26985: (news) hamberlain: Haiti-Peacekeeper Funeral (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Dec 21 (AP) -- A Canadian police officer slain while
serving as a U.N. peacekeeper in Haiti was honored Wednesday by volunteers
from 30 nations who saluted his casket, which was draped in Canadian and
U.N. flags.
   Mark Bourque was ambushed and shot in the leg while driving Tuesday with
another peacekeeper on the outskirts of the volatile slum of Cite Soleil.
He died shortly afterward at a U.N. hospital.
   Bourque, 57, from Stoneham, Quebec, was one of 25 retired Canadian
police officers who came to Haiti last October to provide support for the
Jan. 8 national elections.
   "He was an extremely hard worker. He had become an expert in fighting
organized crime in Canada, and it was this expertise that had brought him
to Haiti," said Jean Lafaille, a Canadian police officer serving in Haiti.
   Bourque's body was to be flown to Quebec later Wednesday. He is survived
by his wife and two children.
   He was the sixth peacekeeper to die in action since the U.N. mission,
which numbers 8,800 soldiers and police, came to stabilize Haiti in June
2004 -- four months after a bloody rebellion ousted former President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide.