April 27, 2023 • 34 mins
When music promoter and DJ Jean-Claude Olivier is shot outside a club in Miami, Little Haiti wonders – how much further is this going to go?
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
Jean Corde Olivier was dressed as he often was for
a night out, in a white suit. His style was
a bit flashy, French shirts, Italian shoes, and dark sunglasses
even at night. The look fit his alter ego Division Star,
a radio broadcaster in dj He was also a music promoter,
(00:37):
booking Haitian bands in and around Miami. On this Sunday
in February nineteen ninety one, one of his acts, Top Vice,
was playing the Chateau Club in North Miami. It was
going to be a big night. Top Vice played a
style of jazzy merengue, which was huge back home in
Haiti and here in South Florida. Their sound had a
(00:59):
bit of a nostalgia for the mostly Haitian immigrant crowd,
many of whom lived nearby in Little Haiti. Champagne and
cognac was flowing and the club was packed. Around three
a m. Jean Claude took to the stage to introduce
the band. As he hyped up the crowd, he threw
(01:20):
in a bit of politics, referencing the recent and historic
changes in Haiti. Just two weeks before, a new president
had been inaugurated after decades of punishing dictatorship. A new
era of hope was just beginning, and it came in
the form of a radical priest turned politician named Jean Bertrand.
(01:42):
Aristide Division star had devoted radio broadcast to the election,
urging fellow Haitian exiles in Miami to support democracy back home.
He was new to politics. Most of Jean Claude's life
had been about music. He played the trumpet in the
Haitian Coastguard Band, lived to dance, but the democracy movement
(02:04):
had changed something in him. For the past months, he
devoted more and more time on his weekly radio show
to supporting Aristide, and then he found himself talking about
it on stage that night at the Chateau. He wanted
the crowd to know that he and top Vice were
down for the cause. They were on the side of
(02:25):
the new leadership in Haiti, But not everyone wanted to
hear it. There were those who didn't welcome the change.
Many of the old regime's loyalists also lived in Miami.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
The public started boy in him. People who were just
making fun of imda Haitian were tired of all your
speeches going on. There were pearled for the bend to
be stopped playing back.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Nah.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Anybody who was thinking that Micaelmali was going to be
bored that time.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Gary Eugene, a family friend of Jean Claude and police officer,
was there that night.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
But unfortunately he took his personally and I start arguing
with the club, with members or inside the club.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
It got kind of heated, and John Claude wasn't the
type to be shut up. His motto was, even if
they tell me not to say it, I'm going to
say it anyway.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
And I remember escorting him, actually grabbed his hand and
took him to his car. That's what spark. I took
him to his car, he said, getting yo car and leave.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
It was after midnight, around four am by now.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
I went back to my card that's what's parking for
the club, and left.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
But John claud didn't leave. He remembered that he'd left
a nice bottle of cognac hidden under a table at
the club, so he went back in, grabbed a bottle
and three red roses out of a vase. On the
way out, he crossed Second Avenue and unlocked the door
of his red Pontiac Fieriro. He didn't know it, but
(04:06):
someone was waiting for him, and they were close at hand.
The hit man was sitting in the passenger seat of
an idling car. It inch closer and open fire, pumping
two shots into the Pontiac and three into Jean Claude
as his white suit soaked red with blood. The dying
(04:29):
Jean Claude yelled to his friend to get the license
plate number of the getaway car, but it was gone.
From Kaleidoscope and iHeart podcasts, this is silenced. I'm os Vloshan.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
And ana Aran. There's this episode one of eight, The
Black Buck.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
There's just so much that I know now that I
didn't know when I first heard about Jean Claud Olivier
(05:34):
and what happened to him the night of February seventeenth,
nineteen ninety one, years before I understood that John Claud
had been threatened before he died, that there was a
hit list circulating in Miami. Before I knew about the
tight knot of gangland, put up jobs, the battles between
cocaine traffickers, transnational Coudetar plots, and CIA conspiracy. Before I
(06:01):
appreciated that what happened back then on the streets of
Miami had everything to do with what happened on the
streets of Pura Prince before I came to think of
the story I'm about to tell you as a cipher
for understanding how what's happening today in Haiti could have
been so different, perhaps so much better, before those revelations
(06:21):
and so many more. I received an email with an attachment.
It was a report from the Committee to Protect Journalists.
One of the chapters was this story about the unsolved
murders of Haitian radio journalists in Miami's Little Haiti. I
got that email soon after I'd finished a podcast about
(06:43):
serial murders of women in the border town of Huarez, Mexico,
a massive case of impunity, hundreds, some say thousands of
women killed without still to this day, a clear culprit.
And here was another case ofy, this time Haitian radio
broadcasters killed on American soil in the early nineties. I
(07:10):
could immediately see there was a story here, despite the
decades that had passed since then. And now I knew
from experience that impunity tends to fester and grow, that
the past is never really passed. So I got in
touch with the journalist who wrote that report.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Here you are calling me about a story that was
thirty years old that I had pretty much put aside
and that I was very proud of when I did it.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Anna Rana an award winning journalist who had reported on
wars and drugs throughout Latin America, covering a major assassination
in Haiti, working deep in guerrilla territory in El Salvador,
and once surviving a close encounter with Pablo Escobar in Colombia.
But that's another story.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
But I was thinking, yeah, how was he when I
did this story. He must be thirty somethings, so maybe
it was like four or five years old, still in diapers.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
So despite me being just about out of diapers now,
you decided to jump back in Nana?
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Why Because I knew the story was not finished. What
my reporting back then showed me was that whoever was
behind the murders was not held responsible for them, and
the agencies that were investigating the murders overlooked key elements
of the crimes. They purposely ignore the political context.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
When we first started working together now almost two years ago,
I thought we could do a bunch of prep from
our respective desks in New York and Washington. But as
soon as you were back in you wanted to be
in the field.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
If you don't walk the streets of a place, if
you don't smell the place, if you don't have I mean,
we have five senses. What you think is only texting,
that's the last one, number one and reporting God.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
So we went to Miami.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Actually we went to Little Haiti, which is one part
Miami and two parts of Port of Prince. It's a
really small neighborhood in the northeast of the city, a
refuge for newly arrived patients who can find a taste
of horm in Miami.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Though like many immigrant neighborhoods in Miami, it's quickly shrinking.
Its huge swaths of property get brought up for yet
another development project, and a lot's changed since the time
of Jean Lord's murder. Much of the communities moved north
and many of the storefronts are now shuttered. But as
we walked the streets of Little Haiti, there was still
talk of the most recent devastating political news from Haiti,
(09:44):
the shocking assassination of the sitting president just six months before,
and I was starting to understand the connections between Haiti
and Little Haiti run deep as saying I'd hear on
this trip would reverberate when Haiti sneezes, Miami gets.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
The flu.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
A lot has changed since I lived here in the
nineteen nineties. Then I was working for the Sun Sentinel.
At the time, there was little mainstream press coverage of
the Haitian community in the city. There were some exceptions,
and that included fellow reporter Harold Moss. He spoke Creole
despite not being Haitian well.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
Listening to the creole radio broadcast was part of my
daily life. As I would drive around, I would have
these creole radio broadcasts playing that connected people both to
what was going on in eighty and to what was
going on in this place that a lot of people.
Speaker 6 (10:45):
Had just moved to.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
He listened to Radio pet La or Radio of the People,
John Lord Show, and so many others that added across
the AM dial and still do. I first heard about
Jean Claude's murder on the radio in his car. In
those early days after the shooting, Craile broadcasters were piecing
together what they could find out.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
These killings struck at the heart of that very important
network of broadcasters that kept people informed kept me informed.
People the listeners heard every day and counted on for information,
So it was something that I think really hit people hard.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
He also began to learn more about Jean Claude, that
he wasn't someone inherently driven by politics, that his politics
had emerged over time. Harold's boke to the manager of
the radio station and to his family and friends.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
He did have a reputation as something of a ladies man,
a mover, a shaker, someone who would capture the attention
of everyone in the room.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Despite Jean Claude's flashy exterior, his wife told Harold of
a deeply caring side. The morning of his death, he'd
gone with her to a flea market where he brought
her a new outfit, and the roses that were found
next to him in his car, Harold learned were for her.
(12:14):
As the investigation into Jean Claud's murder began, there were
immediately questions about the motive.
Speaker 5 (12:20):
So there were all of these potential conspiracies that were
connected to different theories about what had happened, and the
police had to sift through all of that.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Some said that Jean Claude was mixed up in drugs,
just another victim of Miami's shady nightlife scene, or maybe
it was a barfight that got out of hand. Harold
was skeptical.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
There are clear reasons why things are happening, and in
many cases they started in Haiti and came to Miami.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
From all that time listening to the Craile radio, he
knew there was a context here.
Speaker 5 (12:54):
There were people, powerful people that were making very angry.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
We knew we had to visit the radio station where
John closted Radio Pepla w l q Y thirteen twenty am.
To this day, the station is a community hub. We
went to visit someone who had been a source for
my original report, someone who's had a significant influence in
little Haiti for generations, Marlin Bastien. When we got there,
(13:27):
Marlin was in the middle of her weekly show. She's
been hosting the same show for the last thirty years.
Speaker 7 (13:54):
Yes stand up for you are right.
Speaker 5 (13:59):
Sign.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Marlin is in her sixties now, and when we were there,
she's speaking of rapid fire creole, moving easily from a
serious message about healthcare access and then breaks into a
broad smile. John Claude and Marlin ran in the same circles.
They were both activists in the Haitian community. They attended
(14:29):
pro democracy rallies and also protests for refugee rights. Marlin
was a little younger, and she looked up to John
Claude's generation of broadcasters. She could see the power Creole
language radio had in little Haiti to get the message out.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Radio has been a strong theme for Marlin because her
very first time on the mic set off a chain
of events that changed the course of her life.
Speaker 7 (14:58):
I lived in put the prince when I went to
seek under his school, but am from the country, right,
I'm really a village girl.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
In the late seventies, Marlene moved to Haiti's capital to
pursue her dreams of becoming a doctor. It was a
very difficult time for Haiti. The country had been tightly
controlled since the late fifties by a single family, the
du Valiers, first by Francois Papadoc du Valier and then
his son Jean Lords du Vallier, also known as Baby Doc.
(15:29):
To give you a sense of just how vicious this
dictatorship was, reportedly in the presidential palace, Papadoc had a
torture room with walls painted brown to disguise the spatters
of blood, and in that room he had a special
peephole installed so he could watch his enforces, known as
(15:49):
the Tonton Macoutes, go to work on anyone who dared
challenge him.
Speaker 6 (15:55):
Volunteers would turned to Macuto by name and a chilling
reminder of Haiti's and from the stat.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Squads they can and do kill on the basis of
suspicion alone.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
The atmosphere of paranoia was so intense that Papa Doc
had people convinced street dogs were spying on his behalf.
I was told that if de Valier dies, everyone dies.
Tens of thousands fled Haiti. At home, basic needs were
not being met.
Speaker 7 (16:27):
Oftentimes we didn't have electricity, and when we don't have electricity,
you have to study under.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Dulmpos Malem was determined to find a way to get
her education and become a doctor, so she sat book
in hand under the lamppost. But this small act was
seen as an attack on the Duvalier regime. It demonstrated
that they weren't providing for people as they claimed.
Speaker 7 (16:50):
The mayor didn't want us to study under du lempos
study more, and I said, how dare he? I thought
I was so I was so unfair. The rich kids,
they don't have to sweading in wonder the lamps when
the electricities out. They have generators, so they have electricity.
I was worst rated, so I marched my friends to a.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
T and tear.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Marlene took her complaint to the best out that she
knew of Radio Haiti in Tear. Under the Duvaliers, the
press was heavily censored. International newspapers often arrived full of holes,
any mention of Haiti physically cut out of the paper.
This was the North Korea of the Caribbean. But Radio
(17:36):
Haiti was a lifeline of information. It survived shootings, shutdowns,
and the arrest and torture of its journalists. And when
Marlene showed up, she was welcomed onto the air by
one of the hosts.
Speaker 7 (17:50):
He said, oh, you want to give an end to view?
Speaker 8 (17:53):
What about?
Speaker 7 (17:54):
And when I told him, he gave us the mic.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
It was a moment that changed her life. Lens Meager
ask for light to study by turned her into an
enemy of the state.
Speaker 7 (18:06):
We thought that the totumacoods were following us to kill us.
He changed routes to go home. You know, we we
were really scared, really scared.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
And Marline's family was scared too. Running afoul of the
mccoots could mean ending up in forty manche, a prison
where inmates had their food slopped onto the floor of
shared cells and where few emerged alive. The radio had
given her a voice and put a target on her back.
Speaker 7 (18:36):
My dad overheard that I was giving interviews at Radio eighteenth. There.
He thought that that was a descent, that's right there.
He freaked out. He freaked out because he knew under
the dictatorship, you could die, you could disappear.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Malen's father was living in South Florida at the time,
and after her radio appearance, he insisted that she joined
him there.
Speaker 7 (18:59):
I can probablictated ship where I had to head under
the bed to read bookisive books. And I came here
and people are on the streets. I said.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
It was the late seventies and Morlene had come to
Miami at a moment when the streets of Little Haiti
were alive, with protests against the Duvalier dictatorship and four
refugee rights in Miami. In Haiti, speaking out could be
a death sentence in the US, the brave were beginning
to use their voices, and one man was at the
(19:29):
center of it all.
Speaker 7 (19:30):
Two days after I arrived, my dad introduced me to
phadow Jo Jeans, and I said in volunteering.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Father Gerard Jean Just a.
Speaker 5 (19:40):
Sent bat.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
He fled Haiti himself after refusing to sign an oath
of loyalty to the Duvalier government. The Haitians just arrived
in Florida. The priest and his group of volunteers offered
a lifeline. Marlene jumped right in. She worked helping new
arrivals at the Chrome Detention Center, where Haitian refugees were
(20:08):
often held after they arrived by boat.
Speaker 7 (20:11):
So when I do my first interview, I would ask
them where are you from? Where are you from? Kikoto, Soti,
where are you from? And then I'll get the details.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
If Marlene could find a family member to vouch for them,
they could be released at least until their immigration hearing. Again,
she turned to the radio.
Speaker 7 (20:32):
I would go on the radio on Sunday, I said,
so and so game looking for family, and I give
specific information about where they're from. So I became very popular.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Father Jean Just and Marlene were reuniting families. So they
gained influence with newly arrived Haitians, and they used that
influence to organize. Marlene became a member of father Jean
Just's political organization called THEO Craill for Beware of Them.
John Claud Olivier was also a member, and they were
(21:04):
dedicated to bringing down the regime in Haiti.
Speaker 7 (21:07):
He was always fighting and seeing it as it is,
stop racism three the Haitians. Now you know, he always said,
(21:28):
as it was.
Speaker 6 (21:29):
In Miami, it's a major confrontation.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
It's a battle.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Feel sometimes we feel like we have no protection as
innocent people.
Speaker 7 (21:38):
We said no to that.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Jeane used to use the language of the Haitian Revolution
of eighteen oh four, after all, this was the only
country to achieve independence through slave revolt to rally Haitians
in Miami in support of the fight for democracy back home.
Speaker 7 (21:55):
What you what you're fighting for is greater than death.
What if all ms were free to fight to break
the tums of slavery, and yet they fought and defeated
the Mtia's army at that time in Napoleon army, it's
better to fight standing up than die on your knees.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
But this wasn't just rhetoric. Father Jean just was also
coordinating and financing the revolutionary resistant struggle in Haiti, led
by that priest turned politician Jean Bertrand Aristide.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
By the end of the nineteen eighties, Hope had begun
to thwroll around Aristide. There was a sense that he
spoke to the Haitian people and he was amassing massive support.
He campaigned as the champion of the poor and promised
to break the military's power over Haiti. Even people who
had not been tapped into politics previously, like John Claude Olivier,
(23:02):
were inspired, and it was around this time that John
Claude started devoting his airtime to politics. Then, with the
world's eyes on Haiti, Risteed won the nineteen ninety election
(23:22):
in a landslide.
Speaker 6 (23:24):
It was dancing in the streets today as crowds gathered
to celebrate the anticipated outcome of yesterday's presidential election.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Little Haites spelled out onto the streets.
Speaker 6 (23:32):
Calls of congratulation from the US and other countries to
Father Jean berthmont at A Steed, a popular priest who
is the apparent winner of Haiti's first truly free election.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
And Marline was among them.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
How did the election rist did feel here in Miami?
How did it change things?
Speaker 7 (23:49):
Ooh, it was really a transformative era. There was a
lot of hope, a lot of hope.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
And what did the old man colds think of him?
Speaker 8 (23:59):
Oh?
Speaker 7 (24:00):
Of course the Haites guts. Yeah, and there was a division.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Not everybody in Miami so ire Resteed's election as a victory.
In fact, the election stoke tensions in Little Haiti. There
were those like Marlaine and John Claude who were inspired
by Iristiede, who fall of father, John Juice who joined VYEU.
But there were many others in Little Haiti who stood
(24:28):
on the other side of the political divide. They were
pro military and so I restied as a radical. Some
of them had been Taunton mccoot's and forcers for the regime.
That meant that sometimes victims could bump into their tortures
at the local grocery store.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Did you make you scared for your own safety?
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (24:50):
Yeah, yeah they time. A lot of us had our
names in that Black Book, like Louis Noir.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
The losve Noir, the Black Book.
Speaker 8 (25:10):
I'm with a couple of journalists, real quick, can I
park here for two seconds?
Speaker 6 (25:14):
I'm good now.
Speaker 8 (25:15):
You look like you're a boss, bro. Don't have a
trip on me like that.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
When we first went to Miami to report this story,
we were given a tour by the unofficial mayor of
Little Haiti, Carl just, the son of the man who
gave Little Haiti its name.
Speaker 8 (25:30):
And we are in Vidim and Maria Juice Way, which
is fifty ninth Street between Northeast Second Avenue.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
We're standing at the corner named after his parents in.
Speaker 8 (25:43):
Northeast third, in the heart of Little Haiti.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Carl said that Little Haty hasn't forgotten about Jean Claude
Olivier's murder, or of the murders that would come after.
Speaker 8 (25:53):
We own the story that nobody wants to hear. We
don't have an audience.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Do you feel this where he's renter than for us
to tell today?
Speaker 8 (26:02):
It's more relevant now and what's back then. I would
hope the loss of these journalists would just start to
a rage, but apparently it didn't.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
You described these as political assassinations.
Speaker 8 (26:16):
Yeah, so warning nineteen ninety one that was given. It
was a stern warning, stay in your place. It was
the calling card. It's like the mafia used to do well.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
These guys came here and they thought they were safe
speaking their mind, and in the end they paid with
their lives.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
I mean, what do you say that.
Speaker 8 (26:37):
Whenever you speak your mind, you're never safe. That's what
I say to that.
Speaker 5 (26:46):
They were all used to getting threats. They knew that
there were people out to get them, but there was
definitely I don't know a sense everyone doing anything at
all similar to what we're doing. They're getting throught. Sometimes
it doesn't mean anything, but sometimes obviously it does.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Harold mass again.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
In Miami, you had everything from people who fled repression
and poverty and came and barely survived the dangerous voyage
by vote, all the way up to generals who had
run the country. So all of these opposing forces, with
all of the grudges from Haiti were present.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
During and after the nineteen ninety election that electrified little Haiti.
Those grudges were planning out on the airwaves.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
The Creole airwaves were a battleground where the pro aristeed
forces were doing battle against the pro army forces.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Both sides had their airtime, and while pro democracy broadcasters
like Marlin and John Plaud may have outnumbered them, those
who preferred the status quo. The more right wing Haitians
were fighting their corner. And it wasn't just on the airwaves,
it was also out on the streets.
Speaker 5 (28:08):
This electric period surrounding the nineteen ninety election really split
everybody up into sides.
Speaker 7 (28:16):
There were a lot of dotomacos here too.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
The regimes enforcers right here in Miami. Marlene remembers one
horrible incident at a big march on the streets of
Little Haiti. They YO members were rallying against the treatment
of Haitian refugees. They were chanting, accusing the US government
of supporting the Duvaliers and demanding regime change. They were
(28:44):
used to being intimidated by mounted police officers, but this time,
as they were marching through Little Haiti, they saw a
car driving straight towards them and coming fast.
Speaker 7 (28:58):
I saw with my own eye a young Asian woman
was also protesting on the street with me. It ran
over by Totoma put car yeah, right here on fifty
fourth Street.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
The woman died and the car was rumored to be
driven by Tonto Maccoot, But no one knew for sure.
What many felt was the long arm of the regime
in Miami.
Speaker 7 (29:22):
They had a lot of money and they were recording
young spies. They recorded young spies to spy on us
to make sure that they get information about who the
people are who were organizing against the dictatorship. It was
really a very scary time.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
According to ma Len, these spies were making a list
of enemies of the regime.
Speaker 7 (29:51):
They would come to see who's demonstrating against the juvlier
so that our names. Our names could be placed on
the black book.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
A hit list targeting those protesting and reporting back to Haiti.
We don't know who made it, and Marlene never saw
it herself, but again she had rumors, rumors that were
sent into overdrive by Jean c Lord's death because this
was even more chilling than a car being driven into
(30:22):
a crowd. This had the hallmarks of a targeted assassination,
and according to Jean Claud's widow, he'd been receiving threats
called into his radio show on the very day he
was killed, saying if he didn't shut up about his politics,
he'd be killed.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
I first heard about this hitless when I investigated back
in the nineties to the video crowd. The hit list
with John Claude's name on it. It all added up
to a clear motive for his assassination. The police saw
something else entirely.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
I have to be honest with you or I can
tell you. The possibility that drugs were involved.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Gary Eugene, Jean Claude's family friend, who was there that night,
was also one of the first police officers put on
the case.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
That possibility was mus swagger than the political shootings, who
are never able to conclude that any of the shootings
well politically motivated.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
So depending on who you ask, Canna, Jean Claude was
killed after getting mixed up in drugs or he was
a martyr for Haitian democracy.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
That's what's so frustrating about this case. Back in the nineties,
when I closed my report on the case, I called
for more investigation. I said, pay closer attention to the
political context around the murders, but no further investigation came.
I had a hunch that the vey of folks were right.
Jean Claude was murder over drugs or a bar fight.
(32:02):
Something else was going on here.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
So that's what we started with, and in order to
find a killer, we dredged the deep waters separating Haiti
and Miami, a world of CIA informants and blackmailers, torturers
and drug smugglers, and radio broadcasters who found that even
in the US, their enemies were never far away. Next
(32:34):
time another broadcaster is shot down in the streets of Miami.
Speaker 5 (32:39):
It went from being here's a murder that no one
has solved yet to this is a campaign of murder
targeting creole language broadcasters. It really sort of raised the
question of how much farther is this going to go?
Speaker 1 (32:56):
And the investigation begins.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
What about the Miami police?
Speaker 5 (33:03):
We were lost to tell you the two we were
left stranded.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
One was okay, maybe it's not political. Four is too
much to be a coincidence. It can't be a coincidence.
You're picking off these people one by one at moments
of maximum tension back home in Haiti as a warning
to them. It's definitely psychological warfare.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
This YEI, they clearly gave a green light because those
guys who are on the payroll.
Speaker 5 (33:35):
This is not some sort of Haitian imagination.
Speaker 8 (33:38):
This was very real.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Silence is a Kaleidoscope content original produced by Margaret Catcher, Jenkinni,
and Padmini Rugunov. Research assistance from Sybella Phipps, Jeremy Bigwood
and Kira Sinnis. Edited by Lacy Roberts, Executive produced by
Kate Osborne, Reported and hosted by Anna Arana and me
(34:06):
Oz Valoshin. Fact checking by Nicole Pasulka. Music by Oliver
Rodigan aka Ky Denzer. Mix and sound design by Kyle Murdock.
Thanks to Mangosh Hatikada, Costaslinas and viny Shuri. Our executive
producers at iHeart are Katrina Novel and Nikki Etour special
(34:27):
thanks to Carl Just, Jacqueline Charles, Eduard du Val, Carrier, Jack,
Michel f Lemoyne, Michael Dibert and Dina Richards. And iHeart
thanks to conin Byrne and Bob Pittman. If you like
what you hear, please rate, review, share, and subscribe to
our channel. Thank you,
Jean Corde Olivier was dressed as he often was for
a night out, in a white suit. His style was
a bit flashy, French shirts, Italian shoes, and dark sunglasses
even at night. The look fit his alter ego Division Star,
a radio broadcaster in dj He was also a music promoter,
(00:37):
booking Haitian bands in and around Miami. On this Sunday
in February nineteen ninety one, one of his acts, Top Vice,
was playing the Chateau Club in North Miami. It was
going to be a big night. Top Vice played a
style of jazzy merengue, which was huge back home in
Haiti and here in South Florida. Their sound had a
(00:59):
bit of a nostalgia for the mostly Haitian immigrant crowd,
many of whom lived nearby in Little Haiti. Champagne and
cognac was flowing and the club was packed. Around three
a m. Jean Claude took to the stage to introduce
the band. As he hyped up the crowd, he threw
(01:20):
in a bit of politics, referencing the recent and historic
changes in Haiti. Just two weeks before, a new president
had been inaugurated after decades of punishing dictatorship. A new
era of hope was just beginning, and it came in
the form of a radical priest turned politician named Jean Bertrand.
(01:42):
Aristide Division star had devoted radio broadcast to the election,
urging fellow Haitian exiles in Miami to support democracy back home.
He was new to politics. Most of Jean Claude's life
had been about music. He played the trumpet in the
Haitian Coastguard Band, lived to dance, but the democracy movement
(02:04):
had changed something in him. For the past months, he
devoted more and more time on his weekly radio show
to supporting Aristide, and then he found himself talking about
it on stage that night at the Chateau. He wanted
the crowd to know that he and top Vice were
down for the cause. They were on the side of
(02:25):
the new leadership in Haiti, But not everyone wanted to
hear it. There were those who didn't welcome the change.
Many of the old regime's loyalists also lived in Miami.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
The public started boy in him. People who were just
making fun of imda Haitian were tired of all your
speeches going on. There were pearled for the bend to
be stopped playing back.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Nah.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Anybody who was thinking that Micaelmali was going to be
bored that time.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Gary Eugene, a family friend of Jean Claude and police officer,
was there that night.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
But unfortunately he took his personally and I start arguing
with the club, with members or inside the club.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
It got kind of heated, and John Claude wasn't the
type to be shut up. His motto was, even if
they tell me not to say it, I'm going to
say it anyway.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
And I remember escorting him, actually grabbed his hand and
took him to his car. That's what spark. I took
him to his car, he said, getting yo car and leave.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
It was after midnight, around four am by now.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
I went back to my card that's what's parking for
the club, and left.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
But John claud didn't leave. He remembered that he'd left
a nice bottle of cognac hidden under a table at
the club, so he went back in, grabbed a bottle
and three red roses out of a vase. On the
way out, he crossed Second Avenue and unlocked the door
of his red Pontiac Fieriro. He didn't know it, but
(04:06):
someone was waiting for him, and they were close at hand.
The hit man was sitting in the passenger seat of
an idling car. It inch closer and open fire, pumping
two shots into the Pontiac and three into Jean Claude
as his white suit soaked red with blood. The dying
(04:29):
Jean Claude yelled to his friend to get the license
plate number of the getaway car, but it was gone.
From Kaleidoscope and iHeart podcasts, this is silenced. I'm os Vloshan.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
And ana Aran. There's this episode one of eight, The
Black Buck.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
There's just so much that I know now that I
didn't know when I first heard about Jean Claud Olivier
(05:34):
and what happened to him the night of February seventeenth,
nineteen ninety one, years before I understood that John Claud
had been threatened before he died, that there was a
hit list circulating in Miami. Before I knew about the
tight knot of gangland, put up jobs, the battles between
cocaine traffickers, transnational Coudetar plots, and CIA conspiracy. Before I
(06:01):
appreciated that what happened back then on the streets of
Miami had everything to do with what happened on the
streets of Pura Prince before I came to think of
the story I'm about to tell you as a cipher
for understanding how what's happening today in Haiti could have
been so different, perhaps so much better, before those revelations
(06:21):
and so many more. I received an email with an attachment.
It was a report from the Committee to Protect Journalists.
One of the chapters was this story about the unsolved
murders of Haitian radio journalists in Miami's Little Haiti. I
got that email soon after I'd finished a podcast about
(06:43):
serial murders of women in the border town of Huarez, Mexico,
a massive case of impunity, hundreds, some say thousands of
women killed without still to this day, a clear culprit.
And here was another case ofy, this time Haitian radio
broadcasters killed on American soil in the early nineties. I
(07:10):
could immediately see there was a story here, despite the
decades that had passed since then. And now I knew
from experience that impunity tends to fester and grow, that
the past is never really passed. So I got in
touch with the journalist who wrote that report.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Here you are calling me about a story that was
thirty years old that I had pretty much put aside
and that I was very proud of when I did it.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Anna Rana an award winning journalist who had reported on
wars and drugs throughout Latin America, covering a major assassination
in Haiti, working deep in guerrilla territory in El Salvador,
and once surviving a close encounter with Pablo Escobar in Colombia.
But that's another story.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
But I was thinking, yeah, how was he when I
did this story. He must be thirty somethings, so maybe
it was like four or five years old, still in diapers.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
So despite me being just about out of diapers now,
you decided to jump back in Nana?
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Why Because I knew the story was not finished. What
my reporting back then showed me was that whoever was
behind the murders was not held responsible for them, and
the agencies that were investigating the murders overlooked key elements
of the crimes. They purposely ignore the political context.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
When we first started working together now almost two years ago,
I thought we could do a bunch of prep from
our respective desks in New York and Washington. But as
soon as you were back in you wanted to be
in the field.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
If you don't walk the streets of a place, if
you don't smell the place, if you don't have I mean,
we have five senses. What you think is only texting,
that's the last one, number one and reporting God.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
So we went to Miami.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Actually we went to Little Haiti, which is one part
Miami and two parts of Port of Prince. It's a
really small neighborhood in the northeast of the city, a
refuge for newly arrived patients who can find a taste
of horm in Miami.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Though like many immigrant neighborhoods in Miami, it's quickly shrinking.
Its huge swaths of property get brought up for yet
another development project, and a lot's changed since the time
of Jean Lord's murder. Much of the communities moved north
and many of the storefronts are now shuttered. But as
we walked the streets of Little Haiti, there was still
talk of the most recent devastating political news from Haiti,
(09:44):
the shocking assassination of the sitting president just six months before,
and I was starting to understand the connections between Haiti
and Little Haiti run deep as saying I'd hear on
this trip would reverberate when Haiti sneezes, Miami gets.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
The flu.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
A lot has changed since I lived here in the
nineteen nineties. Then I was working for the Sun Sentinel.
At the time, there was little mainstream press coverage of
the Haitian community in the city. There were some exceptions,
and that included fellow reporter Harold Moss. He spoke Creole
despite not being Haitian well.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
Listening to the creole radio broadcast was part of my
daily life. As I would drive around, I would have
these creole radio broadcasts playing that connected people both to
what was going on in eighty and to what was
going on in this place that a lot of people.
Speaker 6 (10:45):
Had just moved to.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
He listened to Radio pet La or Radio of the People,
John Lord Show, and so many others that added across
the AM dial and still do. I first heard about
Jean Claude's murder on the radio in his car. In
those early days after the shooting, Craile broadcasters were piecing
together what they could find out.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
These killings struck at the heart of that very important
network of broadcasters that kept people informed kept me informed.
People the listeners heard every day and counted on for information,
So it was something that I think really hit people hard.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
He also began to learn more about Jean Claude, that
he wasn't someone inherently driven by politics, that his politics
had emerged over time. Harold's boke to the manager of
the radio station and to his family and friends.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
He did have a reputation as something of a ladies man,
a mover, a shaker, someone who would capture the attention
of everyone in the room.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Despite Jean Claude's flashy exterior, his wife told Harold of
a deeply caring side. The morning of his death, he'd
gone with her to a flea market where he brought
her a new outfit, and the roses that were found
next to him in his car, Harold learned were for her.
(12:14):
As the investigation into Jean Claud's murder began, there were
immediately questions about the motive.
Speaker 5 (12:20):
So there were all of these potential conspiracies that were
connected to different theories about what had happened, and the
police had to sift through all of that.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Some said that Jean Claude was mixed up in drugs,
just another victim of Miami's shady nightlife scene, or maybe
it was a barfight that got out of hand. Harold
was skeptical.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
There are clear reasons why things are happening, and in
many cases they started in Haiti and came to Miami.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
From all that time listening to the Craile radio, he
knew there was a context here.
Speaker 5 (12:54):
There were people, powerful people that were making very angry.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
We knew we had to visit the radio station where
John closted Radio Pepla w l q Y thirteen twenty am.
To this day, the station is a community hub. We
went to visit someone who had been a source for
my original report, someone who's had a significant influence in
little Haiti for generations, Marlin Bastien. When we got there,
(13:27):
Marlin was in the middle of her weekly show. She's
been hosting the same show for the last thirty years.
Speaker 7 (13:54):
Yes stand up for you are right.
Speaker 5 (13:59):
Sign.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Marlin is in her sixties now, and when we were there,
she's speaking of rapid fire creole, moving easily from a
serious message about healthcare access and then breaks into a
broad smile. John Claude and Marlin ran in the same circles.
They were both activists in the Haitian community. They attended
(14:29):
pro democracy rallies and also protests for refugee rights. Marlin
was a little younger, and she looked up to John
Claude's generation of broadcasters. She could see the power Creole
language radio had in little Haiti to get the message out.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Radio has been a strong theme for Marlin because her
very first time on the mic set off a chain
of events that changed the course of her life.
Speaker 7 (14:58):
I lived in put the prince when I went to
seek under his school, but am from the country, right,
I'm really a village girl.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
In the late seventies, Marlene moved to Haiti's capital to
pursue her dreams of becoming a doctor. It was a
very difficult time for Haiti. The country had been tightly
controlled since the late fifties by a single family, the
du Valiers, first by Francois Papadoc du Valier and then
his son Jean Lords du Vallier, also known as Baby Doc.
(15:29):
To give you a sense of just how vicious this
dictatorship was, reportedly in the presidential palace, Papadoc had a
torture room with walls painted brown to disguise the spatters
of blood, and in that room he had a special
peephole installed so he could watch his enforces, known as
(15:49):
the Tonton Macoutes, go to work on anyone who dared
challenge him.
Speaker 6 (15:55):
Volunteers would turned to Macuto by name and a chilling
reminder of Haiti's and from the stat.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Squads they can and do kill on the basis of
suspicion alone.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
The atmosphere of paranoia was so intense that Papa Doc
had people convinced street dogs were spying on his behalf.
I was told that if de Valier dies, everyone dies.
Tens of thousands fled Haiti. At home, basic needs were
not being met.
Speaker 7 (16:27):
Oftentimes we didn't have electricity, and when we don't have electricity,
you have to study under.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Dulmpos Malem was determined to find a way to get
her education and become a doctor, so she sat book
in hand under the lamppost. But this small act was
seen as an attack on the Duvalier regime. It demonstrated
that they weren't providing for people as they claimed.
Speaker 7 (16:50):
The mayor didn't want us to study under du lempos
study more, and I said, how dare he? I thought
I was so I was so unfair. The rich kids,
they don't have to sweading in wonder the lamps when
the electricities out. They have generators, so they have electricity.
I was worst rated, so I marched my friends to a.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
T and tear.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Marlene took her complaint to the best out that she
knew of Radio Haiti in Tear. Under the Duvaliers, the
press was heavily censored. International newspapers often arrived full of holes,
any mention of Haiti physically cut out of the paper.
This was the North Korea of the Caribbean. But Radio
(17:36):
Haiti was a lifeline of information. It survived shootings, shutdowns,
and the arrest and torture of its journalists. And when
Marlene showed up, she was welcomed onto the air by
one of the hosts.
Speaker 7 (17:50):
He said, oh, you want to give an end to view?
Speaker 8 (17:53):
What about?
Speaker 7 (17:54):
And when I told him, he gave us the mic.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
It was a moment that changed her life. Lens Meager
ask for light to study by turned her into an
enemy of the state.
Speaker 7 (18:06):
We thought that the totumacoods were following us to kill us.
He changed routes to go home. You know, we we
were really scared, really scared.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
And Marline's family was scared too. Running afoul of the
mccoots could mean ending up in forty manche, a prison
where inmates had their food slopped onto the floor of
shared cells and where few emerged alive. The radio had
given her a voice and put a target on her back.
Speaker 7 (18:36):
My dad overheard that I was giving interviews at Radio eighteenth. There.
He thought that that was a descent, that's right there.
He freaked out. He freaked out because he knew under
the dictatorship, you could die, you could disappear.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Malen's father was living in South Florida at the time,
and after her radio appearance, he insisted that she joined
him there.
Speaker 7 (18:59):
I can probablictated ship where I had to head under
the bed to read bookisive books. And I came here
and people are on the streets. I said.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
It was the late seventies and Morlene had come to
Miami at a moment when the streets of Little Haiti
were alive, with protests against the Duvalier dictatorship and four
refugee rights in Miami. In Haiti, speaking out could be
a death sentence in the US, the brave were beginning
to use their voices, and one man was at the
(19:29):
center of it all.
Speaker 7 (19:30):
Two days after I arrived, my dad introduced me to
phadow Jo Jeans, and I said in volunteering.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Father Gerard Jean Just a.
Speaker 5 (19:40):
Sent bat.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
He fled Haiti himself after refusing to sign an oath
of loyalty to the Duvalier government. The Haitians just arrived
in Florida. The priest and his group of volunteers offered
a lifeline. Marlene jumped right in. She worked helping new
arrivals at the Chrome Detention Center, where Haitian refugees were
(20:08):
often held after they arrived by boat.
Speaker 7 (20:11):
So when I do my first interview, I would ask
them where are you from? Where are you from? Kikoto, Soti,
where are you from? And then I'll get the details.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
If Marlene could find a family member to vouch for them,
they could be released at least until their immigration hearing. Again,
she turned to the radio.
Speaker 7 (20:32):
I would go on the radio on Sunday, I said,
so and so game looking for family, and I give
specific information about where they're from. So I became very popular.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Father Jean Just and Marlene were reuniting families. So they
gained influence with newly arrived Haitians, and they used that
influence to organize. Marlene became a member of father Jean
Just's political organization called THEO Craill for Beware of Them.
John Claud Olivier was also a member, and they were
(21:04):
dedicated to bringing down the regime in Haiti.
Speaker 7 (21:07):
He was always fighting and seeing it as it is,
stop racism three the Haitians. Now you know, he always said,
(21:28):
as it was.
Speaker 6 (21:29):
In Miami, it's a major confrontation.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
It's a battle.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Feel sometimes we feel like we have no protection as
innocent people.
Speaker 7 (21:38):
We said no to that.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Jeane used to use the language of the Haitian Revolution
of eighteen oh four, after all, this was the only
country to achieve independence through slave revolt to rally Haitians
in Miami in support of the fight for democracy back home.
Speaker 7 (21:55):
What you what you're fighting for is greater than death.
What if all ms were free to fight to break
the tums of slavery, and yet they fought and defeated
the Mtia's army at that time in Napoleon army, it's
better to fight standing up than die on your knees.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
But this wasn't just rhetoric. Father Jean just was also
coordinating and financing the revolutionary resistant struggle in Haiti, led
by that priest turned politician Jean Bertrand Aristide.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
By the end of the nineteen eighties, Hope had begun
to thwroll around Aristide. There was a sense that he
spoke to the Haitian people and he was amassing massive support.
He campaigned as the champion of the poor and promised
to break the military's power over Haiti. Even people who
had not been tapped into politics previously, like John Claude Olivier,
(23:02):
were inspired, and it was around this time that John
Claude started devoting his airtime to politics. Then, with the
world's eyes on Haiti, Risteed won the nineteen ninety election
(23:22):
in a landslide.
Speaker 6 (23:24):
It was dancing in the streets today as crowds gathered
to celebrate the anticipated outcome of yesterday's presidential election.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Little Haites spelled out onto the streets.
Speaker 6 (23:32):
Calls of congratulation from the US and other countries to
Father Jean berthmont at A Steed, a popular priest who
is the apparent winner of Haiti's first truly free election.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
And Marline was among them.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
How did the election rist did feel here in Miami?
How did it change things?
Speaker 7 (23:49):
Ooh, it was really a transformative era. There was a
lot of hope, a lot of hope.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
And what did the old man colds think of him?
Speaker 8 (23:59):
Oh?
Speaker 7 (24:00):
Of course the Haites guts. Yeah, and there was a division.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Not everybody in Miami so ire Resteed's election as a victory.
In fact, the election stoke tensions in Little Haiti. There
were those like Marlaine and John Claude who were inspired
by Iristiede, who fall of father, John Juice who joined VYEU.
But there were many others in Little Haiti who stood
(24:28):
on the other side of the political divide. They were
pro military and so I restied as a radical. Some
of them had been Taunton mccoot's and forcers for the regime.
That meant that sometimes victims could bump into their tortures
at the local grocery store.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Did you make you scared for your own safety?
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (24:50):
Yeah, yeah they time. A lot of us had our
names in that Black Book, like Louis Noir.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
The losve Noir, the Black Book.
Speaker 8 (25:10):
I'm with a couple of journalists, real quick, can I
park here for two seconds?
Speaker 6 (25:14):
I'm good now.
Speaker 8 (25:15):
You look like you're a boss, bro. Don't have a
trip on me like that.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
When we first went to Miami to report this story,
we were given a tour by the unofficial mayor of
Little Haiti, Carl just, the son of the man who
gave Little Haiti its name.
Speaker 8 (25:30):
And we are in Vidim and Maria Juice Way, which
is fifty ninth Street between Northeast Second Avenue.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
We're standing at the corner named after his parents in.
Speaker 8 (25:43):
Northeast third, in the heart of Little Haiti.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Carl said that Little Haty hasn't forgotten about Jean Claude
Olivier's murder, or of the murders that would come after.
Speaker 8 (25:53):
We own the story that nobody wants to hear. We
don't have an audience.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Do you feel this where he's renter than for us
to tell today?
Speaker 8 (26:02):
It's more relevant now and what's back then. I would
hope the loss of these journalists would just start to
a rage, but apparently it didn't.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
You described these as political assassinations.
Speaker 8 (26:16):
Yeah, so warning nineteen ninety one that was given. It
was a stern warning, stay in your place. It was
the calling card. It's like the mafia used to do well.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
These guys came here and they thought they were safe
speaking their mind, and in the end they paid with
their lives.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
I mean, what do you say that.
Speaker 8 (26:37):
Whenever you speak your mind, you're never safe. That's what
I say to that.
Speaker 5 (26:46):
They were all used to getting threats. They knew that
there were people out to get them, but there was
definitely I don't know a sense everyone doing anything at
all similar to what we're doing. They're getting throught. Sometimes
it doesn't mean anything, but sometimes obviously it does.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Harold mass again.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
In Miami, you had everything from people who fled repression
and poverty and came and barely survived the dangerous voyage
by vote, all the way up to generals who had
run the country. So all of these opposing forces, with
all of the grudges from Haiti were present.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
During and after the nineteen ninety election that electrified little Haiti.
Those grudges were planning out on the airwaves.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
The Creole airwaves were a battleground where the pro aristeed
forces were doing battle against the pro army forces.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Both sides had their airtime, and while pro democracy broadcasters
like Marlin and John Plaud may have outnumbered them, those
who preferred the status quo. The more right wing Haitians
were fighting their corner. And it wasn't just on the airwaves,
it was also out on the streets.
Speaker 5 (28:08):
This electric period surrounding the nineteen ninety election really split
everybody up into sides.
Speaker 7 (28:16):
There were a lot of dotomacos here too.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
The regimes enforcers right here in Miami. Marlene remembers one
horrible incident at a big march on the streets of
Little Haiti. They YO members were rallying against the treatment
of Haitian refugees. They were chanting, accusing the US government
of supporting the Duvaliers and demanding regime change. They were
(28:44):
used to being intimidated by mounted police officers, but this time,
as they were marching through Little Haiti, they saw a
car driving straight towards them and coming fast.
Speaker 7 (28:58):
I saw with my own eye a young Asian woman
was also protesting on the street with me. It ran
over by Totoma put car yeah, right here on fifty
fourth Street.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
The woman died and the car was rumored to be
driven by Tonto Maccoot, But no one knew for sure.
What many felt was the long arm of the regime
in Miami.
Speaker 7 (29:22):
They had a lot of money and they were recording
young spies. They recorded young spies to spy on us
to make sure that they get information about who the
people are who were organizing against the dictatorship. It was
really a very scary time.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
According to ma Len, these spies were making a list
of enemies of the regime.
Speaker 7 (29:51):
They would come to see who's demonstrating against the juvlier
so that our names. Our names could be placed on
the black book.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
A hit list targeting those protesting and reporting back to Haiti.
We don't know who made it, and Marlene never saw
it herself, but again she had rumors, rumors that were
sent into overdrive by Jean c Lord's death because this
was even more chilling than a car being driven into
(30:22):
a crowd. This had the hallmarks of a targeted assassination,
and according to Jean Claud's widow, he'd been receiving threats
called into his radio show on the very day he
was killed, saying if he didn't shut up about his politics,
he'd be killed.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
I first heard about this hitless when I investigated back
in the nineties to the video crowd. The hit list
with John Claude's name on it. It all added up
to a clear motive for his assassination. The police saw
something else entirely.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
I have to be honest with you or I can
tell you. The possibility that drugs were involved.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Gary Eugene, Jean Claude's family friend, who was there that night,
was also one of the first police officers put on
the case.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
That possibility was mus swagger than the political shootings, who
are never able to conclude that any of the shootings
well politically motivated.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
So depending on who you ask, Canna, Jean Claude was
killed after getting mixed up in drugs or he was
a martyr for Haitian democracy.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
That's what's so frustrating about this case. Back in the nineties,
when I closed my report on the case, I called
for more investigation. I said, pay closer attention to the
political context around the murders, but no further investigation came.
I had a hunch that the vey of folks were right.
Jean Claude was murder over drugs or a bar fight.
(32:02):
Something else was going on here.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
So that's what we started with, and in order to
find a killer, we dredged the deep waters separating Haiti
and Miami, a world of CIA informants and blackmailers, torturers
and drug smugglers, and radio broadcasters who found that even
in the US, their enemies were never far away. Next
(32:34):
time another broadcaster is shot down in the streets of Miami.
Speaker 5 (32:39):
It went from being here's a murder that no one
has solved yet to this is a campaign of murder
targeting creole language broadcasters. It really sort of raised the
question of how much farther is this going to go?
Speaker 1 (32:56):
And the investigation begins.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
What about the Miami police?
Speaker 5 (33:03):
We were lost to tell you the two we were
left stranded.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
One was okay, maybe it's not political. Four is too
much to be a coincidence. It can't be a coincidence.
You're picking off these people one by one at moments
of maximum tension back home in Haiti as a warning
to them. It's definitely psychological warfare.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
This YEI, they clearly gave a green light because those
guys who are on the payroll.
Speaker 5 (33:35):
This is not some sort of Haitian imagination.
Speaker 8 (33:38):
This was very real.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Silence is a Kaleidoscope content original produced by Margaret Catcher, Jenkinni,
and Padmini Rugunov. Research assistance from Sybella Phipps, Jeremy Bigwood
and Kira Sinnis. Edited by Lacy Roberts, Executive produced by
Kate Osborne, Reported and hosted by Anna Arana and me
(34:06):
Oz Valoshin. Fact checking by Nicole Pasulka. Music by Oliver
Rodigan aka Ky Denzer. Mix and sound design by Kyle Murdock.
Thanks to Mangosh Hatikada, Costaslinas and viny Shuri. Our executive
producers at iHeart are Katrina Novel and Nikki Etour special
(34:27):
thanks to Carl Just, Jacqueline Charles, Eduard du Val, Carrier, Jack,
Michel f Lemoyne, Michael Dibert and Dina Richards. And iHeart
thanks to conin Byrne and Bob Pittman. If you like
what you hear, please rate, review, share, and subscribe to
our channel. Thank you,
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