Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
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FORT-DE-FRANCE, Martinique (AFP): French President Jacques Chirac joined the people of Martinique in paying homage Wednesday at a moving, simple ceremony to the 160 victims of a plane crash in Venezuela.
Watched by tens of thousands of people dressed in white tops, 160 children -- one for each of the dead -- placed a candle in front of a temporary chapel of rest and a memorial inscribed with the names of the victims.
Cries of anguish rang out from the crowd gathered in the heat and humidity of a stadium in Fort-de-France, capital of the French Caribbean territory.
There were no speeches by politicians despite the presence here not only of Chirac, but also his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez and elected local and regional leaders.
The ceremony began with a Bach cantata while music from Mozart, Handel and Negro spirituals interspersed brief homages by leaders representing Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Jewish, Hindu and Muslim faiths.
Chavez laid a first wreath at the base of the memorial, followed by Chirac and local Martinique officials whose wreath was given the red, white and blue colours of France.
Then a minute of silence was held.
All 152 passengers on the flight, a charter run by the Colombian-owned West Caribbean Airways, were Martinique residents returning home after a week-long vacation in Panama.
Eight Colombian crew members also died in the August 16 crash in northwest Venezuela.
"France is in mourning," Chirac said earlier as he arrived on the island.
The entire country, he said, was "suffering intensely," adding that "today, the heart of each Frenchman and Frenchwoman beats in unison with that of their Martiniquais brothers and sisters."
Chirac earlier met privately with many of the relatives.
The deaths shattered the 400,000 strong community on the island, where many people were related to or knew the victims.
For families, it was a last moment to bid farewell to their loved ones. The remains of those aboard the aircraft were shredded and burned in the crash and in many cases dental records or DNA tests are being used to identify them.
The French president has promised to do everything to clear up the reasons and circumstances of "this terrible tragedy."
Meanwhile, authorities in Venezuela have given the so-called "black boxes" recovered from the wreckage of the plane to French air accident officials.
France's Accident Investigation Bureau (BEA), which has the equipment that Venezuela lacks to read the data, said that it had started work by evaluating the state of the boxes.
The devices, which in fact are coloured orange, are flight data and cockpit voice recorders. They will be tapped to yield information on the plane's final fateful minutes in a bid to determine what went wrong.
According to early reports, the two engines on the McDonnell Douglas MD-82 aircraft cut out one after the other, leading some experts to speculate that a fuel problem may have contributed to the crash.
Another theory is that the plane may have been affected by crosswinds.
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