Protests in
If the U.S. media have failed to cover the story of political instability in Haiti with the depth it deserves, it is certainly not the first time. In fact, it is the latest episode in a pattern of
This is how one reporter describes some editors’ views on
The UN Stabilization Mission in
In a now infamous case, Minustah mounted an assault into Cité Soleil, Haiti’s largest slum, on July 6, 2005. According to declassified cables sent that day from the U.S. Embassy in
Even though Pina’s documentation became available two days later, just over a few dozen U.S. newspapers even mentioned the incident during the month of July, according to a Nexis search, most of them running short newswire briefs. These items typically described the incursion as an example of the UN mission’s success in its stated goal of eliminating gang members, ignoring reports of civilian deaths.
Similar Minustah assaults in late 2006 and early 2007 received little attention. On December 22, 2006, for example, Minustah troops staged another raid on Cité Soleil in which, according to the Associated Press, at least five people were killed (Reuters estimated 20).[5] A Nexis search reveals that only four U.S. papers reported the incident; three of these ran an AP brief.
The
This massacre—perhaps one of the most brazen in Haiti to occur since the bloody reign of terror following the 1991 coup d’etat—marked the debut of what The Miami Herald described as a new “death squad,” the lame ti machete (“little machete army”).[6] Like much of the violence directed against Aristide supporters and other activists in the 2004–06 period, the massacre was hardly noticed by the U.S. media. The AP, Reuters, Knight Ridder, and United Press International all filed stories, but only six U.S. papers bothered to print anything on the incident in the following month, according to a Nexis search. The Miami Herald was notable for its editorial condemning the incident—it was the only
In contrast to the scarcity of coverage of the thousands killed, tens of thousands raped, and other atrocities committed since the 2004 coup, during the three years of Aristide’s second term (2001–early 2004), there were numerous articles, editorials, and op-eds in U.S. papers, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, describing and condemning “despotism” under Aristide, whose “corrupt government . . . regularly used violence against its opponents” (as one New York Times editorial put it).[7]
Some of the supposed state-sanctioned violence described in U.S. news later turned out to be fabricated, such as the “La Scierie massacre” in the town of St. Marc, in which opposition groups at first claimed that more than 50 people were killed by Aristide supporters in a February 11, 2004, incident. Investigators and reporters were able to confirm that only three to five people had been killed in a clash between pro- and anti-Aristide groups.[8]
In 2007, scholar Peter Hallward made an exhaustive inquiry into whether the allegations, by the U.S. media and others, of state-sanctioned human rights abuses during Aristide’s second term are actually supported by the facts, arguing convincingly that in almost every instance the answer is no.[9] As Hallward and other investigators have noted, the source for most of these claims were groups that at the time were funded by the U.S. government, including Washington-based organizations like the International Republican Institute and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, which sought to discredit and undermine Aristide’s government.[10] Reasonable estimates put the number of political killings—by the police or groups supporting his government—during Aristide’s two terms in office at between 10 and 30. This contrasts with the more than 3,000 political killings that took place under the 2004–06 interim government (and the estimated 50,000 under the Duvalier dictatorships).[11]
Many incidents of political violence and atrocities during the interim-government period were well documented, yet unlike in the years while Aristide was in office, editorials expressing outrage in papers like The New York Times and The Washington Post were conspicuously absent. As death squads and the police murdered Lavalas supporters and others, the Times did not run one editorial mentioning—much less condemning—the sort of rampant political repression and violence it had decried (even when evidence was lacking) under Aristide. The Post did mention and condemn the killings of “over 700” (while making sure to place some of the blame on “gangs that support Mr. Aristide”).[12] Both papers also have yet to run a single editorial condemning any of Minustah’s killings or rapes of civilians; in fact, the Post has more than once urged Minustah to use greater force in putting down gangs—including in an editorial on June 5, 2005, just hours before Minustah would kill civilians in Cité Soleil.[13]
So why so little attention to Haiti after Aristide, when there has been far more political turmoil and violence to document? One reporter told me: “If the
Another reporter says his editor turned down an investigative piece on Rudolph Boulos, one of the wealthiest men in
Each of the journalists I interviewed recognized that
Jennifer Bauduy, a former Reuters correspondent who reported from
New York Times investigative reporter Walt Bogdanich characterized part of the challenge to presenting a balanced picture of developments in
Veteran freelance reporter Reed Lindsay described
“Of course they have to go to the poor neighborhoods,” Lindsay added, “and they do, but their time there is usually very limited. The perspectives that they are exposed to are usually limited and, I think, often skewed, and I think this is often reflected in their reporting.”
What’s more, the violence in
No wonder, then, that according to Bogdanich, one of the biggest obstacles to improving coverage of Haiti is “finding reporters who care enough to go there, who have the courage to stand up to editors who say that there are sexier stories to cover.”
The attention paid to the Aristide administration, and many allegations of human rights abuses during that period that have not stood up to scrutiny, underscores how little attention Haiti has received even while some of the worst abuses in Haiti’s modern history have been committed. In the case of
Dan Beeton is International Communications Coordinator at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. Research assistance from Mark Smit.
1. For an analysis of media coverage of the “food riots,” see Mark Schuller, “Haitian Food Riots Unnerving but Not Surprising,” Americas Policy Program Special Report (Center for International Policy, April 25, 2008), available at americas.irc-online.org.
2. Thomas Griffin, “
3. United States Embassy cable to the secretary of state and the U.S. Southern Command,
4. Haiti Information Project, “
5. Cited in Peter Hallward, Damming the Flood:
6. “Police Vigilantes, Machetes and Murder,” The
7. Hallward, Damming the Flood; Athena Kolbe and Royce Hutson, “Human Rights Abuse and Other Criminal Violations in Port-au-Prince, Haiti: A Random Survey of Households,” The Lancet 368 (September 2006): 864–73; “Haiti’s Descent,” The New York Times, February 5, 2004; “Haiti’s ‘New Chapter,’ ” The New York Times, March 1, 2004.
8. For a more detailed account, see Hallward, Damming the Flood, 159–60.
10. See also
11. Hallward, Damming the Flood, 155.
12. The
13. Ibid. See also “
14. Rosario Gómez, “Militares extranjeros mataron a Ricardo Ortega,” El País, May 10, 2008; Reporters Sans Frontieres, “Finger Pointed at US Interposition Force in the 2004 Death of Journalist Ricardo Ortega,” May 13, 2008, available at www.rsf.org.
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