ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 8, 1997 TAG: 9703100036
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
Ex-Haitian chief faces drug charges
The exiled police chief of Haiti's capital was charged Friday with helping Colombian drug lords smuggle 33 tons of cocaine and heroin into the United States.
Lt. Col. Michel Francois, widely considered the power behind Haiti's ousted military rulers, supervised smuggling through Haiti's airports and seaports and pocketed millions of drug cartel dollars while his country descended further into poverty, according to a federal indictment.
Francois, 38, who fled Haiti and was convicted in absentia in a 1993 assassination, was taken into custody in Honduras and was to be flown to Miami today. The indictment naming 13 people was unsealed Friday after his arrest.
The indictment puts prosecutors in a delicate situation because a confidential Justice Department memo obtained by The Associated Press in 1994 revealed concerns that U.S. intelligence agencies may have cooperated with the smugglers.
Francois fled to the Dominican Republic in 1994, two weeks after U.S. troops arrived to return President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power.
-ASSOCIATED PRESS
Oxygen becoming scarce aboard space station Mir
A second oxygen generator aboard the Russian space station Mir malfunctioned, leaving the two Russians and one American aboard with only a two-month supply of air, NASA said Friday.
Russian flight controllers outside Moscow ordered the crew to begin using supplemental oxygen-generating canisters.
NASA spokesman Ed Campion said at Cape Canaveral, Fla., that the situation is not considered dangerous.
-ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jamaican leader Michael Manley dies
KINGSTON, Jamaica - Michael Manley, who led Jamaica as a socialist firebrand defiant of U.S. policy in the 1970s and then regained power as a chastened proponent of capitalism in the 1990s, has died. He was 72.
Revered as ``Joshua,'' after the biblical prophet, Manley died at his Kingston home Thursday night. The cause of death wasn't disclosed, but he had been fighting prostate cancer. A state funeral is planned for March 16.
In his first two terms as prime minister, from 1972 until 1980, Manley was a champion of the nonaligned movement. He forged close ties with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, railed against capitalist domination and discouraged foreign investment.
By the end of 1980, Jamaica was nearly bankrupt and Manley was defeated by conservative Edward Seaga, who became the Reagan administration's closest ally in the Caribbean.
In 1989, a new Manley emerged. He espoused capitalism, private investment and good relations with the United States. Helped by a worsening economy, he trounced Seaga in national elections.
-ASSOCIATED PRESS
LENGTH: Medium: 61 linesby CNB