Michel Francois

Michel Francois is the most important man in Haiti. Everyone agrees on that. In the words of a leading businessman, Francois "is the center, the hub. He is in full control." The descriptions abound. He "is the major obstacle" to ending Haiti's current bloody nightmare, "the capstone of all corruption," a "killer." Whatever he is called, Lt. Col. Michel Francois is, as a senior international official said, "totally capable" of derailing a U.N.

Once considered the most powerful man in Haiti, Michel-Joseph Francois now sits in a prison here, powerless and reliant on his jailers. "My life depends on them," said the man who acknowledges that he helped to plot the 1991 coup that ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and then commanded 1,000 police and an unknown number of attaches, or secret police, through three years of military rule.

Port-au-Prince's exiled police chief, a shadowy, ruthless figure believed to have engineered the 1991 coup that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and pitched Haiti into three years of bloody turmoil, has been charged with helping to smuggle more than 33 tons of Colombian cocaine and heroin into the U.S. According to an indictment unsealed Friday in U.S. District Court here, Lt. Col.

Port-au-Prince's exiled police chief, a shadowy, ruthless figure believed to have engineered the 1991 coup that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and pitched Haiti into three years of bloody turmoil, has been charged with helping to smuggle more than 33 tons of Colombian cocaine and heroin into the U.S. According to an indictment unsealed Friday in U.S. District Court here, Lt. Col.

Acting under direct army pressure, the National Assembly voted Monday to replace deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and set the stage for new elections within 90 days. With soldiers ringing the building and occasionally firing shots in the air, the lawmakers unanimously invoked an emergency provision of the Haitian constitution to declare the presidency vacant and chose Supreme Court Justice Joseph Nerette as interim head of state. It was not known whether he would accept.

A proposal by a group of legislators previously opposed to the return of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is "significant" but still lacks the necessary components to settle Haiti's dangerous crisis, senior diplomats said Sunday. The 11-point plan sent to special U.N. representative Dante Caputo on Saturday generally follows the outlines of an agreement signed in July by Aristide and his main antagonist, army commander Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras.

Once considered the most powerful man in Haiti, Michel-Joseph Francois now sits in a prison here, powerless and reliant on his jailers. "My life depends on them," said the man who acknowledges that he helped to plot the 1991 coup that ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and then commanded 1,000 police and an unknown number of attaches, or secret police, through three years of military rule.

Exiled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and army commander Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras on Thursday considered a set of proposals by U.N. mediator Dante Caputo to govern Aristide's restoration to office. According to diplomatic sources, the Caputo plan--developed after four days of talks on Governors Island in New York harbor--proposes that Aristide return by Oct.

The new democratic government began dismantling the military's propaganda apparatus Friday, halting all local current affairs programming on state radio and television. The new information minister promised to overhaul the state media, which had been controlled by officials loyal to Port-au-Prince Police Chief Michel-Joseph Francois, one of the leaders of the September, 1991, military coup that overthrew President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Honduran Supreme Court Judge Marco Tulio Alvarado denied a U.S. request to extradite former Haitian police chief Lt. Col. Michel-Joseph Francois, who is accused of helping Colombian cartels ferry at least 33 tons of drugs into the United States. Alvarado said U.S. authorities had failed to provide credible evidence supporting the petition for extradition. Francois is wanted by a U.S. federal court in Miami on drug-related charges. Francois could be released from prison soon if the U.S.

A proposal by a group of legislators previously opposed to the return of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is "significant" but still lacks the necessary components to settle Haiti's dangerous crisis, senior diplomats said Sunday. The 11-point plan sent to special U.N. representative Dante Caputo on Saturday generally follows the outlines of an agreement signed in July by Aristide and his main antagonist, army commander Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras.

Michel Francois is the most important man in Haiti. Everyone agrees on that. In the words of a leading businessman, Francois "is the center, the hub. He is in full control." The descriptions abound. He "is the major obstacle" to ending Haiti's current bloody nightmare, "the capstone of all corruption," a "killer." Whatever he is called, Lt. Col. Michel Francois is, as a senior international official said, "totally capable" of derailing a U.N.

Acting under direct army pressure, the National Assembly voted Monday to replace deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and set the stage for new elections within 90 days. With soldiers ringing the building and occasionally firing shots in the air, the lawmakers unanimously invoked an emergency provision of the Haitian constitution to declare the presidency vacant and chose Supreme Court Justice Joseph Nerette as interim head of state. It was not known whether he would accept.

Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras is to resign no later than Friday as commander in chief of the 7,000-strong military as part of an accord reached last July aimed at restoring democracy to Haiti and reinstating exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Oct. 30. Although Cedras has said he will abide by his promise to retire from the army, he has done nothing to prevent anti-Aristide violence by the military and Haitian police that has terrorized the country for two months. The U.N.

Re "In Haiti, Wheels of Justice Turn Ever So Slowly," April 11: Isn't The Times being naive in thinking that those Haitian thugs who drove President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from office will be brought to justice? Though elected by the people of Haiti, the so-called "mad priest," Aristide, had little credibility among the leading circles in the U.S. and was abhorred by his country's entrepreneurs. If Michel-Joseph Francois and Emmanuel Constant are forced to appear in a court of law, they will surely defend their actions by claiming a tie to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.