This week in Haiti
The Jean Dominique Murder Investigation:
What does Aristide's silence mean?
(Second of two parts)
Last week, Judge Claudy Gassant resumed his post and his investigation of the Apr. 3, 2000 assassination of Radio Haiti Inter's director, Jean Dominique, and the station's guardian, Jean-Claude Louissaint.
On Jun. 13, the examining magistrate had resigned and removed himself from the case to protest Justice Minister Gary Lissade's apparent refusal to provide him with adequate security and to chastise a police chief who had repeatedly harassed him. Gassant also demanded action against Judge Jean Gabriel Ambroise, another examining magistrate who had illegally meddled in the investigation at the behest of Sen. Dany Toussaint. The senator is a prominent figure in the Lavalas Family party, who has been repeatedly questioned about the murders and may eventually be indicted. After three weeks of private encouragement from friends and of public assurances from Lissade that police protection would be improved, Gassant has now resumed his inquest with gusto.
He hit a wall immediately, however. Gassant summoned Toussaint for questioning on Jul. 9, but the senator refused to comply on the grounds that the judge is biased against him. Lise Pierre-Pierre, the head of the civil court, has to decide whether Toussaint's formal challenge has any merit, but Toussaint has also contested her impartiality, putting in question whether he will respect her ruling if she keeps Gassant on the case.
Others closely following the investigation say that Toussaint has no grounds to challenge Gassant. "The right to challenge is not applicable here," explained Patrick Elie, former Secretary of State for Public Security and a founder of the group Echo Voix Jean Dominique (EVJD). "Gassant is the judge investigating the case, not trying it. You cannot challenge the judge who is just gathering evidence."
Toussaint's challenge is based on the illegal questioning of Gassant's detainees in the National Penitentiary in June by Judge Ambroise, who, as a result, has been suspended for six months.
Pierre Lespérance of the National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR) argued that a Toussaint's legal challenge cannot issue from an illegal investigation and deemed the move a "delaying tactic."
In another development, Haitian authorities arrested Dr. Jean Alix Charles on Jul. 6. He stands accused of willfully killing on the operating table last summer Jean Wilner Lalanne, who was suspected of being the intermediary between the triggermen and the authors of the crime. Charles vehemently protests his innocence, saying that Lalanne died of a pulmonary embolism during the operation after languishing for almost two weeks in the General Hospital with three bullets in his buttocks. (On Jul. 10, Charles was "provisionally released" from jail; the influential Association of Haitian Doctors (AMH) had strongly protested his arrest.)
Last week, Lissade declared that his devotion to the investigation was "total," but human rights groups continue to question the minister's commitment. They have repeatedly met with him to demand that he show greater support for Gassant's investigation. After one meeting last week, the groups were surprised by a Justice Ministry communiqué saying that "the organizations... declared that they were not especially attached to examining magistrate Claudy Gassant," Lespérance explained. "But we never said that... At no time was the question raised as to whether we were attached to somebody. That was not the subject of our discussions."
The human rights groups question why Lissade initially supported Ambroise's illegal prison interviews and why he dragged his feet on disciplining the judge. This contrasts sharply with Lissade's swift, unusual, and possibly illegal firing of Judge Jean Sénat Fleury, Gassant's predecessor on the Dominique/Louissaint case who withdrew due to death threats.
Lissade dismissed Fleury and assistant public prosecutor Elco Saint-Armand on Jun. 25 for supposedly making an illegal search on Jun. 1 for suspected drugs at a luxury home in the fancy Belvil neighborhood, threatening the home's occupants, demanding a bribe of $1.5 million to release the suspects, and stealing valuables from the house. Fleury strongly denies the charge, saying that the firings just reveal Lissade's blatant protection of rich drug traffickers. Judges from the Central Plateau expressed their solidarity with Fleury, while the House of Deputies' Justice Commission has summoned Lissade to appear before it next week to question him about the firing, which some deputies deem "illegal" and the province of the court system, not the executive branch.
Many human rights activists are not surprised by Lissade's lack of support for Gassant. He was, after all, a low-level "Jean Claudiste" activist during the dictatorship of Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier and provided legal advice to the leaders of the 1991-1994 coup d'état. Like the selection of other former Duvalierists to the latest Lavalas cabinet, Lissade's appointment to the crucial post of Justice Minister shocked and alienated many of the Lavalas Family's allies and members.
But the biggest surprise and concern of human rights groups is not Lissade's behavior but that of President Jean Bertrand Aristide. Why hasn't he marshalled support for Gassant's investigation, they ask, or cracked the whip on Lissade?
"The hope we had on Feb. 7 [Aristide's inauguration] was reinforced by the public declaration President Aristide made on Radio Haiti's own airwaves on Mar. 3 where he said no matter what Jean Dominique and Jean-Claude Louissaint will find justice," said the EVJD's Elie in a Jun. 28 joint press conference of human rights groups. "Our hopes were again reinforced when Justice Minister Gary Lissade, who is directly involved in providing the examining magistrate with means, declared that there would be no more impunity in Haiti. But it is not hope which makes us speak out today but distress, which is growing in us as we watch what is happening. After all these beautiful speeches which gave us hope, what we see on the ground makes us very uneasy." Elie denounced the "threats of violence to decree who is guilty and who is not guilty before the investigation is even over," a reference to the fierce protests by street demonstrators saying that "they will not allow" Toussaint to be indicted.
"What troubles us most is the apparent indifference of the Executive with respect to the case," Elie said.
The NCHR's Espérance summed it up: "You feel that there is no real will on the part of the Lavalas government to complete the investigation."
Some popular organizations have been less diplomatic. "Why hasn't President Aristide straightened out the justice minister to furnish Judge Gassant with all the material and security he deserves?" asked the Peasant Union of Gros Morne (IPGM) in a communiqué. They asked if Aristide's visit to Radio Haïti Inter "was just powder blown in the eyes of national and international opinion" and why Toussaint "became so alarmed to denounce people left and right when the investigation seemed to be culminating."
Meanwhile, the International Alliance for Justice for Jean Dominique, an assortment of over two hundred international actors, artists, professionals, and intellectuals organized by director Jonathon Demme, sent an open letter to Aristide on Jul. 3 calling on him to "publicly confirm his commitment" to the murder investigation. On Jul. 5, Aristide answered from the CARICOM Summit in Freeport, Bahamas saying "I will read that letter carefully so that I formulate a response as usual for them; it is the same commitment I always take so that we can advance on the road to justice with respect for the independence of each branch of government and not bow or kneel to impunity."
Such declarations ring hollow when, for example, Aristide's Commerce Minister Stanley Théard has an outstanding 1986 indictment pending against him for embezzling $4.5 million from the Haitian treasury and Planning Minister Marc Bazin acted as an ornamental Prime Minister for the military dictatorship during the coup d'état.
But most mysterious of all is Aristide's silence in the face of Toussaint's growing arrogance toward and meddling in the investigation and the senator's bitter attacks against former president René Préval. Is Aristide afraid of Toussaint? Is he hostage? Is he beholden or compromised in some other way?
These are the questions on the minds of many as Gassant's investigation resumes. The answers are sure to generate both light and heat.
"Justice for Jean Dominique is the beginning of justice for everybody
killed by the criminals' bullets and the first step in fighting impunity
and permissiveness," said the IPGM. "No matter what, justice must
be found for Jean Dominique's murder."
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