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Papa & Baby Doc's Crimes

Cambridge, MA, Jul. 1 - As it has long been the case of Haiti's de facto government of chief bandit Jean-Bertrand Aristide, one former senior official, at least, of Baby Doc Duvalier's government is sure indignantly making the news these days.

Jean-Robert Estime, a former foreign affairs minister in the last Baby Doc Duvalier's government (1986) has been taken away in tight handcuffs by police for grand thievery in Madagascar, where he has long been a resident.

The session was attended by a large number of representatives of the State Department, the OAS, the French Embassy in Washington and several think tanks, and organizations concerned with human rights, economic development and democracy in Haiti (CSIS, WOLA, World Bank, IDB, Creatives Associates, Inter-American Dialogue, USAID, HASHAF, Quixote Center, The Haiti Project of Trinity College, Ligue Haitienne Jeunes Cadres d’ Outre-mer, SkillShare Foundation, etc..).

Several news agencies, newspapers and other media were also represented, including (the Associated Press, The Miami Herald, Voice of America, Echo d' Haiti, The Times of London, Haiti Observateur, Signal FM, etc..).

Jan Stromsem, former head of the International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program of the U.S. Justice Department introduced Mr. Faveur who spoke in French, Judge Claudy Gassant was also invited by the Haiti Democracy Project to be a panelist. Ms. Hassiba Hassain served as a translator for the Haitian panelists.

The session went one from 12:45-2:30 p.m.. J.R. Faveur presented evidence of the politicization of the police and gave a well-articulated description of the circumstances surrounding his resignation.

Faveur handled very professionally the many questions that came from the audience. Following the session, Faveur met for about one hour and half with representatives of the State Department, the OAS, and the main media organizations that were in attendance.

Editor's note: Yes, wehaitians.com was invited, but because of time constraints we were unable to cover the 'grand' conference. May our visitors accept our expressions of apology.

WASHINGTON, Jun. 27 - Haiti's former police chief said Friday he fled the country with his family because he feared for his life. He asserted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was filling police ranks only with people loyal to him regardless of their qualifications.

Jean-Robert Faveur denied that Aristide's opponents helped arrange his departure to make the president look bad, saying he was a civil servant and not a politician. He said he has not asked for political asylum in the United States.

Faveur said he resigned June 22 after two weeks in office and fled to Miami because of the Haitian government's efforts to undermine the autonomy of his office.

"I did not have operational control or financial control," he said at a news conference sponsored by the Project for Democracy in Haiti, an advocacy group. "I was a nobody and was not managing the police. All power was in the hands of the president and the secretary of state" for public security, Jean-Gerard Dubreuil.

Haiti's opposition has said Faveur's resignation will make it difficult for Aristide to keep his pledge to hold credible elections this year to break the nation's political stalemate. A credible police force is considered a necessity for a secure campaign and voting.

Faveur, 37, who graduated from Haiti's police academy, said that after he took over, Dubreuil, at Aristide's direction, ordered him to sign a list of promotions and transfers of police officers.

He said the people on the list had neither served long enough in their posts nor passed competitive examinations for promotion as the law requires. He said Dubreuil told him, "This is an order from the president,and his orders are not to be discussed."

Eager to keep their jobs in the Western Hemisphere's poorest country where unemployment has topped more than 50 percent, many police officers support Aristide. Officers earn about $125 a month.

The political opposition, human rights groups and the State Department have accused the 4,000-member police force of helping armed bands of Aristide supporters to break up opposition protests.

Faveur also said Dubreuil told him he would not be responsible for signing checks, the disbursement of money or budget preparation.

"I was dumfounded," Faveur said, "I left the office and called and few friends and relatives. They said my life was in danger, and that I should get out of the country" with his family. "I followed their advice."

In a speech to the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States Thursday, U.S. ambassador Roger Noreiga said the "charges of political interference" made by Faveur in his letter of resignation were "very serious and troubling and his move called "into question the good faith of the Haitian government" to comply with OAS resolutions, "especially the creation of a climate of security. "

___ Associated Press correspondent Michael Norton contributed to this report from Haiti.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Jun. 25 - Haiti's former police chief, who resigned and fled his country four days ago, said Wednesday he is in the United States and lashed out at the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide (Faveur's letter of resignation, but in French).

In in a telephone interview with private Haitian broadcaster Radio Kiskeya, Jean-Robert Faveur didn't reveal his exact whereabouts.

"Now I am in the United States," he said. "Democracy is a utopia (but) in Haiti, our democracy is authoritarian."

Haiti's opposition has said after Faveur's resignation will make it difficult for Aristide to keep his pledge of holding credible elections this year to break the nation's political stalemate (dealing with too much a tin-pot totalitarian dictator Aristide).

The opposition and government of Aristide have been at loggerheads since flawed May 2000 legislative elections.

Faveur alleged that under instructions from Aristide, government officials allegedly ordered him to endorse promotions and transfers of police officers. His right to sign official checks was also abrogated.

Both the opposition and civil groups have demanded police reforms, as well as other security-establishing measures, before they join a nine-member election board mandated to oversee legislative elections that Aristide pledged to hold this year(drug kingpin Ketant's ultra-luxury mansion, Faveur's photographs).

The government, meanwhile, on Wednesday accused opposition militants of killing four sympathizers of Aristide's Lavalas Family party.

Witnesses in the small plateau town said they recognized the men as being opposition supporters, Privet said.

The men are hoping to make it to the U.S. to "conduct unspecified terrorist attacks" by sneaking aboard ships in the Caribbean, according to a Homeland Security Department bulletin obtained by the Daily News.

The bulletin circulated last week said the Iraqis arrived in the Dominican Republic this month, crossing into Haiti along the border that divides the island, where they obtained phony passports.

Two of the would-be terrorists were smuggled aboard an unknown ship that departed the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince on June 12, bound for the U.S. after a possible stop in the Bahamas, the bulletin said.

The Coast Guard and Navy zeroed in on six suspect ships that might be the one harboring the Iraqis. A government source said one ship was searched but no Iraqis were found (Jean-Robert Faver's letter of resignation as police chief).

A Homeland Security Department spokesman declined to comment, as did Coast Guard officials.

Informant passed test Mark Wilson, the permanent secretary to the Bahamas' National Security Ministry, said U.S. authorities haven't asked him to be on the lookout for any Iraqis. But, he said, "They'll stick out like sore thumbs on a ship full of Haitians."

The informant who revealed the plot to U.S. customs agents passed a polygraph test - but officials could not confirm the veracity of the tipster's sources, the bulletin said.

Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he was unaware of the Iraqi threat report, but "there are elements that are very credible."

Before the war to oust Saddam, CIA analysts predicted that Iraqi terrorists might strike in America if they thought a U.S. assault was inevitable.

And this month, a letter reputedly from Saddam from his hiding place gave U.S. troops until July 17 to get out of Iraq.

"If this period ends without them leaving, it will be our right for us to take our defense to their countries," he allegedly wrote.

The News also reported in March that an Iraqi terror team tried to buy its way into the U.S. from Mexico to get to President Bush's Texas ranch.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jun. 22 -- Two weeks after he became Haiti's acting police chief, Jean-Robert Faveur resigned and went into self-imposed exile because of alleged government interference and threats to his life, according to news reports Sunday (Photos: drug kingpin Ketant, his ultra-luxury mansion; police chief; a competition).

Faveur sent a letter announcing his resignation to various media outlets, including independent Radio Caraibes, which read it over the air.

The letter, addressed to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, bore the official seal of the police, Radio Caraibes reported. The Associated Press also has obtained a copy.

Faveur said in the letter that officials in Aristide's government wanted him to endorse promotions and transfers of police officers without his consent. In addition, they didn't allow him to sign official checks, the letter said.

Days after his appointment, a major reshuffling of senior police officials took place without Faveur's approval, the letter said.

''I was warned that my life and that of my family were in danger,'' he said, without providing details.

Faveur left the Western Hemisphere's poorest country of his own will, but the letter did not say when he left or where he was going.

He was sworn in June 6 to replace Jean-Claude Jean-Baptiste, who resigned June 3 after just 2 ½ months on the job.

Aristide has been under intense pressure to reform the 4,000-member police force, which has been accused of crime, human-rights abuses and repression of political dissent. Both the opposition and civil groups have demanded police reform, as well as other security-establishing measures, before they participate on a nine-member election board overseeing legislative elections. Aristide's government and the opposition have yet to agree on a date for the vote.

The Organization of American States passed two resolutions last year urging new public security, including disarming of partisans and reforming the police. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the OAS General Assembly on June 10 that the United States was ''encouraged'' by the appointment of Faveur, whom he termed ``eminently qualified professionally.''

The appointment of Jean-Baptiste, a longtime Aristide partisan, had been criticized and was never brought before the Senate for confirmation. Jean-Baptiste also had been accused of involvement in the 1991 killing of politician Sylvio Claude on the eve of an army coup that ousted Aristide and sent him into exile, charges which he denies.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Jun. 21 - For six years, Jacques Beaudoin Ketant lived the good life in Haiti, buying fancy cars, a mansion and a highbrow education for his children — out of reach of U.S. authorities seeking him for allegedly heading a cocaine network (The drug kingpin, his ultra-luxury mansion).

But his sojourn out of U.S. reach ended last week — abruptly interrupted by a recent brawl at his son's elite private school.

"He's a significant trafficker," Matt Dates, a special counsel for public affairs at the U.S. Attorney's office in Miami, said Friday.

In the five-count indictment for money laundering and drug smuggling, U.S. law enforcement agents described an expansive network in which Ketant arranged for drug couriers to transport cocaine from Central and South America to the United States, sometimes using Haiti as a transshipment point.

After setting up part of the operation in Miami, Ketant left in disguise in 1996 for his home country, Haiti, the indictment said.

Here he has lived since, flaunting his wealth in a massive hilltop mansion protected by security cameras that overlooks Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince. He was regularly seen driving his black Hummer and Mercedes all-terrain vehicles.

The public appearances remained steady even after his face flashed across U.S. television screens in 2001 during a segment on America's Most Wanted.

Last year, Ketant, now 40, helped build a carnival grandstand in front of the presidential National Palace and took part in the festivities.

It's unclear why, given his ostentatious lifestyle, officials did not capture him before. Both Dates and U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency spokesman Joe Kilmer in Miami declined to comment.

Relations between the United States and Haiti have been turbulent since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's party swept 2000 legislative elections that observers said were flawed.

Since then, some U.S. legislators have accused senior Haitian government officials and police officers of involvement in drug trafficking.

Haiti's police force began closing in on Ketant this year, killing his brother during a drug raid. But it wasn't until the brawl last month at the Union School — attended by Ketant's son and nephew — that Haitian authorities moved quickly to hand him over to the United States.

The school's students include the children of government ministers and U.S. and other diplomats.

At a school party, Ketant's nephew was angered when a girl who rejected his advances, so he allegedly beat up a rival boy and shoved him in the trunk of a car, a parent said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

A security guard stopped the nephew at the school gate. Police freed the beaten boy and wanted to arrest his assailant, the parent said.

In no time, Ketant arrived with a throng of armed police, who forced their fellow officers to free the nephew, the parent said.

The principal, who has refused all comment, expelled the nephew along with Ketant's son and daughter, the parent said. Ketant again showed up at the school and threatened the principal, who then called the U.S. Embassy for help.

"In view of the perceived breakdown of security, the U.S. Embassy quickly offered the school a couple of our local security guards for a few days," said embassy spokeswoman Judith Trunzo.

Haitian authorities then ordered Ketant's expulsion, Dates said. A diplomat in Haiti said Haitian police detained Ketant and put him on a chartered plane to Miami, where U.S. authorities took him into custody Tuesday evening.

It was not clear if there was a connection between the brawl and the expulsion. The government didn't give a reason, but said the expulsion "showed Haiti was prepared to help in the fight against drug traffickers."

If convicted, Ketant faces more than 20 years in prison. Trunzo said there has been no letup in the flow of drugs through Haiti. Some 8 percent of cocaine and 15 percent of all drugs transported to the United States last year came through Haiti, she said.

It is hard to imagine that a person would stab another one 33 times to death, right in the first-floor unit they long called their place of residence, and then dump the victim's body miles away in an attempt to avoid being caught and charged with the crime (Dealing with too much a tin-pot totalitarian dictator Aristide).

Sadly, that was the fate of Gilane Azor Saget, 33, a divorcee who weighted about 220 pounds, early Monday, whose former live-in boyfriend, Jean-Claude Jules, 34, now stands accused of brutal murder.

Jules, according to close acquaintances who spoke to wehaitians.com late Wednesday by telephone, and extremely deplored his action, "he simply wanted to make Saget pay with her life for depriving him of his life-savings and then declared their apparent solid romantic relationship history."

Among the specifics, said the acquaintances, that prompted Jules to violently terminate Saget's life, whose bloody lifeless body was discovered in a wooded area, near Northeast Specialty Hospital where she labored for two years as a nurses aid, in the middle-class town of Braintree, just a few miles south of Boston, about 4:22 p.m Monday, and after a driver alerted police of having seen a female person of the black race sleeping in a car, that he suspected something was wrong, were: Jules was an illegal Haitian immigrant who had first took residence in the city of Brockton, south of Boston, less than 18 months ago after permanently departing Miami. Still, he managed to labor for long hours and fortunately generated thousands of dollars in income.

More, Jules and Saget always made their plans known that they would soon officially become like two happy birds after exchanging vows.

A better way to assure that the two would-be happy birds have a place they could call their own, care for their progenies, if any, was to purchase a modest house, which Jules proudly gave Saget $12,000 for - by way of explanation, the monetary sum required for the downpayment.

Terrible unforeseen things happened after the purchase of the house in the working class city of Brockton. It turned out to be that Saget, who Jules first met at local Protestant church, and after contracting marriage with hoped would submit a permanent legal residency petition on his behalf to the formerly United States Immigration Services since she herself was a green card holder was largely deceitful, she was faking love. The woman he hoped to soon call "my dear wife" was spending happy hours in the comfort of another man's bed - by way of alternative, sleeping with someone else, as it is said in the vernacular.

Apart from faking love, Jules' name did not figure on the deed of the house, but only that of Saget.

Jules, who speaks no English, was arrested early Monday evening by Brockton police after he was first questioned, and for hours so. He pleaded not guilty to murder and assault and battery charges in Brockton District Court Tuesday, and is since being held without bail, said Assistant District Attorney William McCauley of Plymouth.

It is not difficult to truly understand Jules's bad feelings and anger, but must it be said that he - the alleged perpetrator of the crime walked back for a few hours to Brockton from Braintree after having committed the crime and then spent about $150 doing laundry so the blood soaked blankets would not help determine that he actually had committed the crime - absolutely had no rights to violently put an end to Saget's life, also a Haitian immigrant.

Beaudouin "Jacques" Ketant For six long years, the Drug Enforcement Administration salivated for a chance to bring reputed Haitian cocaine trafficker Jacques Beaudoin Ketant to justice.

Photo may be subject to copyright

Beaudouin Jacques Ketant, the Haitian cocaine baron.

Judith D. Trunzo, spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

But Ketant was virtually untouchable, living in an ornate mansion with wrought-iron balconies on a hilltop overlooking Port-au-Prince, occasionally dropping by his discotheque a half-mile away. His son rubbed shoulders with the children of diplomats at an elite American school in Haiti.

But the reputed drug trafficker found himself in a Miami courtroom Wednesday after a parent-teacher conference ran seriously awry (photos).

Summoned to discuss his son's recent misbehavior, Ketant arrived with his normal coterie of bodyguards. But when they left minutes later, the schoolteacher was bloody from a severe beating.

Outraged American officials complained to Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who personally signed off on Ketant's arrest Tuesday.

''Basically, after that, the embassy was screaming at Aristide to get this guy out of here,'' said a source familiar with the case. ``And [Aristide] totally went along with it.''

Initial reports indicated Aristide had summoned Ketant to the presidential palace, where he was arrested. But sources said the Aristide phone-call scenario was part of an initial plan that never took place (Dealing with too much a tin pot-totalitarian dictator Aristide).

Instead, Ketant was arrested at his posh home in the Vivi Michel neighborhood outside the capital.

Haitian officials immediately expelled Ketant, freeing DEA agents and deputy U.S. marshals to put him on a plane bound for Puerto Rico, then Miami for his initial appearance Wednesday in front of a federal magistrate.

''It was a joint operation between the Haitian National Police and the DEA and the marshals,'' said Miami attorney Ira Kurzban, general counsel for the Haitian government in the United States. ``This cooperation is a major step forward for Haiti.''

According to the sources, Ketant's son had gotten in trouble with one of his teachers at The Union School, a private American academy run by Jesuits. The reputed trafficker arrived at the parent-teacher conference with his omnipresent phalanx of thugs. Reports are unclear exactly who beat the teacher.

While the U.S. attorney's office and the DEA in Miami declined to comment Wednesday, Ketant is clearly a major catch. The producers of America's Most Wanted dedicated a September 2001 segment to him.

DEA officials have told Congress that Ketant oversaw a broad transportation and distribution network of ''mules'' and ''couriers'' who carried tons of Colombian cocaine into the United States on airplanes and boats at entry points that included Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, New York and Chicago.

Ketant's organization bribed customs officials at Miami International Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

Evens Gorgue, the MIA employee paid to turn his head as drug couriers passed through U.S. Customs, cooperated with authorities and had his 14-year sentence shaved to four years. Gorgue was accused of buying an expensive Parkland home, a Miramar condominium and several Margate apartments with his bribe money.

According to court records, the conspiracy dates back to 1987, when the brain trust of the old Medellin cartel -- the late Pablo Escobar, Jorge Luis Ochoa and the late Jose Rodriguez-Gacha -- decided to pool their resources and open a new cocaine route into the United States via Haiti.

Escobar sent Fernando Burgos-Martinez to pay off the Haitian military regime to permit the safe landing of cocaine-laden airplanes on local airstrips.

Herald staff writer Jacqueline Charles and correspondent Jane Regan contributed to this report.

A Haitian barber whose Muslim rantings got him fired is wanted for coldly gunning down a rival outside a Cambridge fast-food joint and has fled to south Florida, officials said.

Authorities say Markendy Jean was walking out of the Kentucky Fried Chicken near Porter Square June 8 carrying his meal when he allegedly pulled out a handgun and blasted 26-year-old Robert Scott. Scott, the father of a 5-year-old girl, was shot four times in the back and died.

Jean, 25, was identified as the alleged triggerman after interviews with several witnesses and informants. An arrest warrant charging him with the murder was obtained Friday, Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley said.

Investigators believe the pair knew each other, but the motive is under investigation, Coakley said.

A former co-worker at the Cambridge hair salon where Jean previously worked said yesterday that he was fired about three months ago.

The woman, who requested anonymity, said Jean had been taking classes at Boston University and Bunker Hill Community College and recently immersed himself in the Koran. Authorities say he frequented a Cambridge mosque.

His studies changed his behavior and he began acting unruly with patrons, the woman said. He was fired after a heated exchange with a customer.

``He started out being a very good guy. Toward the end, he started acting strange,'' she said.

Coakley said Jean has ties in southern Florida and is believed to be in the Miami area. Anyone with information should call Cambridge police at 617-349-3301.

BROCKTON -- A woman found dead in her car Monday near the Braintree hospital where she worked was stabbed more than 30 times, a prosecutor said yesterday, and the man charged in the slaying was arraigned on murder charges (Dealing with too much a tin-pot totalitarian dictator Aristide).

Jean Claude Jules, 34, pleaded not guilty to murder and assault and battery charges in Brockton District Court and is being held without bail.

Gilane Azor Saget, 33, was found in the passenger seat of her car off South Street in Braintree near a wooded area around 4:20 p.m. Monday, said Assistant District Attorney William McCauley of Plymouth (There goes the neighborhood).

A driver told Braintree police that he had seen a woman sleeping in her car. When police arrived, they found Saget in nursing scrubs, dead from head injuries and stab wounds to the neck, sides, thighs, ears, and hands, McCauley said.

Police said that Saget had been dating Jules for several months and lived with him in an apartment at 446 Main St. in Brockton until last weekend, when she moved out to live with a friend.

After finishing an eight-hour shift at Northeast Specialty Hospital in Braintree at 11 p.m. Sunday, Saget phoned the friend, who told her that Jules was at the friend's house, the prosecutor said (The heresy that saved a skeptic).

Saget decided to spend the night at the Brockton apartment, arriving there around midnight, McCauley said.

Jules and a friend drove to the apartment, where he confronted Saget, police said.

According to the prosecutor, Jules said that Saget attacked him with a shoe and a knife before Jules took the knife and accidentally stabbed her. Jules told police he was driving Saget to get medical treatment when she died in the car.

A search of the Brockton apartment Monday yielded evidence of a struggle, McCauley said. He said the apartment reeked of bleach, and blood was found on the underside of a mattress and on the headboard. Police also found clothing drenched in bleach inside a trash can in the bathroom.

McCauley said that Jules does not have a criminal record. There have been no restraining orders filed against him or by him within the past 10 years, according to the clerk's office in Brockton District Court. Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz called the crime premeditated and intentional. ''There are multiple, multiple stab wounds all over this woman's body,'' he said. ''Obviously this is a brutal, horrible murder.''

After the proceeding, defense attorney Robert Griffin of Dedham said he questioned the ability of the police interpreter who took Jules's statement. Jules is Haitian and speaks Creole (Another sex scandal).

''They've attributed certain statements to my client. I don't know what that person's skill level is in that language,'' Griffin said.

Neighbors and co-workers said the couple, who met at church, frequently argued. Madeline Gonzalez, 24, who lives directly above the couple's first-floor apartment, said they moved in about six months ago. She said that Saget appeared to have no family in the area, but Jules often had friends and relatives visit.

A nurse at Northeast Specialty Hospital, where Saget had worked as a nurse's assistant for two years, said Jules often drove Saget home from work along the same wooded route where her body was found.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Jun. 10 - The appointment of a new police chief is not enough to prove Haiti's government is committed to reforming the police force, U.S. Ambassador Brian Dean Curran said Tuesday (From Baghdad to Haiti, so goes the war against murderous tyrants).

Five days after former officer Jean-Robert Faveur's appointment, the ambassador said deeper changes were needed to ensure security for legislative elections. President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's government and the opposition have yet to agree on a date for the elections.

The international community has demanded "the professionalization of the police," Curran said, requiring "not to change the head only, but the entire leadership of the police."

Faveur was sworn in Friday to replace Jean-Claude Jean-Baptiste, who resigned April 3 after just two weeks on the job (photos).

With the opposition and government at loggerheads since flawed 2000 elections, the Organization of American States in September set several resolutions for establishing security, including disarming partisans and reforming police.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell (related text) told the OAS General Assembly on Tuesday in Santiago, Chile, that the United States was "encouraged" by the appointment of Faveur.

"We've been working at the problem of reforming the police, but it cannot be solved overnight," Minister of Culture and Communication Lilas Desquiron said.

The opposition has accused Aristide of leaning toward dictatorship and urged him to resign. Aristide has refused to leave office until his term ends in 2006.

lanked by his supporters, the Rev. Eugene Rivers III publicly apologized yesterday for his recent comments partially blaming a surge in violence in the Cape Verdean community on the lack of strong male leadership, saying that the issue had become ''a distraction.''

''I apologize for all the correct reasons and all the political reasons, but this revolves around the children,'' said Rivers, speaking at a press conference at the Ella J. Baker House in Dorchester.

As part of his apology, Rivers pledged to work with the Cape Verdean and other ethnic communities throughout the city to help quell escalating violence. Rivers cited the slaying on Saturday of Nathaniel Depina, a Cape Verdean who was gunned down after a barbecue in Dorchester, as evidence of the need for action. Police said yesterday there was no further information on the case.

The Cape Verdean Task Force, some of whose members had demanded that Rivers apologize, released a statement declining to comment further.

''We can go on talking about the discrepencies in the Rivers' tirade,'' the statement said. ''However, as a community, we have found it much more important to deal with the work of supporting the community. With the recent tragedy of Nate Depina's murder, the community will continue to push forward in an effort to eradicate violence.''

During an appearance last month on the WGBH television show ''Greater Boston,'' Rivers said of the Cape Verdean community, ''You got a bunch of young dudes who are out of control because the community is largely . . . leaderless in terms of male leadership.''

Invoking first names common to Hispanic cultures, not the Portuguese-influenced Cape Verdean culture, he continued, ''The women are doing what every good mom does, trying to keep Pedro or Julio or whatever the hell his name is out of trouble.''

Rivers also made comments that upset members of other ethnic communities, including Haitians.

Yves A. Isidor -- executive director of We Haitians United We Stand for Democracy, which has also called on Rivers to apologize -- said he had not seen the letter of apology, but accepted Rivers's expression of regret over the remarks.

''I think it will be time to move on,'' Isidor said. ''There are many things that need to be addressed: employment, education, and crime.''

Yesterday, Rivers criticized the media for the attention devoted to covering controversy surrounding his comments rather than stories about the ''life and death of young black children'' in the community.

''The controversy story would tromp the story of how do we make an objective difference in the lives of poor black children,'' he said.

Bishop Filipe Teixeira of St. Martin de Porres Church in Dorchester said he was skeptical of Rivers's apology.

''I don't think he needs a full page statement for an apology,'' Teixeira said. ''He needs actions. Actions speak louder than words.

''I'm a Cape Verdean male helping the community,'' he said. ''There's a lot of great males. The proof is in the pudding.''

"Haiti's democracy and economic growth are undermined by the government's failure to create the conditions for an electoral solution to the political impasse," Powell told the OAS general assembly in Santiago (photos).

He said Washington would add one million dollars in extra funding to an Organization of American States (OAS) special mission "to help improve the security climate for what we hope will be free and fair elections in Haiti."

"However, if by this September the government of Haiti has not created the climate of security essential to the formation of a credible, neutral and independent provisional electoral council, we should reevaluate the role of the OAS in Haiti," Powell warned Striking It Poor: In the Third World, Oil Fields Can Be a Curse).

Alleged irregularities in the 2000 general elections favored Jean Bertrand Aristide's Lavalas Family Party, a situation that led to the suspension of international aid to Haiti, one of the world's poorest countries.

Reports of political violence and human rights abuses against government opponents have risen sharply and recent UN, European Union and US government reports indicate the human rights situation is deteriorating (full text).

On Monday, meanwhile, more than 1,000 people attended a memorial ceremony for Rene Theodore, leader of the leftist resistance to Haiti's Duvalier family dictatorship, and the military regimes that followed.

Theodore, who led the Unified Party of Haitian Communists (PUCH), died on June 1 aged 62.

Last March, a group of high-level diplomats traveled to Haiti to deliver an ultimatum to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide: Complete long-promised reforms now, or face consequences.

The reforms were aimed at making the country safer for new legislative elections -- the widely favored solution to Haiti's political crisis.

But time passed, and the diplomats frowned at the Haitian government's response to their demands. Today, they will gather at an Organization of American States meeting in Chile to decide what to do next.

After three years of trying to mediate a compromise, the OAS is running out of options to put pressure on the Haitian government and the opposition.

''They are working in a very difficult political environment and are left with very few recourses,'' said Dan Erikson, director of Caribbean programs at the Inter-American Dialogue, a hemispheric policy forum based in Washington.

Meanwhile, the country is no closer to easing a crisis that started when Aristide's party swept a disputed legislative election in May 2000. And the OAS risks losing credibility.

The current debate centers largely on security issues. In part to satisfy the opposition's demands, the OAS asked the government in March to make the country safer for campaigning for new elections, by taking illegal guns off the street, reforming the police and arresting a well-known fugitive.

''The security circumstances in Haiti aren't perfect, but they are far better than the security circumstances that existed in El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia and many other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean where elections have been held,'' said Ira Kurzban, the government's U.S.-based lawyer.

The small and fractured opposition manufactured the issue, Kurzban said, because the parties fear they will lose, again, in new elections.

The Haitian government and its supporters also have accused the OAS of meddling in internal issues, particularly when the head of the mission complained that the OAS wasn't consulted about the country's first choice for a new police chief.

The OAS also has made demands of the opposition, saying it must agree to participate in elections if the government makes the reforms. The opposition hasn't agreed. The result is the ongoing stalemate.

Tough sanctions were already applied against Haiti, when the hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to the government were blocked after the disputed 2000 elections. The OAS later realized that cutting off the money was only crippling the fledgling democracy further, so last summer the group asked international financial institutions to resume lending. (The money hasn't actually reached Haiti yet because the government owes back pay on payments.)

But as a compromise with the OAS, the government agreed to a series of reforms, including those on security. Several OAS representatives have said the government has failed to make key changes, which Haiti disputes.

The Haitian government's most ardent critics say that tack, too, has failed, and they want the diplomats to move toward suspending Haiti from the OAS -- a drastic, unprecedented decision required only when a government has broken the constitutional order, according to the OAS charter.

But Caribbean diplomats and a U.S. official said that option isn't seriously being considered. The United States, which will be busy with other pressing issues at the meeting, officially plans to continue to work with the government in the framework agreed to last summer, a State Department official said.

In general, the United States has been walking a cautious line, trying to be tough on Aristide, but not so much that the country is destabilized, sparking a massive wave of migration. Caribbean leaders, meanwhile, have voiced restraint, said Fred Mitchell, foreign minister of the Bahamas.

''Do you exacerbate the situation by going any further than you are now? Because we know that every time, at least as far as the Bahamas has been concerned, any further action leads to a mass exodus from the north of Haiti,'' said Mitchell, whose country is a stopping point for Haitian migrants. ``Our country can't withstand those kind of economic shocks.''

Mitchell advocates continuing to work with the government and continuing verbal pressure.

Some analysts don't fault the OAS for not being able to bring the two sides in Haiti together. '

There's the old saying, `You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink,' '' said Erikson, of the Inter-American Dialogue.

``They've led the government and the political parties and civil-society groups to water, and no one's drinking. And there's not much the OAS can do on that front.'' --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Special correspondent Jane Regan contributed to this report from Port-au-Prince.

Even as the urban activist steps forward today to apologize publicly to Boston's Cape Verdeans, the Rev. Eugene F. Rivers III is facing the wrath of another insulted ethnic community: Hub Haitians (Related press release).

In a statement yesterday, Yves A. Isidor of We Haitians United called on Rivers to apologize to his people. He said Rivers disparaged Haitians on the same television program where the famed minister spoke unflatteringly of Cape Verdeans.

``We find the words `monkey butts' employed to describe the anti-social behavior of a minuscule number of Haitians who have yet to attain the age of reason . . . extremely insulting'' to the Boston area's 75,000 Haitians, Isidor said.

On the May 14 WGBH-TV program ``Greater Boston,'' Rivers assailed Cape Verdean men as failed role models for youth.

In a 700-word apology he will issue at 1 p.m. at the Ella J. Baker House in Dorchester, Rivers plans to apologize for his ``indelicate comments.''

Denise Gonsalves of the Cape Verdean Task Force and other local activists said yesterday they would wait for Rivers' apology before commenting on it.

But while the street minister mends his fences with Cape Verdeans, Haitian community leaders and radio talkers have burned with indignation over Rivers' use of the phrase ``monkey butt'' to refer to Haitian youths facing legal trouble.

Haitians were also offended by what they saw as Rivers' mocking use of the name ``Toussaint'' to refer to all Haitian youths.

They call it a slur on their national hero, Toussaint Louverture, the slave-turned-general who led Haiti's 1804 overthrow of French rule.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Haiti's embattled acting police chief has offered to resign less than three months after his appointment by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide (photos).

Jean-Claude Jean Baptiste wrote in a letter broadcast on local television stations Wednesday that "it seems the time has come for me to serve the nation elsewhere."

Aristide appointed Jean-Baptiste March 25 to comply with an Organization of American States resolution to revamp the 4,000-member police force, accused of criminal activity, human rights abuses and repression of political dissent.

However, his appointment met with a salvo of criticism and was never brought before the Senate to be confirmed (Amnesty International Report 2003).

A longtime Aristide partisan, Jean-Baptiste was accused of involvement in the 1991 killing of politician Sylvio Claude on the eve the army ousted Aristide in a bloody coup. He was never charged and denied the accusation.

In an interview with the independent Radio Vision 2000 last week, OAS Haiti special mission head David Lee urged the government to replace Jean-Baptiste before the OAS General Assembly meeting in Santiago, Chile, June 8-10.

The government and opposition have been at loggerheads over the holding of new elections since Aristide's governing party swept disputed legislative elections in May 2000.

To persuade opposition parties and civil society groups to participate in an electoral council, the government has pledged to implement OAS resolutions that would guarantee secure and credible elections.

But the opposition has refused to designate its two members until Aristide resigns, while five civil society groups accuse the government of not living up to its pledge and refuse to allow theirs to be sworn in.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Jun. 1 - Rene Theodore, the former head of Haiti's Communist Party and a leading opponent of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, died Sunday, friends said. He was 62.

Rene Theodore, 62, in front in the black tee shirt, former head of the now-defunct Haitian Unified Communist Party (PUCH) and an important figure Haiti's opposition movement, is seen before a cheering crowd of thousands at an anti-government rally in Cap-Haitien in this Nov. 17, 2002 file photo. Theodore, who was being treated at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida, died of lung cancer Sunday morning at age 62, friends said. (AP Photo/Daniel Morel, file)

Theodore, who began his 47-year activist career in high school, performed his last political act in December by co-signing an opposition declaration calling for Aristide's resignation.

Accusing Aristide of trying to establish one-party, one-man rule, Haiti's opposition has been at loggerheads with the president since his Lavalas Family Party swept flawed 2000 general elections. "Theodore gave his whole life to the struggle against dictatorship. He died a convinced democrat," Socialist Party leader Serge Gilles said (Amnesty International Report 2003).

Theodore was born in northwest Ouanaminthe on Haiti's border with the Dominican Republic. He was the grandson of former Haitian President Davilmar Theodore, who held the office at the start of the 20th century.

An active member of the Haitian Unified Communist Party, he was forced into exile in 1967 during the 29-year dictatorship of Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, followed by his son, Jean-Claude.

Theodore lived in France and in Russia, where he worked as an anchorman for Radio Moscow's Creole news broadcasts.

In 1979, Theodore became the Communist Party's secretary-general in exile and returned to Haiti in 1986 when a popular uprising ousted Jean-Claude Duvalier.

Having garnered a wide following among Haitian youth and the urban poor, Theodore founded a new party, the Movement for National Reconstruction, but quickly lost support when he unsuccessfully opposed Aristide, then a popular Catholic priest, for the presidency in December 1990.

When the army ousted Aristide in a bloody coup in September 1991, the United States backed Theodore's 1992 attempt to become prime minister and work out a compromise with the military.

The effort failed after soldiers attacked a meeting he was attending and fatally shot his body guard. U.S. troops intervened in 1994 and restored Aristide to power.

Theodore is survived by his second wife, Sabine, their son and daughter, and two daughters from his previous marriage, Bourjolly said.