The assassinations took place during a period when Haiti was undergoing a turbulent transition to democracy, and those political tensions were manifested in the Little Haiti neighborhood by the deadly attacks on radio journalists. The attacks caught attention of the Haitian community.[1] There was further interest in whether the murders were ordered by the Haitian military regime as that could possibly change the status of refugees from economic to political asylum seekers.[2] In addition to the journalists, radio host Ringo Cayard owned a building that was bombed after D'Or's murder, and Daniel Buron, a bus driver who supported democracy, was assassinated on 9 March 1994 in Little Haiti.[2][3][4][5] The FBI was brought in once it was determined that the motive was political.[6]
The three journalists belong to the group of eleven race and ethnic community journalists to be killed in the United States since 1977.[7][8][9]
Jean-Bertrand Aristide became Haiti's first democratically elected president on 7 February 1991 after a long history of dictatorships and a new Constitution. Even before the inauguration of Aristide, there was a failed coup in January 1991.[10] However, Aristide was in office less than a year before he was ousted in a military coup on 30 September 1991. Although President Aristide had a short-lived presidential term, he created hope among Haitians that their conditions would improve and managed to introduce some human rights reforms.[11][12] The military coup that overthrew the government of President Aristide was under the leadership of Lt. General Raoul Cédras, who had been selected by President Aristide to serve as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. The United States pushed those governing in Haiti to reinstate Aristide and honor the democratic vote. A multilateral effort led to the diplomatic agreement known as the Governors Island Agreement, which was signed to achieve the return of Aristide on 3 July 1993.[12][13][14] If successful, the process return of President Aristide by 30 October 1993. However, Cédras defaulted on the agreement. This led to a United Nations' mandate in July 1994 to use force, if necessary, to restore the democratically elected president. With an imminent US invasion planned for September 1994, Cédras left Haiti, which led to the return of President Aristide.[12][14][15]
Jean-Claude Olivier
Jean Claude Olivier, also known as Division Star, (ca. 1944 – 18 February 1991) was a Haitian-born music promoter and radio host of the program "Radyo Pep-la" (Translated: Radio of the People), for WLQY-AM (1320) broadcasting in French Creole, and he was the first to be assassinated just 11 days after President Aristide took office.[16][17]
While Olivier was involved with music entertainment, he shared D'Or's or St. Plite's interest in politics and engaged his audience with political talk. Similarly, he was supportive of Aristide, belonged to the political organization Veye Yo, and called for boycotts of businesses in the Little Haiti that were not supportive of Aristide or democracy.[2][16][17][18][19] He received a threat before his assassination as did D'Or.[3]
On the evening of 18 February, a band Olivier represented had finished playing at the Chateau Club and Olivier was leaving the nightclub. His assassin approached him and when he was close enough to Olivier, he shot the journalist three times, before making his getaway in a waiting car with a driver. The team that assassinated Olivier and the others were Haitian-Bahamian and were hired to kill from a list of names.[20][21]
While WLQY is a station that serves the Miami-area, its signal carries to Haiti and has an audience there.[19]
Little Haiti neighborhood, Miami, Florida, United States
Causeof death
Gun shot
Nationality
Haitian
Occupation(s)
Radio journalist and talk show host; Paralegal
Employer
WLQY-AM (1320)
The murder of Fritz D'Or, or Fritz Dor, (ca. 1953 – 15 March 1991), was the second in a string of political attacks by supporters of the former Haitian military regime who were opposed to Aristide. D'Or was a US Haitian journalist and radio talk show host for WLQY-AM (1320). He was assassinated by Billy Alexander in Miami, Florida, for voicing his support for the new Haitian democracy and President Aristide.[16]
Political activists described Fritz D'Or as "the heart of the community" in Little Haiti.[17] D'Or had four children and took care of his paralyzed brother.[16] D'Or was an active member of Haitian-American political organization, known as Veye Yo. Aside from his political radio commentary, D'Or was both on the board of directors and worked as a paralegal at the Haitian Refugee Center, in addition to his involvement in multiple community education programs. He worked at WLQY-AM (1320) as a pro-democratic and pro-Aristide Creole-language commentator and political reporter.[17]
After receiving several threats, Fritz D'Or was fatally shot four times and killed by Billy Alexander for US$2,000 at 8:55p.m. on Friday, 15 March 1991. At the time he was standing outside his office close to the intersection of Northeast Second Avenue and 59th Street in Little Haiti, in Miami, Florida.[17][18][22] Police later found a death list with D'Or's name on it, as well as two other prominent Haitian journalists.[23][24] Billy Alexander, a Haitian American, was convicted of killing D'Or.
Dona St. Plite
Dona St. Plite
Born
Donaldson St. Plite
ca. 1952
Haiti
Died
October 24, 1993 (Age 41)
Miami, Florida
Causeof death
Gun fire
Nationality
Haitian
Citizenship
Haitian & U.S.
Occupation(s)
Radio journalist, host, and commentator
Employer(s)
WKAT (radio), Miami
Knownfor
His support of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
Dona St. Plite, (1952 – 24 October 1993), was a Haitian-born radio journalist, host, and commentator who worked for the radio station WKAT, in Miami, Florida, which served the emigrant Haitian community. St. Plite was the third Haitian-born journalist assassinated in Miami in three years for supporting ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.[1][25][26]
St. Plite was the host of two radio programs: Tet Ensemble on WKAT and "Tet Ensemble Extra" (Translated: Heads Together) on WLQY-AM.[27] As a commentator, St. Plite primarily covered human rights and politics.[26] His radio shows featured guests, call-ins, and French and Creole music. He was normally on the air between midnight to 6 a.m. The manager of the station, Arnie Premer, said St. Plite owned a driving school and was planning to open a used car dealership.[28][29]
Dona St. Plite was shot numerous times in the chest outside Miami Edison Middle School located in the Little Haiti neighborhood of Miami on October 24, 1993, as he was leaving a fundraiser for the family of Fritz Dor, a Haitian-born radio personality who was killed in 1991.[1][30] Dona St. Plite's name appeared on a hit list of supporters of ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.[31] Although the list's origin is unknown, it contains an introduction of flattering Haiti's military government and announcing those on the list should be killed in order to keep Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide from returning to Haiti.[2] A radio commentator, Nelson Voltaire, premiered on a show with St. Plite a few hours before the shooting. They deliberated the ongoing political chaos in Haiti, including the United Nations' determination to force the military to give up power and allow Aristide to return to office by October 30, 1991.[1]
St. Plite was assassinated outside near Miami Edison Senior High School.
Trial
Well before anyone was arrested or tried for Olivier's or D'Or's murder, rumors were rampant in the Little Haiti community about who possible suspects might be. Former interim Haitian leader Prosper Avril, who at the time lived in Miami, gives his own account of being the target of such rumors in his book An Appeal to History: The Truth about a Singular Lawsuit.[32] After law enforcement officials completed their lengthy investigation, those who were charged lacked the political connections rumored. Instead they were hired hit men.
It was alleged that Billy Alexander, born ca. 1970, was contracted to kill D'Or for his opposition to Louis Thermitus, a local record store owner, who D'Or had accused of being a member of the Tonton Macoute and of supporting the regime that had ousted Haiti's elected President Aristide. At the time of his arraignment and later his conviction for the murder of D'Or and Jean-Claude Olivier, another radio journalist, Alexander was serving a life sentence for killing Alcee Lissitte during an unrelated robbery in Fort Lauderdale in 1991.[19][33][34][35][36][37] The look out man for the contract killing Glossy Bruce Joseph was arrested in May 1991 and later convicted and sentenced to 25 years in 1993.[2][38] Hitler Fleurinord was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and accused of being the alleged driver.[19] Thermitus was never implicated or charged in the murders.[24][36] Moses Durosier was suspected of being in the car the night Olivier was killed. The authorities said Durosier agreed to wear a listening device while deliberating with Fleurinord about the crimes. The authorities also said Fleurinord said he and Alexander were paid $5,000 for one slaying and $2,000 for the other during the conversation.[39]
Impact
The murders of Haitian journalists raised awareness about the dangers faced by ethnic journalists in the United States. Fritz D'Or is one of eleven ethnic journalists to be killed in the United States since 1977, which includes Chauncey Bailey.[7][8][9] By the time that D'Or was killed, there had already been eight journalists murdered since 1982, making ethnic journalism one of the field's most hazardous jobs. Most of those murders remained unsolved.[7] While there have been more since St. Plite's murder, the media has deepened its scrutiny into the matter.[8][9]Haïti Observateur, a Brooklyn-based Haitian weekly, was harassed as a result of the paper's anti-Aristide position. In Haiti, Observateur journalists began to receive vague threats from anonymous callers. The staff was so frightened by the threats that the business manager began delivering the papers himself.[40] After the murders of Jean Claude Olivier and Fritz D'Or, Creole-language talk hosts, heard as far north as Palm Beach County, feared they were victims of terrorism aimed at silencing support of democracy in Haiti.[41]
Reactions
One thousand people marched through the streets of Little Haiti to protest that no arrests had been made in the murder of Olivier and D'Or and within one week the alleged lookout man was arrested.[16][38] Ron Ilhardt, the homicide detective in charge of the investigation of Jean Claude Olivier and Fritz D'Or, said, "These men were killed for words they spoke over the airwaves".[39]
The politics of Haiti takes place in the framework of a unitary semi-presidential republic, where the president is the head of state and the prime minister is the head of government. The politics of Haiti are considered historically unstable due to various coups d'état, regime changes, military juntas and internal conflicts. After Jean-Bertrand Aristide was deposed, Haitian politics became relatively stable. The Economist Intelligence Unit rated Haiti an "authoritarian regime" in 2022. According to the V-Dem Democracy indices Haiti is 2023 the 4th least electoral democratic country in Latin America.
Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a Haitian former Salesian priest and politician who became Haiti's first democratically elected president in 1991 before being deposed in a coup d'état. As a priest, he taught liberation theology and, as president, he attempted to normalize Afro-Creole culture, including Vodou religion, in Haiti.
Joseph Raoul Cédras is a Haitian former military officer who was the de facto ruler of Haiti from 1991 to 1994. Cedras was the last military ruler of Haiti.
Matthieu Prosper Avril is a Haitian political figure who was President of Haiti from 1988 to 1990. A trusted member of François Duvalier's Presidential Guard and adviser to Jean-Claude Duvalier, Lt. Gen. Avril led the September 1988 Haitian coup d'état against a transition military government installed after Jean-Claude Duvalier's 1986 overthrow. He was President until March 1990, in a period which according to Amnesty International was "marred by serious human rights violations". He was arrested in 2001, but released in March 2004 after the 2004 Haitian coup d'état overthrew Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Jean Léopold Dominique was a Haitian journalist and activist for human rights and democracy in Haiti. His station, Radio Haiti-Inter, was the first to broadcast news, investigative reporting, and political analysis in Haitian Creole, the language spoken by most Haitian people. On 3 April 2000 he was assassinated as he arrived for work at Radio Haiti-Inter. An extensive though turbulent investigation failed to officially identify and bring to justice the primary perpetrators, who remain at large.
Antoine Izméry was a Haitian businessman and pro-democracy activist.
Joseph-Michel François was a colonel in the Haitian army. As Haiti Chief of National Police he participated in the 1991 Haitian coup d'état, which overthrew Haiti's elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Former Haitian President candidate Michel "Sweet Mickey" Martelly is known to have associated with François.
Robert Malval is the former prime minister of Haiti. He served from 30 August 1993 to 8 November 1994. He was preceded by Marc Bazin and was succeeded by Smarck Michel.
Emmanuel Constant is the founder of FRAPH, a Haitian death squad that terrorized supporters of exiled president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Jacques Roche, a Haitian journalist and editor for Le Matin newspaper and a host of a TV show in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, was kidnapped, tortured and killed during a wave of abductions carried out before elections. Roche was affiliated with Group of 184 and an opponent of Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his Fanmi Lavalas political party and pro-Lavalas were suspected of carrying out his murder.
Kevin Pina is an American journalist, filmmaker and educator. Pina also serves as a Country Expert on Haiti for the Varieties of Democracy project sponsored by the University of Notre Dame Center for Research Computing, the University of Gothenburg Department of Political Science, and the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies.
Lyn Duff, now principally known as Athena Kolbe, is an American journalist and college professor. Her career began in eighth grade with an underground school newspaper and has continued in various written and audio mediums. After being forced into anti-gay conversion therapy by her mother she escaped. She has done extensive reporting in Israel and Haiti. She speaks out for youth rights and criticizes certain mental health systems. She was affiliated with Flashpoints, an evening drive-time public affairs show heard daily on Pacifica Radio. She is now an assistant professor of social work at Barry University.
Ady Jean-Gardy is a Haitian social reformer and international press activist. He became Minister of Communication in Haiti (2012–13) after serving as Chief of Staff of the Haitian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Jean-Gardy designed reforms for public communication without propaganda, respecting human rights organizations and positioned Haiti as an influential member of the African Union at Addis Ababa (Ethiopia). He worked to end civil wars in Africa and promoted a new image of Haiti as an international leader for peace. Ady Jean-Gardy is also the founder of the Haitian Press Federation, an umbrella organization for various Haitian press associations. He founded the Haitian University of Journalism and Social Communication, also known as the Haitian Center for Teaching Journalists.
The 1991 Haitian coup d'état took place on 29 September 1991, when President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, elected eight months earlier in the 1990–91 Haitian general election, was deposed by the Armed Forces of Haiti. Haitian military officers, primarily Army General Raoul Cédras, Army Chief of Staff Philippe Biamby and Chief of the National Police, Michel François led the coup. Aristide was sent into exile, his life only saved by the intervention of U.S., French, and Venezuelan diplomats. Aristide would later return to power in 1994.
Fritz d'Or, or Fritz Dor, was a Haitian American journalist and radio talk show host for WLQY-AM (1320) who was assassinated by Billy Alexander in Miami, Florida, for voicing his support for the new Haitian democracy and the elected Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who would be ousted by the military regime led by General Raoul Cédras in September 1991.
Corruption in Haiti occurs at one of the worst rates in the world. Corruption disrupts all attempts to establish a rule of law, a sustainable democracy, and to improve the quality of life of Haiti's people.
Brignol Lindor, was a Haitian radio journalist and news editor, lawyer and teacher. Lindor was a prominent voice in politics, speaking mostly on behalf of the Democratic interests of the Haitian people. His brutal murder was blamed on threats from leftist politicians who supported President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Ricardo Ortega Fernández was a Spanish journalist for the television channel Antena 3, who was shot and killed while on assignment in Port-au-Prince, Haiti to cover the protests in the aftermath of the 2004 Haitian coup d'état.
Jovenel Moïse, the 43rd president of Haiti, was assassinated on 7 July 2021 at 1 am EDT (UTC−04:00) at his residence in Port-au-Prince. A group of 28 foreign mercenaries, mostly from Colombia, are alleged to be responsible for the killing. First Lady Martine Moïse was also shot multiple times in the attack, and was airlifted to the United States for emergency treatment. Later in the day, USGPN killed three of the suspected assassins and arrested 20 more. A manhunt was launched for other gunmen as well as the masterminds of the attack. Haitian chief prosecutor Bedford Claude confirmed plans to question Moïse's top bodyguards; none of the president's security guards were killed or injured in the attack. US authorities have since arrested eleven suspects alleged to have conspired in the assassination. Martine Moïse and former prime minister Claude Joseph were formally charged on 19 February 2024 with conspiring in the assassination.
↑ Collins, Edward Jr., Cole, Timothy M. (1996), "Regime Legitimation in Instances of Coup-Caused Governments-in-Exile: The Cases of Presidents Makarios and Aristide", Journal of International Law & Practice 5(2), p220.
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