Justice for Jean Dominique: 2000-2015
Early in the morning of April 3, 2000, a few minutes before the first news broadcast of the day, Jean Léopold Dominique, the director of Radio Haïti Inter, and Jean Claude Louissaint, an employee of the media, were gunned down in the courtyard of the station. In the months and years that followed, Haitian people from all sectors of society, from peasant farmers to human rights activists, to people living abroad in the diaspora, as well as several international organizations and entities, demanded justice for the slain journalist.
The judicial investigation was a spectacle of deception, audacity, and malfeasance: several witnesses were murdered, died under sudden and mysterious circumstances, or simply disappeared; judges were threatened; some 75% of the evidence in the case vanished from the Haitian high court, and several of the major suspects, including Senator Dany Toussaint, refused to cooperate with the investigation by claiming immunity, resorting to various technicalities, or simply not appearing in court.
21 March 2003, the formal investigation concluded that a group of relatively minor criminals were the assassins and accomplices; the investigation named no one as the sponsors or instigators of the killing. Dominique’s widow, Michèle Montas, who herself had barely escaped an attempt on her life on 25 December 2002, in which her bodyguard Maxime Seide was killed, rejected these findings, bringing the case to the Appellate Court.
The result of that investigation were made public 11 years later, on 17 January 2014, leading to the indictment of 9 people, including Mirlande Libérus, a former senator from the Fanmi Lavalas party, accused as being the organizer of the double murder, Harold Sévère, former deputy mayor of Port-au-Prince, and Annette Auguste and Franco Camille, high ranking members of the party. Several of them, including Sévère, were previously arrested in the case but either were released or escaped from prison. Before the case could go to court, the main witness, former security chief at the National Palace, Oriel Jean was shot dead in the street on March 3, 2015.
Dominique’s assassination during the so-called democratic era is one of many political murders that have gone unsolved in a climate of impunity. As of April 2015, fifteen years after Jean Dominique and Jean Claude Louissaint were murdered, justice has not yet been served.
President Martelly in Panama
The President of Uruguay, Tabaré Vázquez, will meet next week with President Michel Martelly, within the framework of the Summit of the Americas, which will take place in Panama City, on April 10th and 11th.
A fundraising dinner with Laurent Lamothe as the keynote speaker
LiveBeyond will host its fourth annual fundraising dinner in Nashville on April 21st at the Hutton Hotel. The former Haitian Prime Minister, Laurent Lamothe, will be the main speaker, and will discuss the state of maternal health in Haiti.
The purpose of the event is to raise funds to build an obstetrics and gynecology department at the headquarters of LiveBeyond in Thomazeau (Haiti), to supply to the women in this region a safe place to give birth, surrounded by a medical staff with the skills to save lives. One hundred percent of the profits will go toward the construction of a stronger maternal health program in Thomazeau.
The dinner will begin at 6:30 pm, followed by a speech by Laurent Lamothe.
Tickets are available on-line on the site: www.livebeyond.org/events, or by calling the office of LiveBeyond at (615) 460-8296. The cost is $100 U.S. per person, or $1,000 dollars for a table of 10.
The event will take place in the Hutton Hotel, located at 1808 West End Avenue, Nashville, Tennessee.
LiveBeyond is an organization which brings medical healthcare, maternal health, and drinking water, as well as assistance for the orphanage, education and agricultural development to Thomazeau. David Vanderpool, MD is the founder and CEO of the organization. He lives in Thomazeau to oversee the daily operations of LiveBeyond.
An unmanned plane on automatic pilot has been flying over for some time
The operation was considered secret up until now. However, we have just learned through the Dominican press that Washington has invited Dominican authorities to the signature of an agreement regulating the flying over of their country’s territory by an unmanned plane. We have learned that the plane is equipped with the most advanced electronic equipment and is intended to watch drug trafficking movement. From above, it is capable of spotting the tiniest details on the ground, said the Dominican newspapers. Whereas the plane itself moves so slowly and silently, it is like a flying robot that easily goes unnoticed. Some people who did take note of it have reported having seen a flying saucer!
But how can a plane fly over the Dominican Republic without also flying over Haiti? Nevertheless we haven’t heard anything about our country being invited to sign a similar agreement. There are several hypotheses – do Haitian leaders not consider it necessary to inform their people? Or are they not trusted enough? Or has our national prestige fallen so low that it has nearly disappeared?
The film-maker Raoul Peck rewarded for career’s work in Paris
Haitian Filmmaker Raoul Peck was honored during the 10th anniversary of Henri Langlois prizes and international meetings of the heritage of cinema, during a ceremony at the home of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) in Paris on 30 March.
Raoul Peck received the “Humanism and Commitment Award 2015″ for his career’s work. In all, a dozen prizes were awarded at the ceremony that brought together a little more than a thousand people.
Henri Langlois (1914-1977) is considered the father of the conservation and restoration of films. The prices that bear his name are given in particular to film personalities working for heritage.
Raoul Peck recently announced early in July the shooting of his film “The young Karl Marx,” where he will trace the youth of the iconic philosopher and sociologist, economist, German revolutionary and his friendship with fellow philosopher Friedrich Engels.
The movie will be shot in Germany and in Belgium.
14 Stations of the Cross for Good Friday.
Hundreds gathered at the Notre-Dame of Haiti Catholic Church on Good Friday to re-enact the Stations of the Cross on the streets of Little Haiti.