Milestones

HANNAH BEECHSEARCH SUSPENDEDfor the body of MICHEL TRUDEAU,23, adventurous youngest son of Canada's former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who died after a snap avalanche swept him into an icy lake; after ice and bad weather foiled divers in Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park, British Columbia. Trudeau, who studied marine biology and worked as a ski-lift attendant, was returning from a wilderness skiing trip when the avalanche plowed into him and three friends.DIED. ALAN PAKULA,70, movie director whose popular films (Sophie's Choice, All the President's Men) explored the complex decisions people must face; in New York. Pakula, who produced or directed more than 20 movies in his career, was killed in a freak car accident when a metal pipe smashed through the windshield of his car and struck him on the head.DIED. STOKELY CARMICHAEL,57, charismatic civil-rights firebrand, whose militant Black Panthers rallied around his call for black power; in Conakry, Guinea. He had moved there in 1969 and changed his name to Kwame Ture, in honor of two African socialists (see Eulogy, below).DIED. JACQUES MEDECIN,70, disgraced former mayor of Nice, whose 24-year grip on the French Riviera city was marked by rampant graft; in Punta del Este, Uruguay, where he had fled after facing corruption charges in 1990. After four years on the run, Medecin was extradited to France and served 21 months in prison for accepting $727,000 in bribes and pocketing $2.5 million from the Nice opera.CONVICTED. MONIKA HAAS,50, beguiling German terrorist, who used a baby carriage to smuggle grenades and guns to the hijackers of a Lufthansa flight to Somalia in 1977; in Frankfurt. Although Haas was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for aiding the Palestinian commandos, she had already served two-and-a-half years while on trial, and was freed on probation.MARRIED. MEA SON,widow of Khmer Rouge strongman Pol Pot, and TEP KHUNNAL,ex-Khmer Rouge rebel; in a refugee camp in Thailand, where they fled after defecting to the Cambodian government two months ago. Despite Pol Pot's brutality as mastermind of a terror regime that killed 2 million people, his second wife described her late husband as a loving father to their 14-year-old daughter.DEFEATED. MASAHIDE OTA,73, outspoken leftist governor of Okinawa, by KEIICHI INAMINE,65, local businessman, heartening supporters of a continued American military presence on the southern Japanese island. The U.S. bases have divided Okinawans. Outrage mounted in 1995 following the rape of a 12-year-old girl by U.S. Marines and reached fever pitch last month after a pair of hit-and-run car accidents involving American soldiers. But some support the base for bringing in dollars to the depressed prefecture.KWAME TURE was my friend for 40 years. The thing that touched me most about him was that he loved his African-American people. He was deeply committed to easing their plight and worked all of his 57 years to improve their conditions. One of his greatest contributions was the 1966 wake-up call to black Americans that they are a mighty people who can and must determine and define their own destiny. As young men, Kwame--then known as STOKELY CARMICHAEL--and I worked together in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. We honestly felt that we could topple the racism and segregation that had stifled and still continues to stifle the aspirations of generations of African-Americans. I learned much from Kwame about courage, commitment, strategy and being uncompromising in the pursuit of revolutionary social change.I believe that Kwame was a man ahead of his time. That's why he was so impatient with those who did not share his vision. Most activists eventually hung up their swords and shields; Kwame, however, never changed. He was the fighter, the rebel, the person storming the battlements until the end. While we will greatly miss our fallen warrior, his legacy will be eternal.By Marion Barry Jr., Mayor of Washington, D.C.