Trouble in paradise
By Charles Arthur Posted Jul 1 2004
Journalist Euri Cabral talks to police officers at the National Investigative Department in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, June 2003, while protesting the detention of colleague Marino Zapete.
Most nations in the Caribbean region have enjoyed media that have been largely untroubled by government interference or other attempts to stifle free speech. However, over recent months, media rights advocates have noted an increase in a number of worrying trends.
In its annual review of the state of the media around the world, the International Press Institute (IPI) noted that, in 2003, “the region has witnessed increasing press freedom abuses, from physical attacks on journalists to efforts by some governments to introduce restrictive media legislation.”
While not as dramatic, the media in formerly trouble-free nations in the English-speaking Caribbean are also facing difficulties as governments struggle with economic decline and growing public criticism.
In December 2003, Wesley Gibbings, president of the Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM), concluded that “there exists a basis for anxiety in some territories where official policy has recently tended to offer prescriptions that have the potential to undermine the right to publish opinions and information not always in conformity with official or popular views.”
The ACM statement referred to the government of Jamaica, among others, which is considering new anti-terrorism laws that would block the publication of official documents.
Haiti
The gravest deterioration in media rights in the region is taking place in Haiti. Journalists, who found themselves caught up in the concerted propaganda campaign and escalating violence that culminated in the forced departure of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide at the end of February 2004, now face a bleak scenario.
The blossoming of independent radio in the late 1980s had made information and ideas available to a population hitherto excluded from the political scene by virtue of high levels of illiteracy and no knowledge of French, the language spoken by the small elite. (The vast majority of Haitians only understand Creole). A marked feature of the independent radio broadcasts was that, in contrast to the state-owned radio and some church-owned radio stations, these independent stations started to broadcast some programs in Creole. But the great advances in the development of a dynamic media sector are now threatened by a concentration of media ownership in the hands of members of the country's small economic elite, many of them wealthy businessmen, and the reappearance of repressive armed groups. Radio Haiti Inter, one of the most important independent radio stations – a station that on occasions criticized that elite – shut down in February 2003. The absence of Radio Haiti Inter and the increasing cooperation between media owners and the private sector has meant that while a large sector of the media is still “independent,” that is, not controlled by the state, it is less independent of the economic and political powers in the country.
Over the course of 2003, the IPI noted the negative impact of the National Association of Haitian Media's increasingly prominent and vocal participation in an anti-Aristide coalition, the Group of 184. By playing such a role in an organization openly calling for overthrow of the government, this group of media owners, who control most of the established radio stations, surrendered much of the media's objectivity and severely compromised their journalists.
After two radio stations in Haiti's second-largest city, Cap-Haïtien, were destroyed by anti-Aristide rebels in late February and the home of two journalists linked with a political party was machine-gunned by members of a rival faction in the town of Petit-Goave in March, IPI Director Johann Fritz denounced “a strong tendency in Haiti for political parties or groups to view elements of the media as their own personal property.” At the end of March, Lyonel Lazarre, the correspondent for Radio Solidarité in the town of Jacmel , was kidnapped and beaten by former soldiers who objected to the critical tone of his reporting. Commenting on the event, Guy Delva, head of the Association of Haitian Journalists, told the local Haitian Press Agency, “The presence of the armed men who are very active in the country now is weakening freedom of the press.”
Delva's concerns were echoed by Human Rights Watch, which, in March, reported that more than a dozen journalists from the city of Cap-Haïtien had gone into hiding, citing a lack of security and fears for their safety.
Dominican Republic
In the Dominican Republic, the country that shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, press freedom suffers from the twin scourges of economic downturn and an increasingly authoritarian government.
Amidst growing criticism of both his handling of the country's declining economy and his tightening personal grip on power, President Hipòlito Mejía has taken an uncompromising stance. As the government sought to stifle dissent and quell the development of an effective opposition, journalists found themselves in the front line and have been targeted for harassment and threats. During 2003, the police detained several journalists for questioning in relation to articles criticizing the government.
This harassment contributed to growing self-censorship on the part of Dominican journalists, prompting Rafael Molina, a Dominican journalist who chairs the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information at the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), to say that “there are areas that are causing concern and which oblige us to be on guard.”
The IAPA was one of a number of press freedom advocacy organizations to express its concern about the May 15, 2003, government takeover of the Listín Group, the media empire owned by the president of the collapsed bank Banco Inter. The group included the country's oldest newspaper, the prestigious Listín Diario, plus three other newspapers, Ultima Hora, El Expreso and El Financiero. In the weeks following the government intervention, more than 10 senior editors and producers were dismissed and an editorial board sympathetic to President Mejía and his policies was installed.
Since then, the journalists at Listín Diario have been working in a tense atmosphere where their work is strictly monitored to ensure favorable coverage of President Mejía's re-election campaign. Journalists at the other Listín Group newspapers suffered an even greater calamity when the titles ceased publication altogether.
The extent of the job losses from these and other newspaper closures was revealed in an April 8 article, published by the Alterpresse news agency, headlined “Dominican Journalism in Crisis,” in which journalist José Luis Soto reported that the recent demise of eight newspapers had cost the jobs of as many as 300 journalists.
Dominica
In the small island nation of Dominica, (population: 70,000) at a May 2003 meeting to discuss promotion of the country's image through the local media, political party leaders voiced stern criticism of local talk show hosts. They particularly condemned the content of phone-in radio shows.
Later that month, veteran broadcaster Dennis Joseph, who manages the Q95 FM radio station, was elected the new head of the Media Workers' Association of Dominica. At a time when government authorities are believed to be considering a new media bill that would allow them to shut broadcasters down, Joseph said his top priorities would be defending media workers' rights and strengthening the association.
St. Lucia
At the end of 2003, in neighboring St. Lucia, the island's media expressed shock and concern when legislation was passed introducing a new criminal code that included a provision for jail sentences for “endangering the public good.”
Section 361 of the code states, “Every person who willfully publishes a statement, tale or news that he or she knows is false, that causes or is likely to cause injury or mischief to a public interest, is guilty of an indictable offense and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.”
A St. Lucia Mirror newspaper editorial warned, “This Section has implications, by extension, not only for those who publish statements, tales or news, but for the entire population of St. Lucia because it appears to us that its purpose is to intimidate and deny the right of free expression.”