Publication: THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS PubDate: 10/21/1994 Head: Return too late Family mourns Aristide backer

who fell victim to remnants of Haiti's upheaval Byline: Ed Timms Credit: Staff Writer of The Dallas Morning News Section: NEWS Edition: HOME FINAL Page Number: 30A Word Count: 532 Dateline: PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - When political terror still thrived in Haiti, there were many reasons why Camille Content might have been killed. He defied the junta that wrested democracy from the Haitian people in a 1991 coup by continuing to support exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. He was active in a community organization that was critical of the dictatorship. And he was a good friend to the Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste, a prominent pro-Aristide Catholic priest who was forced into hiding after the coup and only recently resurfaced. Mr. Content lived to see the coup leaders forced to give up power, and the arrival of a massive U.S. military force in Haiti. But he died before he had a chance to see his president return, the random victim of a violent act. The 27-year-old resident of Port-au-Prince had gone to the capital city's port area on Oct. 10 to pay for his schooling and to look for a job. He joined a parade celebrating Mr. Aristide's impending return. He died when a grenade was thrown into the crowd, apparently by an Aristide opponent. And on Thursday, his family buried him. For Father Jean-Juste, the grenade attack embodies the political evil that vexed Haiti during Mr. Aristide's three years of exile. It really was senseless, he said. The foreign troops were here. Aristide had called for reconciliation. . . . But supporters of the coup leaders were still trying to provoke more violence. Mr. Content had spent part of the day before his death serving as an altar boy at St. Gerard Catholic Church, a parish not far from the tiny cinder-block house with a corrugated tin roof that provides shelter for his extended family, including six brothers and a sister. At my Mass, the message was reconciliation, peace and justice, said Father Jean-Juste. It was a message, the priest recalled, that Mr. Content embraced. On Thursday, members of his family were trying to do the same as they dressed for his funeral.

We don't want vengeance, because that is not what President Aristide wants, said his oldest brother, Edner Content, 34. We don't want to give the government problems. But having forgiveness in his heart, or at least not acting on the rage that dwells there, is not easy for the elder brother. Edner trembled as he thumbed through a handful of photographs, some that preserved the image of his brother in church robes, and more grisly pictures of his naked body and the gaping wounds inflicted by the grenade. Mr. Content, his brother said, was a peaceful man who worked hard for his church and to help feed his family. He considered becoming a priest. For the immediate future, he was training to become an auto mechanic. That trade, his brother said, would have enabled him to help his family even more. It's hard to lose a brother you love, said Edner. We will remember how he used to live with us, how he used to help feed us. There will always be things that remind us of him. He hopes, too, that other Haitians won't forget his brother and that they can remember him as one of the last victims of a troubled past.