12717: THE SITUATION IN HAITI IS DESPERATE (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Stanley  Lucas <slucas@iri.org>

THE SITUATION IN HAITI IS DESPERATE (House of Representatives - July 27, 2000)

[Page: H7194]
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss) is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, nobody in the Clinton-Gore administration talks much about the situation in Haiti anymore, even though the situation there is very desperate. I find this regrettable because any reasonable observer will say that the Clinton-Gore policy has failed badly, that there is no democracy in Haiti, and that Haiti's leaders have returned to the old ways of solving problems through violence and intimidation, fear, repression, and even murder.

The Haitian parliament has been shuttered since President Preval dissolved it in 1998. A few weeks ago, Haiti held elections that were supposed to have seated a new parliament and provided a road map out of the government crisis that has been going on so long; but Aristide partisans perverted the election process, producing election count results that no international observer is able to certify as legitimate.

Haiti's friends around the world have weighed in with concern and condemnation, whether it is the OAS, CARICOM, the U.N., Japan, France, and so forth. But to illustrate what is really going on in Haiti, I want to tell the story of Mr. Leon Manus. Mr. Manus is the president of Haiti's provisional electoral council. That is the body that oversaw the recent balloting. It is a body that is meant to ensure full, fair, free, democratic, transparent elections; but one will not find President Manus in Port-au-Prince or anywhere else in Haiti, for that matter.

The fact is that Mr. Manus was chased out of his country in fear of his life and his family's lives. He is here in the United States seeing political asylum.

How did this happen? Why did this happen? According to an accurate report in the Los Angeles Times, Mr. Manus' relatives say that Manus was summoned to the presidential palace after the elections, where President Preval and former President Aristide pressured him to certify the recent fraudulent election count as valid, but Mr. Manus steadfastly refused.

He would not be a party to corruption, and he left the presidential palace and began what turned out to be a several-day flight in fear of his life that eventually led him to the safety here in the United States of America.

I recently had the opportunity to meet with Mr. Manus. I can say he is an absolutely committed man, committed to democracy and to a deep love for his family and his country. I think he wants nothing more than to return to his country and build a true democracy, but he cannot do so as long as the power in Haiti remains usurped by the new dictators there, and these are the very same folks the United States returned to power just a few years ago.

Make no mistake about what is going on in Haiti. Certainly factions of the country have been slowly and deliberately silencing their enemies and laying the groundwork for totalitarian rule, which we witnessed today. These people are not interested in democracy. They are not interested in helping their people find a better life, and they desperately need one in Haiti. They are only interested in preserving their own power; and as all of this has gone on, the Clinton and Gore administration has been inept and in denial.

Time and time again they have passed up opportunity to make clear to the Haitian leadership what it means to practice democracy, to build democratic institutions. I cannot fathom why they continue to defend the situation in Haiti or aid and abet the activities of the Aristide crowd. They are not Democrats.

Given this total failure, Congress must act to help stop the move toward dictatorship in Haiti. In this year's foreign operations bill, he House voted to prohibit any aid to the government of Haiti with a few exceptions such as counterdrug assistance and humanitarian food aid for the people and medicine for the sick. This is a good first step, but there is plenty more to be done.

Another good and logical step would be for the United States to revoke visas issued to corrupt Haitian government officials who are credibly alleged to be involved in narcotics trafficking, money laundering, and other crimes. Haiti's leaders have turned their backs on democracy and, saddest of all, have turned their backs on their own people.

The Clinton administration has fumbled U.S. policy toward Haiti at a cost of billions to the American taxpayer and immeasurable suffering to the Haitian people.

Mr. Speaker, I challenge the Clinton-Gore administration to publicly admit their failure in Haiti, and I invite them to join in a policy that supports democracy rather than Aristide and his cronies.