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A Web site to visit: yesmenino.com / Human Rights Watch / More News This Week Posted at 1:11 a.m., Friday, August 31, 2001
Haitian millionaire Abner Louima to move to South Florida
If there is an American paradise, then Haitian millionaire Abner Louima believes he has found the one place in South Florida where he recently purchased a new house, and will soon move there permanently with his family.
More than three years ago, partying was all Louima was known for, and only within the large New York City Haitian-American community. But today, he is perceived to be a very important person, especially by New Yorkers.
As the New York City primary mayoral election is approaching many candidates firmly believe even appearing in public just for a few minutes with Louima will greatly help them in their efforts to become the first citizen of that city. He recently endorsed Alan Hevesi's mayoral bid.
"I'm honored by Louima's endorsement. He represents the very best of New York," mayoral candidate Hevesi said Wednesday.
Louima, who about three years ago was sodomized by some New York City police officers after he was arrested during a street brawl in that city's section of Brooklyn, recently settled a civil lawsuit brought afterward against the City of New York and its Police Union for $8.7.
Judge sends Haitian native Fevrier in home invasion away for 25 years
There were no Mardi Gras festivities in progress in the Massassuchets provincial city of Taunton in the early hours of July 11, 1998. Neither there would soon be Mardi Gras festivities in that provincial city. Still, both Christian Goulart, now 21, and Haitian native Wolf Fevrier, also now 23, masked themselves on that early morning, suggesting that they had something else in mind.
The pair of masked men invaded a home and bound a husband and wife with duct tape and robbed them at gunpoint. One of the robbers tore a diamond pendant chain from Brenda Ruggiero's neck and pulled rings from her fingers. The bandit held a revolver to William Ruggiero's head, allowing him to see the bullets in the revolver's chambers, prosecutor Robert L. Goodale, a former Bristol County Assistant District Attorney back on special assignment said Wednesday.
New Bedford Superior Court Judge John A. Tierney sentenced Fevrier Wednesday to 25 years in prison. He will not be eligible for parole until he serves at least 20 years.
Will Fevrier be a free man, say, twenty years from now? Certainly not. He was also sentenced to ten years of probation to be served upon his release from prison.
Judge Tierney ordered another 15-year prison sentence to be imposed should Fevrier contact his victims, either directly or indirectly.
Goulart, who the husband of Brenda Ruggiero told the trial judge was just following Fevrier's lead during the robbery, was not sentenced on the home invasion charge, which in the state of Massachusetts carries a minimum mandatory prison sentence of 20 years. He was, rather, sentenced on the Armed robbery charge, which carries a minimum mandatory sentence of five years to be served in a penitentiary.
Goulart's girlfriend, Viviane Upper, who found the gun used in the brutal robbery while working at the Days Inn motel in the nearby Massachusetts southeastern town of Raynham, was sentenced by Judge Tierney to five years probation. She was ordered to pay $5,000 restitution and perform 100 hours of community service.
Fevrier's girlfriend, Allison Pratt, who helped plan the robbery and then sold jewelry taken from the victims, is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 27.
Posted at 5:15 a.m., Wednesday, August 29, 2001
Radical leftist Aristide's bandits violently attack supporters of democratic opposition at anti-dictatorship protest
It was supposed to be a peaceful protest, according to PADEMH, a Haitian political party and member of the Convergence Democratique that organized the today's political event. Its aims were to denounce the dictatorship of the proletariat presided by Haiti's radical leftist Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
But immediately after demonstrators assembled in a Plaza in the Petion-Ville suburb of Port-au-Prince things turned extremely ugly. Rock-throwing and gunfire by tyrant Aristide's bandits broke up the protest, ultimately sending two democratic opposition party supporters to the hospital.
"Supporters of Aristide's Lavalas Family Party fired guns and threw rocks at us," demonstrators who had to flee for their lives said.
And Claire Lydie Parent, a PADEMH and former Petion-Ville mayor, chastised her successor, Sully Guerrier, for the violence, which many of her supporters were subjected to today.
Posted at 12:58 a.m., Wednesday, August 29, 2001
Haitian man and mistress indicted in plot to murder witness in gang rape
Maxene Pierre, 37, of Brockton, Massachusetts, along with his mistress, Yanick Merilas, 34, of the Boston's section of Hyde Park, both pleaded innocent Monday at Boston's Suffolk County Superior Court to three counts of conspiring to murder the only witness who could positively identify Pierre as one of the three participants in the August 28, 2000 gang rape of a woman while her boyfriend was forced to watch at gunpoint.
The plan to murder the woman's boyfriend was concocted by Pierre after he was arrested last year for his role in dragging the woman outside and then repeatedly rape her.
Merilas, who Pierre promised to contract marriage with and often bought flowers, sold her house and posted the $15,000 bail for a man arrested for burglary. One regained his liberty, he would kill the woman's boyfriend. Then, he would be compensated for a job well done through the $85,000 profit from the sale Merilas' home, or with money from the $400,000 from a life insurance policy that Pierre hoped to collect after plotting with bandits in Haiti while incarcerated, but through Merilas, to have his wife Suze Bonhemme, 35, murdered there.
Authorities learned about the murder plot after the man contacted them in attempt to avoid serving a long prison sentence. Wearing a body wire provided by them, he taped conversations with Merilas while meeting with her at her home. And it was only then that authorities were able to confirm that Pierre and Merilas were, in fact, plotting to kill the victim's boyfriend.
Bonhemme, who was asked by Pierre to fly to the Caribbean country to collect $50,000 in bail money from his relatives, was shot there in the jaw, the abdomen, and hand. Immediately after the shooting, her relatives had her airlifted to a Miami hospital, and she recovered weeks later.
Clerk Magistrate Gary Wilson ordered both defendants held on $750,000 bail each.
Posted at 3:12 p.m., Monday, August 27, 2001
Violence at Boston's Caribbean festival; cop nabs Haitian gunman Gangs opened fire outside of the 28th annual Boston's Caribbean carnival Saturday, causing two of the 500,000 or so participants in the second biggest Boston's public gathering.to lose their lives and injured at least five others.
Boston Police was only able to prevent more violence after it arrested 24-year-old Haitian native Vladimir Charles of Brockton.
Three other young men were also taken out of the circulation by Boston Police, and all, including Charles, appeared today in Dorchester District Court on charges of unlawful possession of a firearm and unlawful possession of ammunition.
Posted at 1:07 a.m., Saturday, August 18, 2001
Tyrant Aristide to say "Down with the U.S.!"... "Long Live Castro"
It was after Haiti's chief bandit Jean-Betrand Aristide visited Cuba last month that he said "We Haitians have only one friend, and his name is Fidel Castro."
However, a few hours from now he will have more unpleasant words for the United States, meaning that he will officially declare war to the same country, where he spent three years in exile in the first half of the 90s.
"Down with the U.S.!" ... "Long Live Fidel Castro!" These are some of the unpleasant words, but through members of his Lavalas party and paid bandits, he will have for the U.S. after they take to the streets of Port-au-Prince later today.
Posted at 1:05 a.m., Friday, August 17, 2001
A severe slap in the face by tyrant Aristide nearly sent wife to the hospital
Presidents are normally well protected, regardless of where they go - even when they are visiting foreign countries. This suggests they cannot venture out as do private citizens who may leave their homes any time they wish to meet with friends over ice-cream at public parks, for example. And this, for fear of being shot dead by enemies or citizens who may disagree with their policies. Forget about having romantic relationships with males or females, depending on their sex, who may or may not later become their espouses, say, when they have not yet contracted marriage.
But according to a source we can trust, while tyrant Aristide was under close scrutiny while in exile in Washington, D.C. in the first half of the 90s he expressed interest in downloading a prospective wife on his personal computer terminal, meaning that finding one via the Internet. "No, no, no, you cannot do that, you are a president and all eyes are you" said two of his overpaid American lawyers. "In fact, we can help find you a wife, and a beautiful one, too."
A few days later, still according to our same source, dictator Aristide all of a sudden raised his hand, drew together his finger tips, lifted them to his lips and appeared either to spit on them or to give them a kiss before saying to the lawyers "I am a very patient person, however where is my wife?" The answer was immediately found in one of his female attorneys who timidly shouted "Here she is," meaning herself. Her name was Mildred Trouillot, a Haitian-American whom he later married.
Of course, they have long been husband and wife, and it is often said that they are always arguing. But just as the Bible tells it, disobey God and you pay the penalty, Mrs. Trouillot-Aristide paid the penalty Monday when she was severely slapped in the face by chief bandit Aristide after she told him that she did not entirely agree with his politics, the source said.
Posted at 5:10 p.m., Thursday, August 16, 2001
In Haiti, bandits attack Spanish embassy; some security agents wounded
Three bandits, believing to be members of radical leftist Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Lavalas Family Party, attacked Friday, about noon time, security agents at the Spanish embassy, in the trashed-filled capital city of Port-au-Prince.
The bandits, who entered the embassy compound, first pretending to inquire if it would be possible for the diplomatic mission to offer them scholarships, which would in turn allow them to travel to Spain to study, wounded a few security agents there.
The bandits also took the gun of one of the wounded agents after he fell to the floor and opened fire on the embassy compound as they were fleeing. They shouted: "Long live Aristide! Down with Spain! Down with the United States."
The Friday attack, which was condemned by the political party Mouvement Patriotique pour le Sauvetage National or MPSN and others, came less than two years after bandits with ties to tyrant Aristide wounded the wife of the Spanish ambassador as she was driving to her diplomatic private residence in the Port-au-Prince section of Bourdon. As usual, no one was arrested.
The Spanish embassy continues to be a target for the dictatorship of the proletariat presided by tyrant Aristide because Spain is now the president of the European Union - the institution that suspended its economic assistance for Haiti last year after a series of largely fraudulent elections were held, favoring only chief bandit Aristide and his lieutenant-bandits.
The current Spanish ambassador in Haiti is Rafael Matos, and Spain's Charge d'Affaires there is Gerardo Fueyo Bros.
Posted at 2:09 a.m., Thursday, August 16, 2001
Reporters Without Borders demands that de facto Senator's parliamentary immunity be lifted so he can taken out of the circulation in handcuffs
In an August 13 letter to the de facto Haitian Senate, Reporters Without Borders urged members of the upper congressional body to lift the parliamentary immunity of one of their colleagues, Dany Toussaint, who has long been a suspect in the April 3, 2000 brutal murder of Jean Leopold Dominique, Haiti's then best known radio journalist.
"By lifting Toussaint's Parliamentary immunity, you will allow justice to follow its course," Reporters Without Borders said.
Added Reporters without Borders, "Toussaint often claims to be innocent, but that will only be determined after a fair trial."
Toussaint, who was indicted in late May by judge Gassant - the investigative magistrate in the prominent murder case since judge Jean Senat Fleury rescused himself after receiving a multitude of death threats - not long ago held a press conference during which he had many unpleasant words for him. "He is not a judge," a reference to Gassant, "what does that little judge, that little man think he is. And I will not again appear in that little man's so-called courtroom."
According to Haitian law Toussaint can only be taken away in handcuffs after the Senate lifts his parliamentary immunity. However, the de facto Senate has yet to lift so, and many, including human rights advocates, do not believe it will in the next few weeks prove that no one is above the law by saying to Toussaint "no more can you claim parliamentary immunity. Now you can be taken out of the circulation in handcuffs - in chains, too. "
There are reasons for even Haitians living overseas not to believe the de facto Haitian Senate will soon lift Toussaint's parliamentary immunity.
De facto Senate President Yvon Neptune said in January 2001 that "A simple and little judge has no right to question a Senator."
Rommage Millien, a notorious criminal, also a de facto Congressman, who on January 30 was accompanied by more than 30 heavily armed men, when he spotted the judge on a Port-au-Prince's street threatened his life. "You better stop your investigation, if not I will open fire on your car." he told Gassant.
There is, however, one international human rights group that still believes the day for Danny Toussaint to start answering a judge's questions concerning Dominique's assassination after he is arrested will soon come. That international human rights group is Reporters Without Borders. In an August 16 open letter to de facto Haitian Justice Minister Gary Lissade, it denounced a plot, involving three former members of the long disbanded Haitian army, to assassinate Gassant so the murder case against Toussaint may be permanently closed.
Posted at 11:30 p.m., Monday, August 13, 2001
In Haiti, former army members assassinated by leftist dictator Aristide
The list of Haiti's former "Gendamerie" or army members assassinated or kidnapped by tyrant Jean-Betrand Aristide on August 1, according to a press release received from Haiti's democratic opposition or Convergence Democratique, is so long that it resembles a telephone book.
Here are the victims' names: Joseph Amade, Charles Jean-Claude, Louis Edner, and Maurice Paul Blanc.
Manno Ambroise, Hubert Augustin, and Tido Augustin who were in handcuffs found death after they were dropped to the ground by Lavalas Police from a helicopter flying at a high altitude.
And the list of those who are still in captivity includes: Jean Enel Samedy, Nicholas Duce, Pierre Roman, Augustin Emile, Lucien Pierre (nicknamed is Dieusibon), Vernal Nathan, Ernest Levere, Jude Herard, and Permission Joel.
The homes of many political opponents, including those assumed to be against Aristide's dictatorship of the proletariat, have been consumed by flames.
Guest what will soon happen?
There is always a high possibility that Haiti's tyrant Jean-Bertrand Aristide might burn alive a significant number of his opponents alive. However, we are not writing about him at this present moment, but Haitian-American Wyclef Jean, rather. The former Fugees rapper will star in "Shottas." The gangster drama, set in Miami, will soon begin shooting.
Posted at 3:01 a.m., Sunday, August 12, 2001
A Human Rights Watch press release ... Standards Urged for Community of Democracies
(Washington, August 9, 2001) Human Rights Watch called upon the convening states of the Community of Democracies to bar specific countries from the group's next conference unless they make progress toward democracy and human rights in a letter released today. Human Rights Watch questioned the participation of Azerbaijan, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Haiti, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Qatar, Russia, Tunisia and Yemen. All these counties were originally invited to last year's conference of the Community of Democracies in Warsaw; all but Kyrgyzstan attended.
"The Community of Democracies should not be so inclusive that it renders its name meaningless," said Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch. "Many countries wish to be called democracies and want to be seen as respecting human rights - but on their on terms. Participation in the Community should be limited to those who genuinely seek to uphold its principles."
Representatives from move than 100 governments attended the first meeting of the Community of Democracies last June in Warsaw, which resulted in a declaration pledging its members to uphold a list of core democratic principles and practices such as free and fair elections, freedom of the press, and respect for basic human rights. The next conference is being convened by Chile, the Czech Republic, India, Mali, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, the Republic of Korea, South Africa and the United States in Seoul in October, 2002.
In an open letter to the Foreign Ministers of the convening countries, Human Rights Watch praised the initiative, whose purpose is to strengthen, deepen and defend democracy. But the group noted that the presence at the Warsaw Conference of countries that jailed and harassed opponents and journalists, held elections deemed fraudulent by the international community, and limited freedom of assembly "threatened to discredit the initiative." Roth urged the concerning countries to use the time between now and the Seoul conference to press these countries to live up to their democratic pledges.
A copy of the letter sent to the foreign ministers can be found at http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/08/democracies-0809-ltr.htm.
For more information on the Community of Democracies, please see:
Democracies Urged to Protest Rights (HRW Press Release, June 24, 2000) at http://www.hrw.org/press/2000/06/democracy.htm.
The Coalition for the Community of Democracy at http://www.ccdonline.org/.
23 of the 41 Haitian citizens kidnapped two weeks ago by tyrant Aristide regain liberty
It was after the United States ambassador stationed in Haiti said this week "no more arrests, and those already taken out of the circulation must regain their liberty" that 23 of the 41 Haitian kidnapped two weeks ago after five police officers were gunned down by unknown gunmen regained their liberty.
Tyrant Aristide, your days are numbered.
Posted at 11: 25 a.m., Thursday, August 9, 2001
U.S. Congressman sees "red" in tyrant Aristide as he befriends Castro
"The rapprochement between Jean-Bertrand Aristide and Fidel Castro is an indication that there be no democracy in Haiti," said United States Congressman Porter Goss (R-FL) in a letter sent to the United States ambassador in Port-au-Prince, Haiti early this week.
Congressman Goss, who also said the Castro's government is destabilizing the whole Caribbean region, expressed concerns about rampant state corruption in Haiti. "International aid given to Haiti has been stolen by the Lavalas regime," a reference to chief bandit Aristide.
The Florida Republican Congressman suggested that the U.S. does everything that is in its power to minimize the possibility that democratic institutions in the country are not wiped out by the dictatorship.
Tyrant Aristide blames disbanded army for brutal end of police officers
The majority of Haitians who are still waiting for democracy to arrive in Haiti could not expect to hear something else from the mouth of a tyrant and demagogue like Haiti's Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
"The killings that took place July 28 have lengthened the list of the 5,000 Haitians killed from 1991 to 1994," Aristide said during a state funeral for five police officers killed two weeks ago by unknown gunmen, referring to the long disbanded Haitian army's 1991 coup in which he lost the office of the presidency.
Added chief bandit Aristide, who said nothing at all about his victims, most of them burned alive, "Don't let yourself be manipulated by power-hungry people," an allusion to members of Haiti's democratic opposition, who in the aftermath of the July 28 attacks on the Haitian police academy and a few police precincts he accused had planned them.
Posted at 3:25 p.m., Wednesday, August 8, 2001
Cops nab Haitian man for allegedly defrauding elderly tenants
Jean Augustin, 42, a Haitian native who makes a living renting assisted-living rooms to elderly residents in Lower Bucks County, in the State of New Jersey, is no longer driving his Jaguar or Mercedes automobile. Not because he is incapacitated or his driver's license, a privilege, has been revoked. The explanation for not doing so is that he was arrested Tuesday by Trenton police on charges that he ripped off a 75-year-old stroke patient, Isabell McIntyre, for nearly $8,000 by charging her rents nearly double than that allowed by law.
According to Bucks County District Attorney Dianne Gibbons, who announced the charges Tuesday, Augustin, owner of two assisted-living homes, allegedly swindled money from elderly tenants by having them sign blank checks, which he would in turn complete himself.
"Augustin allegedly cashed nine checks totaling $17,789 even though he was only entitled to take $9,931 in rent," Gibbons said.
Under state law, an elderly care landlord cannot charge a tenant more than that person's monthly Social Security income, which in McIntyre's case amounted to a little more than $1,100 a month.
It was in March that Augustin realized that he was being investigated, which prompted him to ask McIntyre, according to Gibbons, to sign a contract and backdated it to October 2000, in an attempt to cover his scheme.
Augustin was arraigned before District Justice Joanne Adamchak Tuesday on charges of unlawful taking and sent to Bucks County Prison after failing to post bail for $35,000.
"Augustin will only be released on bail," said officials at the District Justice office, "after he comes up with a positive ID and/or proof that he is a citizenship of the United States."
One killed, two wounded in fight over land in Haiti's Artibonite region
A fight over land in Haiti's Artibonite region (Verettes) this week resulted in one man's death and two others severely wounded. Also, several cows, pigs and goats were killed.
A significant number of houses were burned to the ground, and more than 300 peasants were forced to flee the region for their lives.
Bandits threaten to block a Haiti's major highway
Bandits demanding that they be employed by the de facto government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide threatened to block Haiti's route nationale number two or national highway number two, preventing citizens from traveling to the annual Notre Dame patron saint festivity in the provincial cities of Petit-Goave and Les Cayes on August 15, if they still are not added on the government's payroll. unemployed.
Just-appointed de facto police commissioner fled Haiti
Marc Saint-Joie, who last week was appointed a police commissioner and then assigned to the Haitian police academy, where four Lavalas police officers were mysteriously shot to death more than ten days ago, abruptly left Haiti this past weekend fearing for his life.
In another development, a funeral Mass for the four police officers killed at the Haitian police academy more than ten days ago was said today in the trash-filled capital city of Port-au-Prince.
Posted at 3:29 p.m., Tuesday, August 7, 2001
Judge asks de facto Haitian Senate to lift Senator's parliamentary immunity
Claudy Gassant, a Haitian investigative judge in the murder case of Jean Leopold Dominique, a prominent radio journalist gunned down in the early morning of April 3, 2000, in the front yard of his Radio Haiti-Inter station, asked the de facto Haitian Senate late last week to lift the parliamentary immunity of Dany Toussaint, who is said to be named in an indictment for the journalist's brutal end.
Under Haitian law, members of Congress enjoy immunity from arrest or prosecution.
Posted at 238 a.m., Tuesday, August 7, 2001
Man who compares a child support debt to a "Damocles sword" hanging over his head nearly discharges his handgun; life of 8-year-old girl is spared, but four adults are wounded
For 46 people, traveling on a Greyhound bus to New York City from Boston late Friday afternoon was a dangerous thing to do. But, not so for Haitian native Volson Myrtil, 25, who was also on the bus, bringing the number of passengers to 47.
Myrtil, who recently moved to Cambridge from New Jersey, two years after a Superior Court judge there ordered him to pay $450 in child support (a Damocles sword hanging over his head) for his daughter, according to Court records, shot four of the passengers after the Boston outbound bus arrived at destination, New York City Manhattan bus terminal, Friday evening, police officers said.
Vicki Barnes of Jacksonville, N.C. who begged Mrytil to spare the life of her 8-year-old daughter, which he did, was wounded in both legs. "I was terrified, the New York Post said Barnes told police. "I was screaming. My daughter was screaming. People were ducking."
Other of Myrtil's victims were Atsushi Ishizaki, 25, who was wounded in the left arm and torso, and Jeanette Lowe, 21, who was shot in the right leg. Both were residents of Boston.
Vladimir Kusnestsov, 27, another passenger on the bus, ended up at Bellevue Hospital after he, too, suffered a gunshot wound to his right arm.
New York City authorities are in the process of determining what caused the Cambridge resident who drank nearly a full bottle of black-berry brandy during the 5-hour or so trip to New York City from Boston Friday night prior to nearly discharge his 9mm handgun as the bus was disembarking its passengers.
Myrtil, who was said to be an employee of Modern Brewery in Cambridge, was arraigned Monday on charges of attempted murder, assault, reckless endangerment and illegal possession of a firearm.
If Myrtil's victims, say, out of anger, considered him to be the equivalent of Satan's son, but it was not so for his New Jersey's relatives who, still, are trying to determine what prompted him to fail to conform his behavior to the law, shooting four innocent people, which in turn caused them all to suffer gunshot wounds.
"I don't know what happened to him," said his uncle, Frantz Myrtil. "I don't know him as a violent person. He is a quiet guy, very helpful and understanding."
An unjustified anti-economic sanctions protest in Miami
Have economic sanctions been imposed by the international community on Haiti? More than fourteen months after the Caribbean country's radical leftist and chief bandit Jean-Bertrand Aristide held a series of largely fraudulent elections, worthy of Stalin and Castro's, that was exactly what the 75 or so Haitian residents, including 25 organizers, of Florida's Miami-Dade and Broward counties though Saturday, when they held a protest (days earlier organizers said on Haitian radio programs protesters would number more than 5,000 people) demanding that the international community, including the United States, resumes its economic assistance to Haiti.
"We want Haiti to have democracy. We are for a democratic Haiti."
Some of the protesters, however, looked more like amateur comedians than the defenders of Haiti they claimed to be. "Stop killing the people of Haiti. Save the children," read one of their signs.
One Haitian motorist who spoke to our reporter on the condition that his name did not accompany this story said: "As long as tyrant Aristide continues to claim to be the president of Haiti and burn my brothers and sisters alive so will Haiti remains a dictatorship of the proletariat. The non-declared sanctions the protesters, many of them long-term unemployed people, claimed to have been long imposed on Haiti will remain in place. No democracy, no money."
Posted at 2:49 a.m., Thursday, August 2, 2001
Leftist dictator Aristide kidnaps citizens, including those who write books
There is a moment in Victor Hugo's famous novel about the Parisian hunchback when the archdeacon of Notre Dame speaks to the king of France. He gestures from a printed book open on his desk toward the arches of the great cathedral. "Alas," he says, 'this will kill that. The book will kill the building." In fact, the 15th century priest was predicting that the printing press would shake the foundations of his church, that the portable texts and popularized messages would undermine the authority of orthodox religion, stimulating dissent and encouraging independence.
One 16th century English bishop even proclaimed, "Either we must root printing or printing will root us."
But it wasn't primarily printing that threatened the church. In one of the great ironies of religious history, the very text that led to creation of the church - the Bible - helped undermine the church, at least when it was first translated from Latin into the vernacular, particularly English, in 1394.
It was John Wycliffe, an English philosopher, who sponsored the first English translation in 1382, asserted that if there were "a hundred popes" and if "all the friars turned cardinals," they would still have no more authority than the Scripture itself.
However, more than six thousand years later, still Haiti's tyrant Jean-Bertrand Aristide claims to be heir to the language of the archdeacon of Notre Dame. Books, he not long ago said, as his behavior suggested, should not be read by Haitians, though 85 percent of them cannot read nor write. One reason for this opposition was that a book written by Proper Avril, a former Haitian military dictator, which provided a detailed account of all the crimes he had committed, was meant to be read by Haitian men, Haitian women; young Haitians, old Haitians; learned Haitians, unlearned Haitians; rich Haitians, poor Haitians.
Not only Avril's book was permanently banned, but the person of the author himself was seized by six of chief bandit Aristide's hooded petty bandits, and this at gunpoint.
There is no doubt that tyrant Aristide is intoxicated with the issue of crushing, even his assumed political enemies, by any means necessary. The armed attacks this past weekend on Haiti's police academy and a few police precincts, as long anticipated, gave birth to something else - the kidnapping of 39 opposition members on trumpeted-up charges.
Sure it is time for the international community to tell the tyrant "Your time is up," as former United States President William Jefferson Clinton once told the military dictators of Haiti. "Otherwise, soon or later you will be exported to the international war crimes tribunal for all of your misdeeds.
Co-defendant in Haiti murder regains liberty on bond
It was on January 15, 2000 that Sheila Webb-Wharton was shot to death while on a business trip in Haiti.
If for others Mrs.Webb-Wharton found death while she was being robbed by bandits, but for her husband, Curtis Wharton, a businessman, it was an attempt by him to collect a $2.5 million in life insurance money.
Mr. Wharton, 38, was convicted last month and received a long prison sentence in the city of Louisiana, New Orleans, for the odious crime. Another co-defendant, his secretary Judy Nipper, 55, was released Wednesday on bond by a judge who found it unlikely she would flee or threaten witnesses prior to her federal trial later this month.
"Thank you, your honor," a tearful Nipper told Magistrate Roy Payne after he reinstated her $50,000 bond over prosecutors' objections. It was temporarily revoked.
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