursued justice in this case, however bleak her chances. Although no one has been charged for his murder, Montas hopes her campaign will set an example and show that acts of violence in Haiti cannot go unnoticed and without consequences.

“The film has reached out for people who don’t know, for whom this is all a new story,” Montas said. “It’s a homage to friend, the story of Haiti, the story of a land, the story of the links of a man and the land.”