Photo of the reporter, Leslie Casimir.
Posted on 02/28/2004 6:47:09 AM PST by aculeus
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Another day of burning barricades did not cause much alarm yesterday morning when I set out to detail Haiti's torment, but by midday, I was part of the story, surrounded by angry men with guns and jagged rocks the size of basketballs.
We had approached the barricades all morning long and there was nothing particularly ominous about this one near Rue Monsignor Guilloux. No flaming tires - just a neat row of big rocks that had forced our rented Montero sport-utility vehicle to a halt.
I had been on my cell phone talking to my colleague, photographer Ron Antonelli, about meeting up to take a picture of Chereste Auguste, a 46-year-old man with a gunshot wound to the stomach. He was in the emergency room waiting for a nurse to administer the drugs that his family had to go out to buy themselves at a pharmacy because L'Hopitale Generale - the city's public hospital - was out of prescription drugs. I had just interviewed Auguste and wanted to return with Antonelli to get a photo.
"I'm suffering," Auguste had moaned, and I told him that I would be back.
But a young man with a crooked grin on his face and hatred in his eyes changed all that. He told us all - my Haitian driver and my colleague Guy Delva, head of the country's Haitian Journalist Association - to get out of the car.
Others picked up the demand and it became a blood-curdling Creole chant, "Desann machin-nan, desann machin-nan."
Then I heard someone order us to empty out our pockets.
There were suddenly now about 20 men, banging on the car plastered with useless Presse Internationale signs. Someone was pointing a gun at my driver's face, others held large rocks and threatened to unleash them.
Our driver, Sergo Pierre-Pierre, rolled down the window and the gun-toting man opened his door and started poking the gun at Pierre-Pierre's back.
I thought all we would have to do is hold up our five fingers, the universal sign around town these days that indicates you were not part of the rebellion to overthrow Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Five years, his full term. But that didn't make a difference.
It didn't make a difference that I was back in my parent's homeland, Haiti Cherie, and could communicate with them in Creole, that I could understand their misery, for I have heard about those pains all my life.
All I knew was that I had to get out of that Montero and tell them to take it. There wasn't fear at that moment. All I was thinking was to get out of the car.
I jumped out and backed away, making a gesture with my hands for them take it.
They snatched Pierre-Pierre's money, about $60, and piled into our car. Three men had approached me but they didn't touch me, hesitated even. They just examined my face, wondering - I imagined - if I were a foreigner or not.
Delva said he heard one man say: "Aristide for five years," but I didn't hear that. All I heard was my father's voice before I left New York asking me why I wanted to come here.
"Your life is worth much more than a story," he said.
When they drove off, I looked at them bobbing away in our air-conditioned car with my bag that contained the keys to my comfortable Park Slope apartment and VW Golf, my eyeglasses and other belongings.
Then I looked around me and felt alone - and very vulnerable.
When we finally persuaded a man named Reneus, a taxi driver, to take us up the mountain to my hotel, he didn't have enough gas. So we bought black market fuel for $4 a gallon and were advised to place a photo of Aristide on the dash. As we climbed up to Petionville in Reneus' little beatup car, we were again signaled to pull over, but this time we didn't stop.
At the hotel parking lot, I sat in the car and tried to collect myself.
Then I saw Wilf Dinnck, 33, a correspondent for Canada's Global National, screaming on his cell phone to a producer.
"They pointed a gun to our heads," he was saying. "They told us they were going to kill us. Then they argued among each other if they should kill us or not."
An NBC truck rolled up, its window shattered by a bullet.
Montreal Gazette reporter Sue Montgomery said she had a gun pointed to her head, with the armed thug blowing kisses at her.
I felt helpless. I had been trying to meet up with my colleague so that we could take a photo of Chereste Auguste, the gunshot victim who was in immeasurable pain. The hospital was out of drugs and his brother had just returned from filling out a prescription at a pharmacy. But the overwhelmed nurse hadn't come back to care for him.
All of Port-au-Prince seemed to be suffering yesterday.
My G_d; we're the liberal press. This is only supposed to happen to other people.
Photo of the reporter, Leslie Casimir.
Stay Safe Tet68 !
One of the cable news channel reports that people are gathering on the streets awaiting the final bloodbath. Seems they just want to watch the upcoming show.
These unrealistic dreamers want to win Pulitzer Prizes and they all want to be today's Ernie Pyles.
As far as I'm concerned, they're all just a pile. They're on their own now. I wish them luck. They'll need it.
Leni
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