Jean Dominique

AHP News, April 2 - English Translation (Unofficial)

How important is Jean Dominique?
by Michèle Montas and Jan Dominique

Six years ago, on April 3, 2000, journalist Jean
Léopold Dominique was killed yards away from his
station, Radio Haïti.

It has been six years and still justice has not been
served for this free speech activist. As of today, his
murderers, as well as those who murdered Jean Claude
Louissaint and Maxime Seide two years later to shut
down the movement for justice, are still walking the
streets freely.

With the oh-so troubling voice of Radio Haiti no
longer around, the April 3 murder cases have not moved
for three years in a conspiracy of silence and
impunity.

The trial, taken over by four different judges, lasted
2 years and 10 months. It was agitated and bloody.
Suspects died in prison under strange circumstances.
Witnesses were killed. A judge went into exhile after
receiving threats. Almost every State institution
tried to stop the investigation: arrest warrants
ignored by the police, Senate opposition to waving off
a Senator’s parliamentarian immunity, police officers
publicly threatening a judge, the Head of State
temporary refusing (in 2002) to renew the mandate of
the judge leading the case.

After a not so subtle intervention by the Minister of
Justice of the time, the investigation theoretically
reached its conclusion on March 21, 2003, a month
after Radio Haïti was forced to shut down following an
assassination attempt, a murder and numerous threats
to its journalists. Even though the trial, from May
2000 to January 2002, had heard tens of witnesses and
had handed about 20 charges, Judge Bernard St Vil
convicted six individuals for the death of the
journalist. No sponsor was named.

On April 3, 2003, the family of the journalist made
appeal on the investigation’s conclusions. On August
4, 2003, Port-au-Prince’s Court of Appeal asked for a
new trial and freed three of the six convicted
individuals. The other three appealed to the Supreme
Court of Appeal, thus suspending the entire case.
Meanwhile, those three individuals, Jeudy Jean Daniel,
Dimsey Milien and Markenton Philippe, broke prison.

On March 14, 2004, the police followed two of Judge
St-Vil’s orders and arrested a former assistant to the
mayor of Port-au-Prince, Harold Sévère, charged on
January 28, 2003, and Roustide Pétion, alias mDouze,
for their alleged implication in the April 3 murders.

On June 29, 2004, the Supreme Court of Appeal rejected
the « Appeal of sirs Dymsley Millien named Tilou, Jean
Daniel Jeudi named Guimy and Markington Phillipe
against the order of the Court of Appeal of
Port-au-Prince ».

Thus, the Supreme Court of Appeal confirms the Court
of Appeal’s verdict that a new judge should be named
to find the sponsors of the crime. On April 3, 2005,
five years exactly after the April 3 murders, the case
is handed to a new judge. To this day, a year later,
the case is still on hold according to the RNDDH which
has followed the case closely for the past six years:
« The case of Jean Léopold Dominique and Jean Claude
Louissaint has been handed to Judge Jean Pérez Paul,
President of the Association Nationale des Magistrats
Haïtiens (National Association of Haitian Judges)
(ANAMAH).

This judge, well known for his December 30, 2005 order
in favour of alleged kidnappers, decided to hand back
the case to deanship, protesting that the Ministry has
not given him sufficient means to do his work. But the
judge did not resign; he is still working on other
cases. Since when does a judge choose his own cases ?
And no one says a word. » the RNDDH said.

Six years after the April 3 murders, how important is
Jean Dominique?

Anaesthetized by the victims in succession, in a
strong climate of impunity and with so much crime it’s
almost common, some might ask why we keep fighting for
this case, it’s because it is the most well-known one
of our recent history, and it should not be left
forgotten because some people are trying to put us to
sleep by repeating over and over again that ‘an
investigation is under way’. Shouldn’t it be time for
reconciliation and economic partnership? Who cares
about justice? After all, aren’t we holding, for many
years now, conventions of corruption, violence and
impunity in a society which has made forgetting the
best tool to survive?

Despite recurring political turbulence related to
corruption, after Duvalier, after the coup or after
Aristide, the nation never seems to ask people to pay
their dues. Kidnappers are freed almost as soon as
they are arrested. The same stands for assassins.
While a case like Raboteau, which had the strongest
evidence ever put together in our judiciary system, is
stopped for procedural defect, and no one from our
so-called civil society complains, you can count on
one hand the number of legal penalties that are not
cancelled by the eternal justice of the winners.

This impunity is everywhere in our daily lives, from
defamation in our media to the filth thrown in the
streets. A friend was telling me about a car driver
who was asking a merchant to move her stand which was
right in the middle of the Rue du Centre and the
answer he gets is « pouki m'ta fè sa, pa gen leta ».
Everybody can break the law without the fear of being
punished, whether it is minor infractions or murders.
Impunity is leading us into this daily anarchy, and
still we keep our eyes shut, accomplices or guilty.

How important is Jean Dominique? Once we have chosen
impunity for the murders of the four Jean, Jean Marie
Vincent, Jean Pierre Louis, Jean Lamy and Jean
Dominique, shouldn’t we have expected the murder of
Brignol Lindor, or the sponsored murder of deputy Marc
André Dirogène or the torture inflicted on our poet
and journalist Jacques Roche? How can we be surprised
by this dangerous spiral of aggression which has made
so many of us feel sorrow and pain? By seeing justice
as troubling, aren’t we all guilty of murder and
corruption? Aren’t we all accomplices by staying
shamefully silent?

How important is Jean Dominique? Some will say that
demanding justice for Jean Dominique or others today
is not politically correct, as it may disturb this
fragile and artificial stability that some try to call
reconciliation.

Why insist on ">justice today for Jean Dominique?

The answer lies in all those who are abused daily by
little gang leaders, who are excluded, marginalized
and denied of justice, those who massively voted on
February 7 for the end of insecurity, knowing very
well that this monster feeds off of impunity and
injustice, those who have fought for 30 years against
a corrupt State, to put an end to the destructive
games of power and money, and to change their lives.
Those who do not have the courage, or the lucidity to
understand that impunity can no longer be the result
of power, money, judiciary or political games, of
"kache fey kouvri sa", they will be the next victims,
just like the State of law and the democracy we are
trying to build

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.