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 **  **     **      ** **       COMMUNIQUE # 4 - 17
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 **  **     **      ** **       24 April 1995
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International Freedom of Expression eXchange Clearing House
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MEDIA STRUGGLING TO BE HEARD AGAIN IN HAITI

FREEDOM, BUT FINANCIAL AND TECHNICAL PROBLEMS IMPEDE PROGRESS

Haiti's media might be free but it is suffering from economic
pressures, writes Phillip Wearne in a special report in the
March/April issue of the International Press Institute's (IPI)
"IPI Report". "You could say we are free, but we're hardly
healthy," says Jean-Yves Urfie, editor of Haiti's only Creole
newspaper "Libete" ("Liberty"). He says, "There are paper
shortages, constant power cuts and advertising is very depressed
because of the economic crisis." "Libete" is down from a
circulation of nearly 20,000 to 6,000 copies a week. "Libete" is
very popular with Haitians, most of whom speak Creole, and it is
usually sold out within hours of hitting the streets in Port-au-
Prince and provincial towns. IPI says that due to its popular
support, "`Libete' is a sort of national community radio station
on paper."

"In a country with a literacy rate of no more than 20 per cent,
it is radio which remains the most important means of
communication," writes Wearne. When radio workers returned to
Haiti, having fled from death threats and the murder of
colleagues, they found their equipment was stolen or destroyed
and the staff gone. Radio Tropic FM, which was the only
progressive radio station to remain on the air throughout the
dictatorship, is now up and running at full capacity. However,
other radio stations which were shut down are having difficulty.
Haiti-Inter, whose director Jean Dominique was run out of the
country, still needs funding for a new antenna. Similarly, Radio
Bois Caiman, the community radio station in Mare Rouge, is still
off the air. "The military snapped off the antenna to shut us
up," says Father Brunet Cherisol. He says it will be months until
the village can afford to broadcast, train personnel and organise
transport from the capital.

The outlook for the Haitian media has its positive side. IPI
notes that aid to Haiti will boost the media out of concerns for
democratization. The European Union is reportedly considering
funding a number of media projects. "These projects involve help
for radio stations, a news agency, a Creole-language newspaper, a
rural radio network and training," says Greg Chamberlain, a
British journalist acting as consultant on an aid project
sponsored by the France-based Kouchner Foundation. The United
States Agency for International Development is also assisting in
repairing radio stations destroyed during the dictatorship of
Raul Cedras.

IPI says other groups are working on training programs for
Haitian journalists. "Censorship and the lack of equipment mean
that Haitian radio journalists often do little more news-
gathering than read international agency reports over the air,"
writes Wearne. Haiti Info Service is a training program set up
with a grant from the United Nations Development Programme. The
woman running the program, Edwige Balutanski, a part-Haitian
former Reuters journalist in Haiti, says journalists are no
longer intimidated, but "that may not last." In any event, she
says, "What we are trying to do is ensure that higher standards
in both print and broadcast journalism will last, whatever
happens, while helping to provide some support for the democratic
process in the meantime."


The IFEX Communique is published weekly by the IFEX Clearing
House, Toronto. The facility is operated by the Canadian
Committee to Protect Journalists in partnership with the member
organizations of the International Freedom of Expression eXchange
(IFEX). Material for the Communique may be submitted to the CCPJ,
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(1-416) 703-7034. Editor this week: Kristina Stockwood.
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