In an era during which, in my own country, right-wing groups such as FreedomWorks are advising opponents of healthcare reform on how best to disrupt public discussion of America’s appalling healthcare system, it is useful to cast a skeptical eye towards conflicts of interest among those reporting the news. Talking points created by political operatives are then parroted by a compliant media, reiterated by politically-sponsored, ostensibly “grassroots,” groups are then re-reported by sympathetic media outlets as news. It is an old and often surprisingly transparent trick.
Aside from the cable network rantings of Fox News and CNN’s immigrant-hating Lou Dobbs, it is hard for me to think of a more obvious example of the phenomenon of echo chamber news than a recent article on Haiti titled “Calls Mount to Free Lavalas Activist” written for the Inter Press Service by Wadner Pierre and Jeb Sprague.
The article concerns Ronald Dauphin, a former customs worker in the central Haitian city of St. Marc and partisan of the Fanmi Lavalas political party of former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
Though Pierre and Sprague’s article describes Dauphin as “a Haitian political prisoner,” according to a St. Marc-based group, the Association des Victimes du Génocide de la Scierie (AVIGES), and a Haitian human rights group, the Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains (RNDDH), Dauphin was also an enthusiastic participant in a massacre of Aristide opponents and civilians that took place in the town in February 2004.
During that time, Dauphin, who was known in St. Marc as Black Ronald, was affiliated with a pro-Aristide paramilitary group, Bale Wouze ("Clean Sweep"). According to local residents, Bale Wouze, working in tandem with the Police Nationale de Haiti (PNH) and the Unité de Sécurité de la Garde du Palais National (USGPN), a unit directly responsible for the president's personal security, swept through the neighborhood of La Scierie, killing political activists affiliated with an armed anti-government group, the Rassemblement des militants conséquents de Saint-Marc (Ramicos), as well as civilians, committing instances of gang rape, and looting and burning property.
When I visited St. Marc in February 2004, shortly after Bale Wouze's raid into La Scierie, I interviewed USGPN personnel and Bale Wouze members who were patrolling the city as a single armed unit in tandem the PNH. A local priest told me matter-of-factly at the time of Bale Wouze that, "These people don't make arrests, they kill." According to a member of a Human Rights Watch delegation that visited St. Marc a month after the killings, at least 27 people were murdered in St. Marc between Feb. 11 and Aristide's flight into exile on February 29.
On a return visit to St. Marc in June of this year, researching for my article "We Have Never Had Justice," I spoke with individuals such as 49-year old Amazil Jean-Baptiste, whose son, Kenol St. Gilles, was murdered, and 44 year-old Marc Ariel Narcisse, whose cousin, Bob Narcisse, was killed. It is difficult to spend a morning chatting with the people of La Scierie without concluding that something very awful happened to them in 2004, a trauma from which they have yet to recover and for which they still seek justice.
Following the massacre in St. Marc, Dauphin was arrested in 2004. He subsequently escaped from jail, was re-arrested during the course of an anti-kidnapping raid in July 2006, and, like 81 percent those in Haiti’s prisons, been held without trial ever since.
In their recent article, Pierre and Sprague take particular aim at Haiti’s RNDDH human rights group, deferring instead to the U.S-based Institute for Justice and Democracy (IJDH), a group that has been particularly vociferous in its denunciations of possible governmental culpability for the St. Marc killings, and which described Ronald Dauphin in a June 2009 press release as “a Haitian grassroots activist, customs worker and political prisoner,” language curiously mimicked in the Sprague/Pierre article, and which makes no mention of the testimonies of the people of St. Marc.
Though they are never mentioned in the article, the deep and ongoing links between Mr. Aristide, Fanmi Lavalas, IJDH, Wadner Pierre and Jeb Sprague - links of which the Inter Press Service is aware but has chosen to ignore - have effectively blurred the line between political advocacy, human rights work and journalism.
One needs only to look at the chairman of IJDH’s Board of Directors, Miami attorney Ira Kurzban - also one of the group’s founders - to realize the deeply compromised nature of the organization's work. According to U.S. Department of Justice filings, between 2001 and 2004 Mr. Kurzban’s law firm received $4,648,964 from the Aristide government on behalf of its lobbying efforts, gobbling up from Haiti’s near-bankrupt state more than 2,000 times the average yearly income of the more than 7 million people there who survive on less that $2 per day. Since Mr. Aristide’s subsequent exile, Mr. Kurzban has frequently identified himself as the former president’s personal attorney in the United States. In vintage FreedomWorks fashion, Mr. Kuzban also had to be calmed by security personnel when he hysterically and repeatedly interrupted a reading that I was giving at the 2005 Miami Book Fair.
In IJDH’s 2005 annual report, Mr. Kurzban’s firm is listed in the category reserved for those having contributed more than $5000 to the organization, while in the group’s 2006 report, the firm is listed under “Donations of Time and Talent.”. The American Immigration Lawyers Association, South Florida Chapter, for which Mr. Kurzban served as past national president and former general council, is listed in a section reserved for those having donated $10,000 or more
Though Wadner Pierre and Jeb Sprague’s elevation of IJDH to an undeserved legitimacy and slander of RNDDH (a group which, despite its advocacy on behalf of the St. Marc victims, has also defended the rights and advocated on behalf of members of the Fanmi Lavalas party) are distasteful, they don’t quite rise to the level of intentional duplicity that another bit of information suggests.
In a stark conflict of interest, Wadner Pierre was once employed by a Haitian legal organization, the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, which, according to the IJDH’s own website, received “most of its support from the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti.” Pierre has also previously contributed text and photographs to the IJDH website lauding the April 2007 release of Amanus Mayette, another suspect of the St. Marc massacre.
Put simply, when writing about the IJDH, Wadner Pierre is quoting his former employer without acknowledging it as such, a sleight of hand that opponents of health reform in my own country, for example, would recognize immediately.
For his part, Jeb Sprague, the article’s other author, first made himself known to me in November 2005, when he emailed me, unsolicited, a graphic picture of the bullet-riddled, blood-soaked bodies of a Haitian mother and her children along with a smiley-face emoticon and a semi-coherent tirade against the the World Bank and the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington, DC think tank.
Intimations of violence against my person aside, such a display struck me as less than a class act in giving those sacrificed on the altar of Haiti's fratricidal political violence the respect they deserve. Since then, Sprague has graduated to obsessively slandering progressive elements deemed insufficiently loyal to Haiti’s disgraced former president, such as the U.K.-based Haiti Support Group, and now works as a teaching assistant at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Sociology Department, focusing on crime and delinquency, subjects with which his past behavior no doubt gives him a close familiarity.
Taken in total, it is unfortunate that the Inter Press Service, an organization that promotes itself as “civil society's leading news agency,” would allow itself to be used as a front for such propaganda, and throw its weight behind the paid political hacks and human rights abusers who have for too long dominated politics in Haiti. As a fairly legitimate news source, as opposed to, say, the red-faced shouting of Fox News, the Inter Press Service owes its readers, and the people of Haiti, better.
Showing posts with label Inter Press Service. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Inter Press Service. Show all posts
Friday, August 21, 2009
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Inter Press Service led astray in Haiti?
The Inter Press Service (IPS), an organization to which I have been a proud contributor on three continents since mid-2006, has a long tradition of insightful and challenging reporting from Haiti, as typified by the stories filed by journalists like Jane Regan and Amy Bracken. Describing itself as “civil society's leading news agency,” IPS has always struck me as an outlet with a singularly worthy mission in an era or ever-more scaled back and dumbed-down foreign coverage.
All of which may explains why some who have contacted me in recent months have viewed the recent Haiti coverage by IPS with some disappointment and dismay. In place of the articles such as Bracken’s thoroughgoing coverage of the 2006 elections there, or Regan’s perceptive examination of the nation’s history of political violence, IPS readers are now treated to passages such as the following:
"The inhabitants do not forgive former de facto Prime Minister Gerard Latortue for not even helping his birthplace. The officials elected in 2006 sit in Port-au-Prince speaking French and awaiting the patronage festivals to give some gourds to the priests of the parishes to show how close they are to the people," he said bitterly.
The passage, taken from an October 17th article titled “After the Deluge, Residents Turn to Each Other” by Wadner Pierre and ostensibly quoting a man named “Rogest” speaking in a stilted, press-release style in which I have never heard a Haitian speak before, is indicative of the stridently partisan tone IPS’ coverage of Haiti has taken in recent months, replete with the conflicts of interests of some of the correspondents currently reporting for the agency as well as the erratic, unstable, and often plainly dishonest background of others.
Following an amusingly frothing attempt at vilification of some of IPS’ long-standing correspondents earlier this year by a handful of affluent white North American “activists” whose slavish adherence to former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his now-marginal Fanmi Lavalas political party is matched only by their ignorance of the country (most notably with the idea that Haitian history began in February 2004) and its culture (not a Kreyol speaker among them), this particular current of thought began doing what one would of supposed would have been a logical first step: Writing and filing articles on the situation in Haiti. No problem thus far, of course, as a plurality of challenging, dissenting views should be heard on any given subject (though that is not a point of view this current, given to intolerance and defaming of those who think differently, would endorse). However, the problem arises when advocacy, often paid advocacy, for Haiti’s political actors masquerades as journalism.
I have never met Wadner Pierre, who is Haitian and may very well be a personable sort of fellow, but the tenor of his reporting for IPS thus far, characterized by a marked hostility to the elected government of Haitian President René Préval, and an inability or uniwllingess to criticize anything in the 2001-2004 Aristide II regime, might be explained by a closer look at his resume.
In several instances (here and here and here), Wadner Pierre is identified as an employee of the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI). The BAI is the Haiti-affiliate organization of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), headed attorney Brian Concannon, who was employed by the Aristide government as an attorney from 2001 until 2004. In the IJDH's annual report, the organization directs donations to be sent to P.O. Box 806, Key Biscayne, Florida, 33149, where Mr. Aristide's personal attorney, Ira Kurzban, resides. The IJDH's annual report also lists Kurzban as one of its main donors, as well as "one of the founders" and "a member of the Board of Directors" in a March 2005 letter to Inter-American Commission on Human Rights head Santiago A. Canton.
On the IJDH’s own website the organization has the following to say about its links with the BAI:
The Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) in Port-au-Prince, has helped victims prosecute human rights cases, trained Haitian lawyers and spoken out on justice issues since 1995. The BAI used to receive most of its support from Haiti's constitutional governments, but since February 2004, it has received most of its support from the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), and no support from any government or political organization.
If the IJDH or the BAI have ever criticized Mr. Aristide or the Fanmi Lavalas party for any violence they have been responsible for, or called for justice on behalf of the many victims among the regime's opponents in any statement, I have never read it.
The IJDH, like the BAI, is a political pressure group whose sole mission, I believe, is to undermine the Préval government and the UN presence in Haiti in order to facilitate the return of Mr. Aristide to political power in Haiti. One can and should report critically on moves by both the UN and Préval, but one should not simply repeat as facts the tired lies of political actors discredited in Haiti a long time ago, pocketing simultaneously with both hands money from a legitimate journalistic outlet and an organization working to bring about the aims described above. And it would be the height of condescension not to hold Haitian journalists to the same standards when it comes to declaring conflicts of interest that one would hold foreign journalists to reporting from the country.
The quoting of Mr. Concannon in a July 2007 piece co-authored with Jeb Sprague (in effect, quoting his employer without acknowledging it as such) is further proof of this highly unusual muddying of the waters of a journalist’s mission, with Concannon's quote being followed with the statement that international lenders "reacted further by cutting off nearly all support to the aid-dependent but privatization-weary state" because Aristide "refused untrammeled privatization,” which is simply false. International aid to Haiti was suspended after the fraudulent 1997 and 2000 legislative elections, as even a cursory review of Haiti's recent history shows.
Jeb Sprague, for his part, an evidently deranged eternal “graduate student” from Long Beach, California who first announced his existence to me by emailing me (unsolicited) photos of bullet-riddled corpses, is known chiefly for his obsessive slandering of progressive elements in the Haiti debate deemed insufficiently loyal to Haiti’s disgraced former government. His libelous allegations against Charles Arthur, director of the U.K.-based Haiti Support Group, in connection with a now-discredited “study” of violence in Port-au-Prince conducted by an Aristide acolyte being a particularly notable example.
IPS is a fine organization with many talented writers and journalists working hard to bring out stories that much of the news media would just as soon not bother covering. They do, however, owe the people of Haiti, more objective and less partisan and compromised coverage than they are providing for them at present. I am confident, though, with the superior journalists, both Haitian and foreign, that I have seen reporting in Haiti over the years, that the editors responsible for IPS’ Caribbean coverage will come to their senses eventually and treat the country and the issues confronting it with the respect that they deserve.
All of which may explains why some who have contacted me in recent months have viewed the recent Haiti coverage by IPS with some disappointment and dismay. In place of the articles such as Bracken’s thoroughgoing coverage of the 2006 elections there, or Regan’s perceptive examination of the nation’s history of political violence, IPS readers are now treated to passages such as the following:
"The inhabitants do not forgive former de facto Prime Minister Gerard Latortue for not even helping his birthplace. The officials elected in 2006 sit in Port-au-Prince speaking French and awaiting the patronage festivals to give some gourds to the priests of the parishes to show how close they are to the people," he said bitterly.
The passage, taken from an October 17th article titled “After the Deluge, Residents Turn to Each Other” by Wadner Pierre and ostensibly quoting a man named “Rogest” speaking in a stilted, press-release style in which I have never heard a Haitian speak before, is indicative of the stridently partisan tone IPS’ coverage of Haiti has taken in recent months, replete with the conflicts of interests of some of the correspondents currently reporting for the agency as well as the erratic, unstable, and often plainly dishonest background of others.
Following an amusingly frothing attempt at vilification of some of IPS’ long-standing correspondents earlier this year by a handful of affluent white North American “activists” whose slavish adherence to former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his now-marginal Fanmi Lavalas political party is matched only by their ignorance of the country (most notably with the idea that Haitian history began in February 2004) and its culture (not a Kreyol speaker among them), this particular current of thought began doing what one would of supposed would have been a logical first step: Writing and filing articles on the situation in Haiti. No problem thus far, of course, as a plurality of challenging, dissenting views should be heard on any given subject (though that is not a point of view this current, given to intolerance and defaming of those who think differently, would endorse). However, the problem arises when advocacy, often paid advocacy, for Haiti’s political actors masquerades as journalism.
I have never met Wadner Pierre, who is Haitian and may very well be a personable sort of fellow, but the tenor of his reporting for IPS thus far, characterized by a marked hostility to the elected government of Haitian President René Préval, and an inability or uniwllingess to criticize anything in the 2001-2004 Aristide II regime, might be explained by a closer look at his resume.
In several instances (here and here and here), Wadner Pierre is identified as an employee of the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI). The BAI is the Haiti-affiliate organization of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), headed attorney Brian Concannon, who was employed by the Aristide government as an attorney from 2001 until 2004. In the IJDH's annual report, the organization directs donations to be sent to P.O. Box 806, Key Biscayne, Florida, 33149, where Mr. Aristide's personal attorney, Ira Kurzban, resides. The IJDH's annual report also lists Kurzban as one of its main donors, as well as "one of the founders" and "a member of the Board of Directors" in a March 2005 letter to Inter-American Commission on Human Rights head Santiago A. Canton.
On the IJDH’s own website the organization has the following to say about its links with the BAI:
The Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) in Port-au-Prince, has helped victims prosecute human rights cases, trained Haitian lawyers and spoken out on justice issues since 1995. The BAI used to receive most of its support from Haiti's constitutional governments, but since February 2004, it has received most of its support from the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), and no support from any government or political organization.
If the IJDH or the BAI have ever criticized Mr. Aristide or the Fanmi Lavalas party for any violence they have been responsible for, or called for justice on behalf of the many victims among the regime's opponents in any statement, I have never read it.
The IJDH, like the BAI, is a political pressure group whose sole mission, I believe, is to undermine the Préval government and the UN presence in Haiti in order to facilitate the return of Mr. Aristide to political power in Haiti. One can and should report critically on moves by both the UN and Préval, but one should not simply repeat as facts the tired lies of political actors discredited in Haiti a long time ago, pocketing simultaneously with both hands money from a legitimate journalistic outlet and an organization working to bring about the aims described above. And it would be the height of condescension not to hold Haitian journalists to the same standards when it comes to declaring conflicts of interest that one would hold foreign journalists to reporting from the country.
The quoting of Mr. Concannon in a July 2007 piece co-authored with Jeb Sprague (in effect, quoting his employer without acknowledging it as such) is further proof of this highly unusual muddying of the waters of a journalist’s mission, with Concannon's quote being followed with the statement that international lenders "reacted further by cutting off nearly all support to the aid-dependent but privatization-weary state" because Aristide "refused untrammeled privatization,” which is simply false. International aid to Haiti was suspended after the fraudulent 1997 and 2000 legislative elections, as even a cursory review of Haiti's recent history shows.
Jeb Sprague, for his part, an evidently deranged eternal “graduate student” from Long Beach, California who first announced his existence to me by emailing me (unsolicited) photos of bullet-riddled corpses, is known chiefly for his obsessive slandering of progressive elements in the Haiti debate deemed insufficiently loyal to Haiti’s disgraced former government. His libelous allegations against Charles Arthur, director of the U.K.-based Haiti Support Group, in connection with a now-discredited “study” of violence in Port-au-Prince conducted by an Aristide acolyte being a particularly notable example.
IPS is a fine organization with many talented writers and journalists working hard to bring out stories that much of the news media would just as soon not bother covering. They do, however, owe the people of Haiti, more objective and less partisan and compromised coverage than they are providing for them at present. I am confident, though, with the superior journalists, both Haitian and foreign, that I have seen reporting in Haiti over the years, that the editors responsible for IPS’ Caribbean coverage will come to their senses eventually and treat the country and the issues confronting it with the respect that they deserve.
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