(Note: One year ago this week, Haitian journalist Jacques Roche was kidnapped and killed in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince. The cultural editor of the Haitian newspaper Le Matin, as well as a television host and published poet, Jacques Roche joined the roll call of those in Haiti waiting for justice. Shortly after his murder, Michele Montas-Dominique, widow of slain Radio Haiti-Inter director Jean Dominique, published this open letter to Mr. Roche. It is sadly as relevant today as it was one year ago, when we involved with Haiti lost another irreplaceable light in a country that desperately needs them. MD)
Michele Montas-Dominique
A Note To Jacques Roche
New York, July 21, 2005
Courage, Jacques,
Today, you also are confronted with savagery in that descent into hell that has become our daily lot as a people, a descent into hell that was nonetheless predictable and avoidable, a descent into hell paved with so many stones of impunity.
Your fellow journalists will be standing at your side to say no to the unacceptable just as they said no for Jean Dominique and Brignol Lindor. The difference is that today the unacceptable has become the norm undoubtedly as a result of so many unpunished crimes.
Because you, Jacques, had believed in principles in a Haiti today devoid of law and faith; because you also believed that words could change life, they silenced you with a bullet to the throat and your tongue savagely cut. Silence, they kill.
Because you had the temerity to dream that men and women of good will could contain the onrushing violence, they assassinated you as well.
Today you will be put to rest with belated pomp, you will hear many official promises, and many crocodile tears will be shed on your tortured body. You will hear many promises to investigate. Do not believe too much in them. Your family will demand -- as we did and as the family and colleagues of Brignol Lindor did – the truth, but the investigation will continue forever because too many influential people, under an elected government as well as an interim government – mutatis mutandis – have an interest in protecting impunity.
The "Jacques Roche case" – this is the way they will refer to you – will collect arrest warrants that will not be served. They will find witnesses dead – as they found you – in a street corner and investigating judges will resign out of fear or a sense of powerlessness. You "alleged" murderers will continue to move about freely as with Ti Lou and Gimmy, who were accused of killing Jean Dominique and who, today out of jail, lead their own gangs in total impunity… An even if some day they are tried, your murderers later will probably be exonerated under the justice of the winners of the moment. Courage, Jacques, for at that moment you will need much more courage than you had when you were confronting your torturers.
They will praise you today the better to cover their impotence or refusal to act. Political leaders will shower praise on you and hasten to forget you once the Jacques Roche case ceases to be useful to them. Do not be surprised if they even spit on you should they find it useful to sit down with your murderers. You understand very well the extent to which the culture of forgetfulness, which is the comfortable mirror image of impunity, is nurtured in our country. Courage, Jacques, for you will need much courage to listen to "the words disguised by the wretched to inflame the idiots."
In the mean time Jacques, when you see Jean, tell him about the multifaceted violence, the gangrenous corruption, the loss of references, the shoving aside of principles and values, tell him about the bitter struggle for miserable power, and these elections, planned elsewhere, to serve a purpose. Tell him about the country "on the outside" drained of blood and abandoned to its own devices. Tell him about the wind of Maribahoux… But do not forget to tell him, Jacques, about the courage displayed daily by thousands of us, when confronted by savagery, stupidity, cowardice, the courage that you yourself displayed. Tell him about the resistance and tenacious hope. Tell him that your struggle has more than ever meaning and that no murderer can assassinate the dreams of his loved ones and your loved ones. I know that you will understand one another with few words.
Dreams like people put forth new shoots and flowers. And the murderers who roam the city cannot put an end to it. And the time will come for "your dream" to be born again.
Goodbye, my friend.
We will never forget.
A Note To Jacques Roche
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A Note To Jacques Roche
by MDeibert* » Wed Jul 12, 2006 9:10 am
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by Marilyn* » Wed Jul 12, 2006 9:31 am
Michael,
It is good to be reminded of the needless death of a productive and conscientious colleague.
Last year around this time, many of us shared our thoughts about the valuable contributions of Jacques Roche.
See: Le journaliste Jacques Roche exécuté and Jacques Roche's assassination (comments)
Also, this note from Michele Montas was posted on Ann Pale last year.
See: Michèle Montas-Dominique: Billet à Jacques Roche
On some issues, Michael, there is unanimity here on the Forum. We all agree: the death of Jacques Roche was a terrible waste.
As to who killed him, there is less unanimity.
See: Who really killed Jean Dominique and Jacque Roche?
Marilyn
It is good to be reminded of the needless death of a productive and conscientious colleague.
Last year around this time, many of us shared our thoughts about the valuable contributions of Jacques Roche.
See: Le journaliste Jacques Roche exécuté and Jacques Roche's assassination (comments)
Also, this note from Michele Montas was posted on Ann Pale last year.
See: Michèle Montas-Dominique: Billet à Jacques Roche
On some issues, Michael, there is unanimity here on the Forum. We all agree: the death of Jacques Roche was a terrible waste.
As to who killed him, there is less unanimity.
See: Who really killed Jean Dominique and Jacque Roche?
Marilyn
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by MDeibert* » Wed Jul 12, 2006 10:40 am
You know, it is interesting: I was wondering how long it would take before someone posted this piece by my old friend Kevin Pina in response to the Montas editorial. Like you, Marilyn, I don't know with any certainty who killed Jacques Roche, though those who knew him far better than I did are convinced that his murder was payback for his daring to host a show on Haitian television that allowed a plurality of views - not only one political group's - to be heard.
This piece you link to though sheds no light on the scenario at all, though. The fact that the posting comes in the form of an "interview" with Gerard Jean-Juste comes as a particularly bitter irony. For Kevin to say that “Jacques Roche was a reporter who was, really, I guess a sort of slanted reporter...who worked with the Group 184," when Kevin himself was employed and paid as an independent contractor by the Aristide-run Television Nationale d'Haiti (TNH) in 2001/2002 - something he has never come clean about - while saying he was acting as an "independent" journalist is an act of breathtaking hypocrisy. You know, I have always more or less liked and have gotten along with Kevin, but for me that does step over the line.
Before the Roche slaying, Gerard Jean-Juste has repeatedly declared that the "kidnapping" of Aristide in February 2004 was a precursor of today's kidnapping plague, and in a July 20th interview with Radio Kiskeya in the Haitian capital, Jean-Juste stated that violence from below would not end until "violence from above" ended.
Gerard Jean-Juste was in fact never invited to Jacques Roche's funeral, either. It was a private funeral mass with Port-au-Prince Monsignor Pierre André Dumas as the chosen celebrant. According to several credible witnesses I have spoken to, Jean-Juste arrived in full priest regalia as if he intended himself to officiate the ceremony, an appearance that, given the perception that Aristide partisans were responsible for Roche's death, was a needless provocation which provoked an inevitable outcome from the emotional mourners and those who had struggled and sacrificed so much to oust the Aristide regime. Jean-Juste was well aware of the reaction his presence at the funeral would cause, and his appearance as such was itself an act of violence, as virtually anyone in Haiti today could tell you that
the priest's appearance at a funeral such as this one, uninvited and unannounced, would give rise to chaos.
According to witnesses, after Jean-Juste attempted to officiate the service, a group of students physically attacked him, accusing him of being the moral author of the killing in light of his comments, and he was then rescued by CIVPOL and MINUSTAH personnel and eventually taken into custody by the Haitian police. Haiti's penal code, based on the Napoleonic model, there does in fact exist a law making allowances for an arrest based on an "accusation par la clameur publique" and that is in fact the charge under which Jean-Juste was nitially arrested, though his subsequent incarceration without trial was quite illegal.
You state that "We all agree: the death of Jacques Roche was a terrible waste." But that is not at all what the posting you link to implies. In fact, it seems more of a piece, although stated more cunningly, with an email I received (unsolicited) from one Wilbens "Ben" Charles in Miami which read as follows:
Jacques Roche was no good respected journalist.He was just another rabid Aristide hater like you.The group Jacques roche was hired to do propaganda for, the 184, financed Fraph and the Guy phillipe killers who killed hundred before and after Aristide departure.When is it not a right to strike one who strike you first.And if it takes your jacques Roche,so be it.
Given all this, it might be wise to reconsider the credence you give to articles such as the one you link to here.
This piece you link to though sheds no light on the scenario at all, though. The fact that the posting comes in the form of an "interview" with Gerard Jean-Juste comes as a particularly bitter irony. For Kevin to say that “Jacques Roche was a reporter who was, really, I guess a sort of slanted reporter...who worked with the Group 184," when Kevin himself was employed and paid as an independent contractor by the Aristide-run Television Nationale d'Haiti (TNH) in 2001/2002 - something he has never come clean about - while saying he was acting as an "independent" journalist is an act of breathtaking hypocrisy. You know, I have always more or less liked and have gotten along with Kevin, but for me that does step over the line.
Before the Roche slaying, Gerard Jean-Juste has repeatedly declared that the "kidnapping" of Aristide in February 2004 was a precursor of today's kidnapping plague, and in a July 20th interview with Radio Kiskeya in the Haitian capital, Jean-Juste stated that violence from below would not end until "violence from above" ended.
Gerard Jean-Juste was in fact never invited to Jacques Roche's funeral, either. It was a private funeral mass with Port-au-Prince Monsignor Pierre André Dumas as the chosen celebrant. According to several credible witnesses I have spoken to, Jean-Juste arrived in full priest regalia as if he intended himself to officiate the ceremony, an appearance that, given the perception that Aristide partisans were responsible for Roche's death, was a needless provocation which provoked an inevitable outcome from the emotional mourners and those who had struggled and sacrificed so much to oust the Aristide regime. Jean-Juste was well aware of the reaction his presence at the funeral would cause, and his appearance as such was itself an act of violence, as virtually anyone in Haiti today could tell you that
the priest's appearance at a funeral such as this one, uninvited and unannounced, would give rise to chaos.
According to witnesses, after Jean-Juste attempted to officiate the service, a group of students physically attacked him, accusing him of being the moral author of the killing in light of his comments, and he was then rescued by CIVPOL and MINUSTAH personnel and eventually taken into custody by the Haitian police. Haiti's penal code, based on the Napoleonic model, there does in fact exist a law making allowances for an arrest based on an "accusation par la clameur publique" and that is in fact the charge under which Jean-Juste was nitially arrested, though his subsequent incarceration without trial was quite illegal.
You state that "We all agree: the death of Jacques Roche was a terrible waste." But that is not at all what the posting you link to implies. In fact, it seems more of a piece, although stated more cunningly, with an email I received (unsolicited) from one Wilbens "Ben" Charles in Miami which read as follows:
Jacques Roche was no good respected journalist.He was just another rabid Aristide hater like you.The group Jacques roche was hired to do propaganda for, the 184, financed Fraph and the Guy phillipe killers who killed hundred before and after Aristide departure.When is it not a right to strike one who strike you first.And if it takes your jacques Roche,so be it.
Given all this, it might be wise to reconsider the credence you give to articles such as the one you link to here.
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by Marilyn* » Wed Jul 12, 2006 4:14 pm
Michael,
If you had paid close attention to the links I listed above, I was merely (and with courtesy) relating to you that the Montas note had been previously published here on the Forum. The link was to an Ann Pale post of Thu Jul 21, 2005 3:24 am. Within that post was a link to AlterPresse.
The same with the other links. They were links to earlier Ann Pale posts [i.e. Thu Jul 14, 2005 1:21 pm, Thu Jul 14, 2005 1:45 pm, Sun Apr 16, 2006 1:32 pm, respectively].
The original bringing forth of the Pina article on Ann Pale was not in response to your post today; Guy posted it months ago as a news item.
When I referred to unanimity here on the Forum with regard to the waste represented by Jacques' death, I was sharing a good-faith observation of the tone of the comment posts here on Ann Pale around the time of the death.
Not to the contents of a news article, posted months after the Ann Pale comments.
I therefore find your comment "Given all this, it might be wise to reconsider the credence you give to articles such as the one you link to here" quite unnecessary, unless you are just looking for an excuse to belittle somebody with whom you might disagree.
Michael, I am a careful researcher. When my health has permitted, I have been quite active on this Forum and my contributions have often been in the area of bringing together documentation.
People come and go, so I took the time this morning to document earlier Ann Pale threads on the subject of Jacques Roche. I did not want casual readers to jump to the conclusion that your post of today was the first time the subject had been raised here on Ann Pale.
I consolidated the record, Michael. I was not trying to spin one way or the other. Other than to voice my sadness at the waste of such a valuable life.
Marilyn
If you had paid close attention to the links I listed above, I was merely (and with courtesy) relating to you that the Montas note had been previously published here on the Forum. The link was to an Ann Pale post of Thu Jul 21, 2005 3:24 am. Within that post was a link to AlterPresse.
The same with the other links. They were links to earlier Ann Pale posts [i.e. Thu Jul 14, 2005 1:21 pm, Thu Jul 14, 2005 1:45 pm, Sun Apr 16, 2006 1:32 pm, respectively].
The original bringing forth of the Pina article on Ann Pale was not in response to your post today; Guy posted it months ago as a news item.
When I referred to unanimity here on the Forum with regard to the waste represented by Jacques' death, I was sharing a good-faith observation of the tone of the comment posts here on Ann Pale around the time of the death.
Not to the contents of a news article, posted months after the Ann Pale comments.
I therefore find your comment "Given all this, it might be wise to reconsider the credence you give to articles such as the one you link to here" quite unnecessary, unless you are just looking for an excuse to belittle somebody with whom you might disagree.
Michael, I am a careful researcher. When my health has permitted, I have been quite active on this Forum and my contributions have often been in the area of bringing together documentation.
People come and go, so I took the time this morning to document earlier Ann Pale threads on the subject of Jacques Roche. I did not want casual readers to jump to the conclusion that your post of today was the first time the subject had been raised here on Ann Pale.
I consolidated the record, Michael. I was not trying to spin one way or the other. Other than to voice my sadness at the waste of such a valuable life.
Marilyn
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by MDeibert* » Thu Jul 13, 2006 9:43 am
Marilyn,
My apologies if I seemed somewhat abrupt in my response: I don't at all second guess your feelings on this issue. Your statements of solidarity and regret are good enough for me, to be sure. I meant in no way to be disrespectful. I just found the whole Pina piece - which has more to do with the interviewer and the subject than any actual investigation into the murder of Jacques Roche - to be in very poor taste. I don't view any of that as a reflection on you. Given what was lost, though, I felt that expressing this, well, disgust with that article was warranted. Sorry again if it came off too personal.
MD
My apologies if I seemed somewhat abrupt in my response: I don't at all second guess your feelings on this issue. Your statements of solidarity and regret are good enough for me, to be sure. I meant in no way to be disrespectful. I just found the whole Pina piece - which has more to do with the interviewer and the subject than any actual investigation into the murder of Jacques Roche - to be in very poor taste. I don't view any of that as a reflection on you. Given what was lost, though, I felt that expressing this, well, disgust with that article was warranted. Sorry again if it came off too personal.
MD
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