Haitian radio journalist slain

By freedomforum.org staff

12.05.01

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About 100 people protesting killing of Haitian radio journalist Brignol Lindor flee tear gas fired by riot police in Petit Goave, Haiti, yesterday. They had marched in protest against President Jean Bertrand Aristide after Lindor was slain by pro-Aristide mob.

A Haitian radio journalist was hacked to death by a mob in a town that has been marked by several weeks of violence by pro- and anti-government political groups.

Brignol Lindor, news director of Radio Eco 2000, reportedly had received two death threats from supporters of President Jean Bertrand Aristide last week for inviting opposition supporters to appear on his talk show. Lindor was 32.

According to local news reports and the Associated Press, Lindor was on his way to his part-time job as a customs official near the town of Petit-Goave, about 36 miles west of the capital, Port-au-Prince, on Dec. 3.

The mob ambushed his car, stopping it and breaking the windows. Lindor managed to escape the rock-throwing crowd and sought refuge in a nearby home. The mob dragged him out and hacked him to death with machetes.

Although Petit-Goave Police Chief Alix Alexandre was quoted by the AP saying that "we don't know if it (the killing) was politically motivated," Lindor's radio station colleagues and other journalists claim that he was killed by Aristide supporters.

Radio Eco 2000 journalist Junol Casimir alleged that his co-worker was killed by Aristide backers who "swore to apply Aristide's policy of 'zero tolerance,' and they did," referring to Aristide's June speech ordering police to clamp down on crime, according to local and AP reports.

Some of Aristide's supporters have taken the "zero tolerance" reference to mean vigilante justice and have used it to attack political opponents of Aristide.

Jean-Claude Bajeux, who directs the Haitian Ecumenical Center for Human Rights, said since Aristide's "zero tolerance" speech, mobs have killed more than 40 people.

"The slogan 'zero tolerance' is blood-thirsty incitement to murder," he said. "The slogan has been extended from a call to lynch presumed thieves to a call to kill anyone denounced as subversive."

Aristide's Lavalas Family party has denied it encouraged such violence, with Lavalas spokesman Jonas Petit contending, "Our philosophy is peace, not violence."

A number of news organizations throughout Haiti have protested the murder of Lindor.

Jacques Philippe Jovin of the Association of Journalists of the Southeast called for the arrest of the killers of "the colleague assassinated by political militants in the performance of his duties," according to one local news report.

Guyler Delva, secretary-general of the Association of Haitian Journalists, called on Aristide to condemn the attacks on the news media.

There were reports of various local journalist marches and work slow downs to protest the murder.

Related

Journalists in peril
Preliminary list of journalists who died in the line of duty in 2001.  11.20.01