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Saturday, May 17, 2025

Journalism and Haiti’s stories of hell

by

788 days ago
20230319
Roberson Alphonse on duty at Magik9

Roberson Alphonse on duty at Magik9

On the morn­ing of Oc­to­ber 25 last year, re­spect­ed Hait­ian jour­nal­ist Rober­son Alphonse was on his way to ra­dio sta­tion, Magik9, to take up du­ties as a talk show host in the trou­bled city of Le Cayes.

Less than eight days lat­er, he was painful­ly and fran­ti­cal­ly leav­ing a hos­pi­tal bed still emo­tion­al­ly trau­ma­tised and with bul­let frag­ments in his arms—scram­bling to ex­it the coun­try out of fear of a fol­low-up at­tack that would com­plete the work of would-be as­sas­sins.

At 47, Alphonse had de­vel­oped a rep­u­ta­tion for fear­less­ness both through his work as a ra­dio broad­cast­er and as a se­nior re­porter with Le Nou­vel­liste news­pa­per – the coun­try’s old­est, most wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed and au­thor­i­ta­tive news­pa­per found­ed in 1898.

In many areas of Haiti small entrepreneurs, like the one pictured here, are out of business.

In many areas of Haiti small entrepreneurs, like the one pictured here, are out of business.

Wesley Gibbings

The day be­fore the at­tack, Le Nou­vel­liste car­ried a sto­ry by the jour­nal­ist head­lined: Si­lenc­ing the Blood, with ac­counts from rel­a­tives of those who had been killed in the es­ca­lat­ing vi­o­lence.

What he record­ed was a sense of de­spair and “a loss of faith … in the jus­tice sys­tem.”

Alphonse had al­ways thought he could some­day be­come the sub­ject of the me­dia’s pro­lif­ic re­port­ing on crim­i­nal vi­o­lence, but not so soon and not at a time when jour­nal­ists were need­ed to tell the sto­ry of a crum­bling na­tion.

“As jour­nal­ists, we are nev­er com­fort­able when we are the sto­ry,” he says.

Just over a year be­fore the at­tempt on Alphonse’s life, Pres­i­dent Jovenel Moi­se had been as­sas­si­nat­ed. It was an act that sparked some of the worst vi­o­lence in re­cent years.

Alphonse as he spoke with T&T Guardian via Zoom

Alphonse as he spoke with T&T Guardian via Zoom

In the process and in one year alone, last year, eight jour­nal­ists were killed and an un­count­ed num­ber of them kid­napped or dis­ap­peared with­out trace. This rep­re­sents a small frac­tion of civil­ian ca­su­al­ties.

Even as Alphonse was be­ing in­ter­viewed last Fri­day, March 17, the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Ra­dio RCH 2000, Le­brun Saint-Hu­bert, be­came yet an­oth­er kid­nap vic­tim. He was tak­en by un­known at­tack­ers in Del­mas, the very area in which Alphonse was shot and which is now a hot spot for gang vi­o­lence and con­trol.

A Feb­ru­ary re­port of the Of­fice of the UN High Com­mis­sion­er for Hu­man Rights (OHCHR) not­ed that “at the be­gin­ning of 2020, a new con­fig­u­ra­tion of gang al­liances emerged” in neigh­bour­ing Cité Soleil – a com­mune that bor­ders Del­mas in the met­ro­pol­i­tan Port-au-Prince area.

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