Award-winning broadcaster Michèle Montas claims Haitians must be part of the answer to the country's violence

Michèle Montas, a Haitian broadcaster from New York, claims Haitians should be part of the answer to the country's violence. She claims foreign aid efforts largely failed.

"And we have the same problem today," she said. "We have gang wars in Haiti. We have a situation where people are dying. People are being kidnapped on a daily basis. People are afraid to leave their homes. But if Haitians aren’t part of the solution … there is no outside help that can do it for Haitians. We know it. Haitians know it."

Montas’ husband Jean Dominique, a Haitian journalist and human rights and democracy activist, was assassinated in April 2000 as he was driving into the radio station he took over in 1972, which they helped build into the country’s leading news outlet. Radio Haiti-Inter was the first station to broadcast mainly in Creole — the language spoken by Haitians, rather than French, the language of the elites — and to do political analysis and investigative reporting. Montas took over running the station after his death but closed it in February 2003 after she was shot at and her bodyguard was killed.