Fritz Dor, Jean-Claude Olivier, and Dona St. Plite were radio personalities in Miami's Little Haiti who had much in common: all three were Haitian-born; all promoted the political views of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on their political talk shows; and now, all three have been murdered.

In Miami, as in Haiti, radio is a lifeline to the Haitian community, supplying news about the homeland, commentary, gossip, and space for political debate. Dor, Olivier, and St. Plite read news and frequently expressed opinions on air that in Haiti could have gotten them killed: they lashed out at the Haitian military that overthrew Aristide; they identified and denounced Miami residents who support the military. Calls poured in, pro and con, including a few death threats.

None of the three took the threats very seriously. After all, they were not in Haiti. (Five journalists have been killed there since Aristide was ousted in a bloody coup three years ago.) In February 1991, Olivier, a calypso band promoter when he was not on the air, was gunned down outside a popular Haitian nightspot where one of his bands was playing. The hit man walked up to him and fired point blank. Twenty-five days later, the same gun was used to shoot Fritz Dor as he walked to his car from his office. Last October, St. Plite was killed outside the school grounds where a concert to benefit the widow and children of Fritz Dor was taking place.

Police have accused two men of taking part in the Olivier and Dor murders, although the trigger men have not been arrested. Authorities indicted Francky St. Louis Joseph as one of the assassins in the St. Plite case on January 26.

While he concedes that "they were killed because of their radio work," John Kastrenakes, an assistant state attorney who is prosecuting the Olivier and Dor murders, says he is confident that those murders do not involve the politics of Haiti itself. Law enforcement sources say all three murders point to internal business disputes in Little Haiti.

In both Haiti and Little Haiti, hosts of Haitian political news and talk shows do not make their living from radio. While Olivier promoted his bands, Dor ran an immigration services office and St. Plite ran a driving school. There are rumors that they may have been involved in illegal activities. In Little Haiti, meanwhile, many feel that the police fail to appreciate how entangled are business and politics in their community. The murders, says Roger Biamby, who runs the Pierre Toussaint Haitian Catholic Center in Little Haiti, were clearly intended to send a signal -- a political signal.

The Olivier and Dor murders, it is worth noting, took place during a time of significant turmoil in Haiti, shortly after Aristide took office -- to the dismay of the Haitian military and ruling class, and their many supporters in Little Haiti. By the time St. Plite was killed, well after Aristide's ouster, the political situation in Haiti had completely deteriorated. Scores of Aristide supporters were being murdered and persecuted. In the U.S., in Haitian communities in places like Boston, New York, and Miami, death lists were circulating. St. Plite's name appeared on one such list that circulated just days before his death. "Long Live the Army," said the note, hand-scribbled in Creole. "These people must be shot before or on October 30th." October 30 was the original deadliine, set by the U.N., for the return to power of Aristide. St. Plite was killed on October 24.

Haitian dissidents in the United States have always suspected that their activities are monitored by the Haitian military. Serge Simon, a radio journalist who fled Haiti in 1992 and now lives in Boston, says the three Miami murders will make Haitian radio in the U.S. more cautious. "The murders did what they were meant to do -- intimidate pro-Aristide supporters in the United States," he says.

In Haiti Simon was kidnapped and beaten by the military for airing a report on military corruption. For him, the pattern in the U.S. is becoming uncomfortably familiar: death lists circulate; oppsition members get killed; radio programs are muzzled. "We expected something different in the U.S.," he says.

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