Leading Haitian Radio Figure Shot to Death Outside Station

Jean Dominique, Haiti's most prominent radio journalist and a passionate voice for democracy through decades of dictatorships and political turmoil in his impoverished homeland, was shot to death along with a security guard yesterday by two gunmen outside his station in Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. 

Mr. Dominique, 69, founded Radio Haiti Inter, whose news and commentary in Creole and French were heard six days a week by 300,000 Haitian-Americans in the New York metropolitan region and by many of Haiti's eight million people since the 1960's. He was shot as he left his car at 6:15 a.m., the station said. The gunmen fled, and there were no immediate arrests. Wounded several times in the head and neck, Mr. Dominique and his guard,  Jean-Claude Louissaint, who was shot in the neck, were taken to a hospital in suburban Pétionville, where both were pronounced dead. 

The motive for the killing was unknown. But Haitian-Americans in New York including Ricot Dupuy, the manager of Radio Soleil, the Brooklyn cable radio station that carried Mr. Dominique's broadcasts, and Jean-Claude Bajeux, a former culture minister and a human rights advocate in Haiti, called it an assassination. "He was killed to silence his voice," said Mr. Dupuy. He noted that Mr. Dominique, in recent broadcasts, had defended President René Préval's decision to delay legislative elections until later this year. 

News of Mr. Dominique's death -- solemnly broadcast by a substitute announcer on "Inter-Actualities," the 7 a.m. program on which the victim and his wife, the journalist Michele Montas, were to have been the anchors -- was met with dismay, sorrow and anger in Haiti and in the Haitian community in New York. Also surviving are three daughters, Gigi, Dolores and Nadine. 

Mr. Préval, for whom Mr. Dominique was a special assistant; Prime Minister Jacques-Édouard
Alexis; and former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide went to the hospital but issued no statements. The United States Embassy in Port-au-Prince expressed "great concern" over "the brutal slaying." 

Mr. Dominique was born in Port-au-Prince to a well-to-do family and attended private schools in Haiti and France, studying agronomy, said Jonathan Demme, the filmmaker, who made a documentary on Mr. Dominique. In the early 60's, when virtually all of Haiti's news media were owned and used as propaganda outlets by the government, Mr. Dominique founded Radio Haiti Inter as a voice of the people. It was the first outlet to broadcast in Creole, language of most Haitians, 75 percent of whom are illiterate. 

Over the next two decades, as Haiti was brutalized and systematically looted by François Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude,Mr. Dominique was among the few who pleaded for human rights. Friends said his life was often threatened by the Tontons Macoutes,the secret police. He was severely beaten, his brother was killed, and relatives and staff members were arrested. 

In 1980, Mr. Dominique's station was shut down, and he was driven into exile in New York. But in 1986, when a popular uprising toppled Jean-Claude Duvalier, Mr. Dominique returned to rebuild his station, and 50,000 people met him at the airport. He became a supporter of Mr. Aristide, who was elected president in 1990 in the first democratic elections in 33 years. But a year later,Mr. Aristide was ousted by the army. Thugs attacked and again wrecked Radio Haiti, and Mr. Dominique again went into exile, this time with Mr. Aristide. 

In 1994, after United States intervention, Mr. Aristide and Mr.  Dominique returned to Haiti. But although the station was restored to life, democracy has remained elusive. Mr. Dominique had defended the government decision to delay elections, though opponents said it would help Mr. Aristide's allies, because he believed that opponents were trying to rig them, Mr. Dupuy said, adding, "He wanted to make sure the elections were fair and democratic."