Jean Dominique

Jean Dominique Biography

Born :07/30/1930 Died :04/03/2000 Country :Haiti
Best known for/as: Haiti's most famous journalist and political analyst

Biography: Jean Leopold Dominique was born in Haiti on July 30th, 1930. A member of Haiti's mulatto elite he was sent to Paris where he trained as an agronomist. After returning to Haiti he went to work in the fields with the poor. Exposed to the deplorable conditions of Haiti's peasantry he empathized with them and became a critic of the Duvalier Dictatorship (1957-86).

A passion for film led Dominique to make one of the first Haitian documentaries in the early 1960s. He served as the director of Haiti's Ciné Club for many years and his film reviews were broadcast in Creole on Radio Haiti Inter.

During the late 1960s Dominique joined Radio Haiti, Haiti's oldest radio station as a reporter; he purchased their lease in 1971. He began broadcasting in Creole spoken by virtually all Haitians instead of French which is spoken mostly by the elite minority. For the first time, all of Haiti's people could receive the news and disenfranchised socio-economic portions of the population were empowered to become participants in the country's political movements.

Through his innovations Dominique defined himself as a militant activist for democracy; his daily editorials debated vital political questions and spoke freely about controversial issues of the day. His outspoken and uncompromising work did not go unnoticed by the dictatorship. Radio Haiti Inter was shut down several times in this period and Dominique forced into exile in 1980.

After spending 6 years in exile in Manhattan he returned to Haiti in February, 1986 after the fall of President-for-Life Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. A crowd of 60,000 gathered at the airport in Port-Au-Prince to welcome him home and to urge him to continue his battle for democracy.

Footage from this homecoming is featured in the Agronomist, a film directed by Jonathan Demme that recounts Dominique's extraordinary life as told by Dominique in interviews and with the testimonies of family, friends and colleagues.

After Duavlier went into exile Dominique became drawn to the Lavalas movement which emerged around the Presidential candidacy of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. When the army ousted Aristide from power in 1991, Dominique went into exile for the second time. He returned in 1994.

Dominique criticized a pharmaceutical firm for selling a contaminated cough syrup that killed at least 80 children and for selling ethanol-laced alcohol. He also became critical of a former interim police chief of dirty and violent politics. Of the latter he broadcasted "I know he has enough money to pay and arm henchmen. If he tries to move against me or the radio station and if I'm still alive, I'll close the station down and go into exile once again with my wife and children."

On April 3rd, 2000 Dominique arrived at the station before dawn. As he exited to enter the building he was shot four times with a 9mm weapon. He died on the scene. The gunmen also shot the station's security guard, Jean-Claude Louissant.

Source: Afiwi.com

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