Fifteen years after bloodthirsty dictator Jean-Bertrand Aristide murdered a prominent human rights lawyer in broad daylight, one of her children is now a serious contestant in Miss Universe pageant - August 19, 2010
Bertin was born in Haiti, the daughter
of Mireille Durocher Bertin, a lawyer. She has worked for the International
Alliance for Haiti's Recovery and is currently a law student living in
the Dominican Republic. She speaks French, Spanish, English,
and Creole fluently.
Bertin's mother, who was an outspoken
critic of then president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was murdered on
March 28, 1995 in Port-au-Prince. She was shot in broad daylight while being
driven by a client, Eugene "Junior" Baillergeau, away from the U.S.
military's Camp Democracy headquarters. Baillergeau, who was killed along with
Durocher Bertin, was in litigation with the U.S. military over damages a U.S.
helicopter had allegedly done to his private plane. (
JEAN L. DOMINIQUE
The assassination triggered a week of rampage and political
turmoil in Haiti: Jean Dominique, 69, the country’s most revered journalist,
was gunned down in early April in Port-au-Prince outside the radio station he
had founded. His mourners demanded answers.
Dominique, an outspoken democracy advocate, had twice been
forced into exile because of his democratic views and his friendship with
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the ousted and than reinstalled former president of
this impoverished, unstable nation. His
killing is believed to have been politically motivated.
“The only weapon I have is my microphone and my unshakable
faith as a militant for change, veritable change,” Dominique once said. As a
political adviser to Haiti’s President René Préval, he advocated holding
elections this year but was criticized for his call to postpone them in order
to ensure their fairness. [At press time, elections were scheduled for
June.—WPR]
Dominique was born in Port-au-Prince to a well-to-do family
and attended private school in Haiti and France, studying agronomy. In the
early 1960s, he founded Haiti’s first independent radio station, Radio Haïti
Inter—the first broadcast outlet in Creole, the language of 70 percent of
Haitians.
DR ROGER LAFONTANT KILLED IN JAIL
DR ROGER LAFONTANT KILLED IN JAIL
Stained by the ashes of burned
buildings, tires and bodies, Haiti's capital city slowly returned to normal
Tuesday after mobs rampaged, demolishing even church properties, after an
attempted coup d'etat. The death toll exceeded 50, according to an official who
counted 44 burned and mutilated bodies in the city morgue alone.
At least 34 people reportedly died
in street violence, according to other sources, during the coup attempt.
State-run radio said 26 Haitians were killed in a shoot-out at the headquarters
of the Union for National Reconciliation, the party headed by the coup leader,
Roger Lafontant.
