|
The Truth About the Incidents in Martinique
The letter that has just arrived from Martinique provides us with new and useful details about the painful incidents that marked the bloody day of May 24.
These additional details fully confirm the information published in Paris-Soir. They also allow us to refute the systematically erroneous version given today by a morning newspaper, a version which, for the sake of the case, sometimes borders on the most blatant implausibility…
HOW MESSRS. DES ÉTAGES AND ZIZINE WERE KILLED
Thus, speaking of the death—in Ducos, it would be better to say the assassination—of General Councilors Des Etages and Zizine, shot in the back by Constable Roquet, it is claimed that, after two revolver shots had been fired, the police commissioner shouted to a constable: "It was Mr. Des Etages who fired the shot, arrest him!" Mr. Des Etages then allegedly retreated, armed with an automatic pistol, which he threatened the gendarme with. As he reached the hallway of a house, the gendarme, in self-defense, allegedly opened fire, killing Mr. Des Etages and Mr. Zizine, who, by chance!... - happened to be in front of him...
The truth is quite different, and how much easier to understand:
Mr. Des Etages was returning from Fort-de-France, where he had gone in the company of Mr. Saint-Ange-Amant, head of the Socialist Party list in Ducos, to visit Colonial Inspector Pégourier, currently on official business in Martinique, as we have already reported, and who (for the past few days, let us point out, has been the target of violent attacks by Mr. Richard's press). The purpose of this approach was to indicate to Mr. Pégourier that, due to the lack of guarantees for the sincerity of the vote, Mr. Saint-Ange-Amant's friends would refrain from participating. An honest and logical attitude...
Arriving in Ducos at noon, Mr. Des Etages was also accompanied by a photographer, to take pictures of the town hall, in front of which machine guns and barbed wire had been installed—and it was not the only one.
One of Mr. Richard's "friends" claimed to oppose it. Yet no law prohibits it. But how much trouble do people make over such a trifle in Martinique!...
This discussion took place in front of Mr. Narem's house, where Mr. Zizine was already present. The latter left and protested vehemently. Then, to avoid any incident, the two friends returned to the house. It was then that, while his colleagues were brutally expelling the unfortunate photographer who had thought he was... in France, Gendarme Roquet, on the orders, we were told, of Commissioner Laballète, stepped forward and coldly fired as if he were shooting a defenseless rabbit...
(See the rest on page 3)
Charles LUSSY.
The bullet fired from about three meters away pierced both bodies. Des Etages and Zizine fell, struck down, killed in the back.
In the back, let us repeat. And this precludes any talk of self-defense. Moreover, is it necessary to emphasize again that the alleged revolver and rifle shots fired at the gendarmes caused no casualties!
Whereas, alas! when it was the "armed forces" who fired, ten dead and fourteen wounded attest to the authenticity and accuracy of the shot! Who will believe, moreover, that if he had been holding a weapon, Mr. des Etages would have allowed himself to be shot at point-blank range without even a reflexive movement of defense?
Killed in the back, Mr. Zizine and Mr. Des Etages were cowardly and without avowed motive, murdered. There is no other word for it.
THE DIAMANT KILLING Let no one therefore seek to support what is unsustainable. Nor will anyone give credence to the foolish legend that the Diamant incidents originated from a hatred of blacks against whites, of which Colonel Coppens, general councilor of the party dear to Mr. Richard, was the victim.
Nothing would undoubtedly have happened in Diamant if, on May 3, during the first round of voting, voters, curious enough to check the ballot box before the opening of the polls, had not found... 350 ballots placed there in advance by the office presided over by Mr. Coppens... In France, there is a strict law that punishes this kind of operation and those who perpetrate it. In Martinique, when they are friends of the governor, they simply postpone the vote to another date... ...And they summon the gendarmes. In Diamant, as in Ducos, a large number of voters, protesting against these practices of the late Empire, abstained from voting on May 24th. But when the ballot box was returned at five o'clock from the town hall to the gendarmerie barracks, there was a demonstration. Tempers were overexcited; there were even a few stones thrown.
And then the machine gun went into action. It was appalling... Sweeping in a fan, describing its murderous arc, it mowed down. Eight dead, fourteen wounded in an instant, all at the same height, most of them struck in the back as they fled. Colonel Coppens stepped forward at that moment; he too fell... Later, it would be claimed that a shotgun bullet was found in his body, taken to his home before any legal examination. What a paltry diversion...
STILL FREE And what about the worker killed in the street in Ajoupa-Bouillon? And the county councilors Zizine and Des Etages. And the seven other dead, and the fourteen wounded in Diamant?
Will those who ordered or allowed such acts to be committed, those who carried them out, remain unpunished for long? Lagrosillière, arrested in defiance of all justice, is not yet free.
But the gendarme Roquet, known and publicly named as the perpetrator of the deaths of Messrs. Des Etages and Zizine, has not been questioned. He even, we are told, returned to France by yesterday's mail, undisturbed and free. Do the Minister of Colonies and the Minister of Justice not think that the justice they are charged with defending cannot be ignored and flouted any longer?...
MR. RICHARD'S VICTIMS Many Martinicans, who have been following the campaign in our columns with emotion, have asked us if it would be possible to publish the list of Diamant's victims. Here it is, as we have it to date:
Seven dead. These are, in addition to Colonel Coppens: Messrs. Pierron Michel, Neveu-Galet Casimir, Joilan Henri known as Hector, Paul Borrhomée, Mathieu Hubert, Herrard Libanus, and Evariste Saint-Aimé.
Fourteen wounded: Messrs. Ladislas Saint-Ange, Gabriel Thorel, Orleus Borthomée, Isidore-Gaston Cléckata, Pascal Lamoney, François Sainte-Catherine, Michel Domozie, Paul Priam, Charles Pinocady, Pierre-Adolphe Duverly, Louis-Marie Eleuther, Hector Pieron, Félix Jourdain, Euchariste Croisy.
Charles LUSSY.
|
