Michèle Montas (born 1946) is a

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

from

Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...

and the former Spokesperson under

UN Secretary-General The secretary-general of the United Nations (UNSG or UNSECGEN) is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the United Nations System#Six principal organs, six principal organs of ...

Ban Ki-moon Ban Ki-moon (born 13 June 1944) is a South Korean politician and diplomat who served as the eighth secretary-general of the United Nations between 2007 and 2016. Prior to his appointment as secretary-general, Ban was the South Korean minister ...

(January 1, 2007 – January 1, 2010). Prior to her appointment, Montas headed the French unit of UN Radio. From 2003 to 2004, she served as the Spokesperson for UN

General Assembly A general assembly or general meeting is a meeting of all the members of an organization or shareholders of a company. Specific examples of general assembly include: Churches * General Assembly (presbyterian church), the highest court of presby ...

President Julian Robert Hunte soon after she fled to

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

from

. Montas began her journalism career in Haiti in the early 1970s with her husband, Jean Dominique, also a Haitian journalist. Dominique's station, Radio Haiti-Inter, was attacked several times in the 1980s and 1990s, and the couple was forced to flee the country twice to briefly live in exile. Dominique was assassinated in April 2000 after broadcasting increasingly strident criticisms of

Jean-Bertrand Aristide Jean-Bertrand Aristide (; born 15 July 1953) is a Haitian former Salesian priest and politician who became Haiti's first democratically elected president in 1991 before being deposed in a coup d'état. As a priest, he taught liberation theo ...

's party on his program (Aristide was not in power at the time). Montas took over the radio station, but shut it down in February 2003 and fled to New York after her bodyguard was gunned down in an attack on her home and she received several death threats."Ban's U.N. Spokeswoman Fled Haiti." ''Washington Post'' January 3, 2007

/ref> Montas returned to Haiti in 2010 in her role with

MINUSTAH The United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (), also known as MINUSTAH, an acronym of its French name, was a UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti from 2004 to 2017. It was composed of 2,366 military personnel and 2,533 police, supported by int ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Montas, Michele Haitian officials of the United Nations 1946 births Living people 20th-century Haitian journalists Haitian women writers Haitian non-fiction writers Maria Moors Cabot Prize winners People from Port-au-Prince Spokespersons for the Secretary-General of the United Nations