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caribbean roundup PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) – A delegation of five Caribbean foreign ministers arrived to meet Haiti’s interim leaders, hoping to restore relations soured by the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and government in-action to rein in armed rebels. Talks were to determine whether Haiti and the 15-member Caribbean Community resume links that have been frozen for the past four months while the regional bloc has refused to recognize the new U.S.-backed government. The foreign ministers of Antigua, the Bahamas, Barbados, Trinidad and Guyana made no comments to report-ers as they arrived at Port-au-Prince’s airport and were whisked to waiting vehicles ahead of talks with interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue. The Caribbean Community laid out several conditions at a summit last month for recognizing the government, includ-ing disarming rebels whose three-week uprising helped oust Aristide on Feb. 29 and who still control parts of the countryside. Haiti’s leaders have been slow to disarm the rebels, many of whom are former soldiers who staged a coup against Aristide in 1991. Some have joined the police force. Haiti’s interim government suspend-ed membership in the regional bloc after Jamaica gave temporary refuge to Aristide two weeks after his departure. The bloc, in turn, withheld support for the interim government, raising con-cerns over Aristide’s claim of a coup orchestrated by the U.S. government. U.S. officials vehemently deny the claim. When Aristide left Haiti, he was flown to the Central African Republic aboard a flight arranged by U.S. officials, who had become increasingly critical of Aristide months before his ouster. He arrived in Jamaica on March 15 and left May 30 for temporary exile in South Africa. Caribbean leaders also have demand-ed that Haiti guarantee general elections will be held in the near future. Latortue has said parliamentary and presidential elections would be held next year, though dates haven’t been set. Some Caribbean leaders also want the release of Aristide’s former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, who turned himself in to authorities late last month to face accusations of orchestrating political killings. Neptune says he is innocent. Latortue has said Neptune’s fate would be left to Haiti’s justice system, though Neptune’s supporters say they doubt he will be treated fairly. Haitian and U.S. officials have welcomed the Caribbean Community’s decision to engage in talks with the interim government as a step toward normalizing relations. Some Caribbean nations wanted the United Nations to investigate the circumstances of Aristide’s departure but dropped the request after they suspected the United States and France would use their veto power to block such the request. Leaders instead have won agreement from the Organization of the American States to look into Aristide’s claims. It’s unclear how soon that inquiry is to begin. The Caribbean delegation was ac-companied by Colin Granderson, as-sistant secretary general of the Carib-bean Community. The team also planned to meet with interim President Boniface Alexandre, members of Latortue’s Cabinet and leaders of civil society groups PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) – The man chosen to head the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) has said that he will not allow the Court to be influenced or manipulated by politicians. Michael de la Bastide Associated Press that although the Court is governed by a treaty which should protect it from such interference; he will also make it difficult for politicians to misuse their power. "I can’t say if (the Treaty) will prevent them from making an attempt but I’ll be rather surprised if they did," he said. "I think the heads of government who appointed me know me well enough not to expect that any initiative of that sort will succeed." Mr. de la Bastide who served as Trinidad and Tobago’s Chief Justice from 1995 to 2002 has a history of dealing firmly with politicians he suspects are threatening the independence of the judiciary. During his tenure as Chief Justice, he had a very public confrontation with then Attorney General Ramesh Maha-raj who wanted to become more in-volved in the process by which the judiciary accessed government funding. In an interview with the Trinidad Guardian subsequent to his retirement, the former chief justice said he felt the attorney general was "assuming powers in relation to the judiciary that none of his predecessors had ever exercised." The 67-year-old feels that the Ca-ribbean public still has to be convinced about the viability of the CCJ, but so too are many doubtful politicians and lawyers. "They are tough nuts to crack sometimes," he said. "The lawyers are by nature very conservative, this is a step in a new direction and some of them appear a little timid and reluctant to let go of the Privy Council. "Politicians have their own agendas sometimes and in some cases the problem is that there has to be the cooperation of opposition to enable governments to put through legislation which would amend constitutions and it’s al-ways difficult to achieve that consensus." Mr. de la Bastide believes the CCJ will enable the development of Carib-bean jurisprudence. Pointing to the recent Privy Council ruling which banned the mandatory death penalty in Jamaica but retained it in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, Mr. de la Bastide said the judgement illustrated the need for law lords to un-derstand the region’s societal context. "Recent decisions by the Privy Coun-cil have demonstrated how fine the line is sometimes between a constitutional decision that goes one way and one that goes another," he said. "I think it is essential for a final court in those circumstances to have that familiarity, that closeness with the community affected that would give it the ability to make a decision which is best suited for that particular society." He said the Caribbean’s jurors have been "getting it right quite a lot for the last 40 years" and he does not fear any criticism that will come the Court’s way. "Judgements are there to be analyzed and criticized and I don’t have any doubt that we will be able to marshal a court that will achieve basic justice in all the matters that come before it," he said. Mr. de la Bastide who was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1975, graduated from Oxford with first class honours in 1959. After being called to the Bar in Feb-ruary 1961, he served as Crown Coun-sel in the Office of the Attorney Gen-eral in Port of Spain until 1963 when he entered private practice. He was a senior partner in the firm of De La Bastide and Jacelon before his appointment as Chief Justice in 1995. He was an independent Senator from 1976 to 1981 and also served as Pre-sident of Law Association for 3 terms from 1987 to 1990. An avid sportsman, he played hockey and lawn tennis and was a member of the Trinidad and Tobago national hockey team at the Pan American Games in 1971. Mr de la Bastide also represented his country at international bridge tour-naments between 1980 and 1995. CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) – Venezuela and 13 Caribbean countries discussed the creation of a new company that would offer oil at cheaper prices for the region, Venezuela’s oil minister said. Venezuela proposed a company called PetroCaribe, which would distribute crude and refined oil products to the Caribbean at cheaper prices than other dealers in the area, said Rafael Ramirez. Ramirez discussed the new agreement with representatives and ministers from Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago. Venezuela already has a deal with several countries in the Caribbean for preferential oil prices, but Ramirez said that the dealers that distribute fuel in the area sell them at unfair prices. KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) – A number of businesses in one Jamaican parish were forced to close down operations recently after gunmen ordered them closed following the murder of their gang leader. The gunmen from the notorious one order gang, wreaked havoc in sections of St. Catherine, a parish situated close to Kingston, by threatening business owners and blocking major roads leading into the capital. The gunmen in St. Catherine were angry after their notorious leader Oliver ‘Buba’ Smith was gunned down on Monday. Smith was one of the most feared men in the parish, operating the One-Order gang, a major criminal network which extended into other parishes. Police said he was killed by one of his own gang members who was angry after Smith failed to share the funds collected from a massive extortion racket which the gang reportedly operated in Spanish Town, the capital of St. Catherine. Despite a heavy police and military presence in the Spanish Town community, gang members defied the police by blocked roads and ignoring efforts by the police to clear them. Hundreds of motorists were prevented from heading into Kingston as the area was held up for hours. When the gunmen learnt of their leader’s murder, a number of them took to the streets firing shots indiscriminately. During the fracas, police say they killed two of them and seized an AK-47 assault rifle. Opposition Jamaica Labor Party MP for the area, Olivia Babsy Grange has also been caught up in this situation, as Police said the car Smith was driving when he was killed belonged to the MP. Miss Grange denied this and said she had guaranteed a loan for a man who is a resident of her constituency and as such, her name was recorded on the car documents as a co-owner.
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