#4484: Helms unblocks aid to Haiti (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 02 Jul 2000 16:22:28 -0400
From:nozier@tradewind.net
To: Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>
Subject: Helms unblocks aid to Haiti

Published Saturday, July 1, 2000, in the Miami Herald 
 Helms unblocks aid to Haiti

 WASHINGTON -- (AFP) -- Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., head of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, has decided to unblock most of the aid
destined for Haiti which has been frozen since April, congressional and
administration sources said Friday. The aid totals $22 million of the
$26.3 million frozen by Helms, the press office for the U.S. State
Department's Agency for International Development said Thursday.
 A congressional source close to Helms confirmed that the senator lifted
his block of most of the aid, which he initiated to protest the
treatment of a U.S. company in Haiti. The Rice Corp., a subsidiary of a
Houston firm, was fined 28 million gourdes ($1.4 million) by Haiti
following alleged customs irregularities. Although the dispute has not
been resolved, Helms decided to unblock part of the aid package because
he ``doesn't want to hurt the Haitian people,'' the congressional source
said.