By Kathleen Kern

In December, I saw a documentary about Haitian journalist Jean Dominique. A member of Haiti’s elite, Dominique was a man with an impish sense of humor who advocated for Haiti’s poor in spite of death threats.

Watching the film, it was not his 2001 assassination that made me cry; it was watching his wife, journalist Michele Montas, standing in the doorway of the radio station — from which she and her husband had broadcast — as Dominique’s body was loaded into an ambulance. I saw in her face the years of anticipated loss finally having come true.

Sadder for me was knowing that it was not right-wingers who killed him but probably a man affiliated with President Jean Bertrand Aristide’s Lavalas party. Sadder still is the possibility that Aristide, once enthusiastically supported by Dominique and Montas, may have participated in a cover-up of the murder, because Dominique was investigating corruption in Lavalas.

As Aristide put obstacles in the way of the investigation (earning him the censure of Amnesty International) Montas told the New York Times, “I was once sure [Aristide] couldn’t have given the order to kill Jean. Now I don’t know.”

What went wrong with Aristide? To answer that question, we should consider Fulgencio Batista. Batista also ruled a small Caribbean nation. For decades, he turned it into a haven for American organized-crime figures and trampled on the human rights of anyone who dared to speak out against him.

The nation was Cuba, and the man who helped overthrow Batista in 1959 was Fidel Castro. Under Castro’s rule, most Cubans have had enough to eat, access to education, medical care and jobs. Also under his rule, journalists as well as political and religious dissidents have faced persecution and incarceration. Amnesty International, in its 2004 report on the deterioration of human rights in Cuba, added: “The U.S. embargo and related measures continued to have a negative effect on the enjoyment of the full range of human rights in Cuba.”

This comment (variations of which appear in all of Amnesty International’s reports on Cuba) illustrates a key reality about both Haiti and Cuba. The United States supported dictators and military juntas in both countries. When they were overthrown by people who cared more about the welfare of Haitians and Cubans than they did about pleasing Washington, the United States vilified them and tried to undermine their authority. Feeling beleaguered, Castro and Aristide resorted to undemocratic measures, turning on people who once supported them.

Human rights advocates are thus in a quandary. We have seen how the U.S. government uses propaganda to discredit leaders they perceive as unfriendly to U.S. interests. For example, we saw the U.S. highlight the dozens of killings committed by Lavalas supporters and underplay the thousands of killings committed by the coup supporters after they overthrew Aristide’s government in 1991. We know that imposing economic policies that hurt ordinary Haitians and Cubans and supporting people trying to bring down their governments made governing in a democratic way difficult, if not impossible, for Castro and Aristide.

But I think we also need to be wary of those who offer unqualified support of Castro and Aristide because it is the “progressive” thing to do. Torture hurts regardless of whether it is imposed by a left-wing or right-wing regime. Dungeons are just as dark for prisoners of the right as they are for prisoners of the left. The assassinated are just as dead, whoever their killers are.

Most important, Jesus loves all who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake and wants none of them forgotten.