Miami Haitians Link Murders to Hated Macoutes

In the markets of Little Haiti last week, goat leg parts were selling for 99 cents a pound, hot peppers shipped in from Port-au-Prince were 14 for a dollar, and intrigue as thick as the springtime humidity was free.

In an exile community of about 60,000, where the rhythm of life still takes its cues from the turmoil that so often rocks the impoverished island homeland, this should be a time of tranquility. After what is considered the first democratic election in the country’s 187-year history, the people of Haiti in February inaugurated as president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a leftist priest who was as popular here as he was at home.

But then two prominent Haitian broadcasters were gunned down on a Miami street, and after that a thunderous explosion ripped through a building housing three Haitian businesses.

Now the people of Little Haiti are talking about the Tontons Macoutes. “It couldn’t be anyone else,” says Rolande Dorancy, executive director of the Haitian Refugee Center.

During three decades of Duvalier rule, the Tontons Macoutes served as the dictatorship’s private army, a militia of armed thugs in dark glasses who often acted as judge, jury and executioner right in the street. Since the death of Francois (Papa Doc) Duvalier in 1971, and the overthrow of his son, Jean-Claude, in 1986, the Macoutes’ power in Haiti has been on the wane.

Many fear, however, that the Macoutes have come to Miami to stage a comeback. “The Duvalierists were in power for 33 years, and they feel they have to do something in a last attempt to intimidate people,” says Yves Vielot, who directs a struggling publicly funded Little Haiti marketplace. “But I don’t think it will work. Those people are on the run now.”

Nonetheless, in neighborhoods not known for gunfire and gangsters, the Macoutes-style violence index is up.

The first to be assassinated in the street was Jean Claude Olivier, 47, a flashy ladies’ man and trumpet player known over the Creole-language radio as Division Star. More into entertainment than politics, Olivier at first backed an economist for Haitian president, but threw his support to Aristide when the priest’s landslide victory became clear.

Early on the morning of Feb. 18, Olivier was walking from a nightclub to his car when a gunman approached and pumped three bullets into him. At first, police suspected the hit might have been tied to drugs. Olivier, they say, was no stranger to cocaine.

But 25 days later, a second popular broadcaster was gunned down. Fritz Dor, 33, known to listeners on WKAT-AM by his first name, was a staunch Aristide backer, a part-time paralegal who barely made enough money to care for his four children and a brother paralyzed by a bullet years ago. He was anything but flashy.

Dor was shot about 9 p.m. on March 15 when he stepped out of his office on Northeast 2nd Avenue, in the heart of Little Haiti. Dozens of people probably witnessed the shooting, police say, but only one has come forward to offer a sketchy description of the killer.

“People are definitely afraid because of the Macoutes,” said Miami police officer Carole Thony, a 26-year-old Haitian-born, Creole-speaking robbery detective assigned to a task force investigating the shootings. “They know from Haiti that the Macoutes are vicious and can hurt you.”

“We’ve always had crime. But not this kind,” said Little Haiti grocer Michel Vilaire. “This is organized, directed at certain people for political reasons. I think people are scared.”

Thony said police who are working crimes in Little Haiti face problems that run even deeper than language and Macoutes. “They don’t trust us very much,” Thony says. “In Haiti, the Macoutes were police. I’ve had a couple of people tell us that we’re in conspiracy with the killers. They say the police never do anything to help them because they have no political power.”

Compounding the distrust, say police, is the community’s memory of what is called “The Incident on 79th Street,” an ugly melee between Haitians and police that took place last July outside a Cuban-owned clothing store in Little Haiti. After a Haitian customer complained that he had been abused by a Latino clerk, demonstrators gathered in front of the store for days. Finally, police moved in to disperse the crowd as television news cameras caught several officers indiscriminately swinging their billy clubs at protesters and bystanders alike.

That incident, in which 65 persons were arrested, prompted a review board investigation and became a benchmark for what many Haitians consider police insensitivity. Says Officer Thony: “Haitians bring up that incident all the time.”

On April 27, about 1,000 Haitians took part in a candle-lit march through the streets of Little Haiti to protest what many think is a lack of police effort to solve the murders. “Police, FBI, stop protecting Ton-ton Macoute,” read one sign.

Many Haitians are also suspicious of the arson investigation into the explosion March 19--four days after Dor was killed--which destroyed a restaurant, offices and a Haitian association meeting room. Fire Department officials said the blast was probably caused by a gas leak, and ruled it accidental.

“You have to remember that Haitians are used to a climate of fear” says Father Tom Wenski, a Creole-speaking Catholic priest at Notre-Dame d’Haiti. “Many are not 100% legal in this country, and they live outside the system. So it’s difficult for them to cooperate with the system.”

Despite what they contend is a lack of help from the public, police have circulated a composite drawing of a suspect in the Dor killing, and have named one other suspect, a man nicknamed Zobeke, Creole for “Bonecrusher,” who is being held in federal custody on an immigration charge.

Police also want to interview two former Haitian generals, one of whom, Prosper Avril, is a deposed president of Haiti who lives in a posh suburban Miami home. Avril, who is being sued for $120 million by a human rights group alleging he was responsible for torturing dissidents, has so far avoided police. “We’re having a tough time getting a response,” says Miami police Maj. Miguel Exposito, who heads the task force looking into the murders. “He may be able to shed some light.”

Exposito admits that police are frustrated, but defends police initiatives. “I’ve never seen an investigation involving just two individuals where we’ve put as much effort as we have on solving these homicides,” he says. “We’re out there every day interviewing people. But still we have community leaders saying the police aren’t doing anything to solve these cases.”

In acknowledging threats received by other community leaders, including Dorancy and her predecessor at the Haitian Refugee Center, activist priest Gerard Jean-Juste, Exposito says police are taking precautions. “It would be devastating to us if someone else of some stature would be murdered now,” Exposito says.

Cheryl Little, an attorney for the Haitian Refugee Center, remembers that Fritz Dor was in her office the day he was killed. “He was very jovial,” she said, even though he was aware his life had been threatened. “Threats in this community and in Haiti are commonplace,” says Little. “In Haiti, he would have been worried. But Fritz probably thought he was safer here. But now, the feeling in the community is, ‘Are we really?’ ”