(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, RSF expressed its deep anger following the killing of Brignol Lindor, of Radio Echo 2000 station, by a crowd of demonstrators. The journalist was killed with machetes by presumed supporters of the president’s party, Fanmi Lavalas. Individuals with links to the government have been implicated in […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, RSF expressed its deep anger following the killing of Brignol Lindor, of Radio Echo 2000 station, by a crowd of demonstrators. The journalist was killed with machetes by presumed supporters of the president’s party, Fanmi Lavalas. Individuals with links to the government have been implicated in many attacks against journalists over the past few weeks. “We ask that you put an end to the violence and climate of impunity that prevails in Haiti. Our fear that another journalist would be killed if Jean Dominique’s death remained unpunished has tragically proven to be justified,” stated RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard.
Ménard asked Aristide “to make all necessary means available to the investigators, to ensure that the authors of Lindor’s assassination are identified and punished.” “We also ask you, as leader of the Fanmi Lavalas party, to send a very clear message to your supporters telling them to stop attacking journalists. In order for the impunity to recede, this message should also be addressed to the Fanmi Lavalas members who are affected by the investigation into the death of Radio Haïti Inter director Jean Dominique, to ensure that they collaborate with the courts,” added Ménard. The organisation also called for the opening of an investigation aimed at identifying and punishing the authors of the attacks on journalists Jean-Marie Mayard, Ernst Océan and Evrard Saint-Armand, which took place during the week of 26 November 2001. Finally, RSF asked the president to reconsider the policy of “zero tolerance” that he ordered on 28 June and which legitimises lynchings of delinquents or those identified as such.
Context
Since 1 January, about fifteen journalists have been threatened or attacked by police officers or Fanmi Lavalas supporters. On 9 November, one of Dominique’s presumed assassins was killed by a crowd of demonstrators who stoned him and attacked him with machetes. Dominique, Haiti’s most renowned journalist and political analyst, was killed in the courtyard of his radio station, Radio Haiti Inter, on 3 April 2000. In his 19 October 1999 editorial, the journalist had sharply criticised Dany Toussaint, a Fanmi Lavalas member who was since elected senator. In August 2001, the examining judge responsible for the case asked the Senate to lift Toussaint’s parliamentary immunity because of his assumed involvement in the journalist’s assassination. The Senate has yet to take a decision.
Lindor: a victim of the “zero tolerance” policy?
According to information collected by RSF, on 3 December, Lindor, information director of Radio Echo 2000, a private radio station in the city of Petit-Goâve (sixty-eight kilometres south-west of Port-au-Prince), was killed by assumed Fanmi Lavalas supporters, who stoned him and attacked him with machetes. The journalist was killed as he was driving to work. Ardouin Alézi, the radio station’s director, explained that Lindor had sought shelter at the home of a local Fanmi Lavalas elected representative who reportedly handed him over to his attackers. A friend of the victim who was driving the vehicle was able to escape at the time of the attack. The assassination was registered at 11:00 a.m. (local time) and the victim’s body was evacuated four hours later. No official report was recorded and there was no police presence at the scene of the crime. The police have reportedly not made any arrests.
After inviting opposition figures to speak on his programme “Dialogue”, Lindor received many death threats from local authorities who are members of the ruling party. “We don’t know if this murder was politically motivated,” Petit-Goâve Police Commissioner Alix Alexandre told the press. Junol Casimir, one of Lindor’s colleagues from Radio Echo 2000, believes that the journalist was indeed killed by supporters of President Aristide. A few days earlier, some local Fanmi Lavalas officials had threatened to apply the “zero tolerance” policy to the opposition. Since the policy’s launch in June, several dozen assumed criminals have been lynched by citizens, with the police’s presumed collusion, according to human rights organisations.
Lindor, aged 32, a former Radio Signal FM local correspondent and former assistant secretary-general of the Petit-Goâve Journalists’ Association, was also a school principal and customs agent with the city.
Three journalists attacked
Furthermore, on 29 November, during an opposition demonstration, members of People’s Organisations (organisations populaires, OP) that are close to the government threatened to kill Mayard, a Radio Métropole correspondent in Saint-Marc (western Haiti). They said the journalist was guilty of not broadcasting pro-government news. Afterwards, Mayard was briefly detained for no apparent reason by police officers from the Intervention and Maintenance of Order Company (Compagnie d’intervention et de maintien de l’ordre, CIMO). That same day, members of an OP that is close to the government also attacked and threatened to kill Océan, who is from Radio Vision 2000. They fired gunshots at him and punctured his car tires. They accuse the journalist of working for the opposition Convergence démocratique party.
On 25 November, Saint-Armand was assaulted and taken to a Port-au-Prince police station by a plainclothes police officer who threatened him with a gun. The Radio Kiskeya journalist had just witnessed an altercation that ended in the death of a young man. Accused of being responsible for the death, the journalist was beaten several times during the ensuing interrogation. According to the Haitian Journalists’ Association (Association des journalistes haïtiens, AJH), the police officers, “knew perfectly well that the colleague was at the scene of the incident in his capacity as a journalist.” The association believes that the police officers allegedly acted against the journalist as a means of “discrediting the press.” Saint-Armand was released after several hours, following the intervention of his radio station’s management and senior police officials. His equipment was destroyed so he was unable to broadcast the recording of his arrest.
