13476: This Week in Haiti 20:33 10/30/2002 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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                           HAITI PROGRES
              "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                      * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                  October 30 - November 5, 2002
                          Vol. 20, No. 33

TWO HUNDRED REFUGEES LAND IN MIAMI, CREATING TELEVISION SPECTACLE

Over one hundred Haitian refugees leapt off the bow of a 50-foot
wooden motorized boat and splashed a few yards onto the shores of
Key Biscayne on the afternoon of Oct. 29. They then clambered
over the coiffed hedges of the fashionable Miami island and began
walking or running towards the city of Miami, about two miles
away. Some tried to flag down cars as they poured onto the six-
lane highway which runs through the key. One Miami-bound pick-up
truck stopped and about 20 refugees climbed into the back; when
the pick-up didn't move, they climbed out.

What made the event so spectacular was that the scene was
televised live by cameras in helicopters circling overhead. Coast
Guard boats ringed the boat off-shore while police and
Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) agents sped up in
cars with lights flashing to intercept the refugees on-shore.

Almost all of the Haitians were rounded up by authorities and
made to sit along the highway shoulder as they awaited buses to
take them to detention facilities. Some refugees may have eluded
police, people at the scene reported. At press time, authorities
made a preliminary estimate that 206 refugees were on the boat.

The refugees claimed that the vessel had no captain, which is
unlikely. Authorities said they would be conducting interviews to
try to determine who the boat's captain was.

The Rickenbacker Causeway, the sole bridge which links the
mainland to Key Biscayne, was closed for about two hours starting
at 4:30 p.m. as authorities tried to seal off the area and
capture all the refugees. A huge traffic-jam snarled downtown
Miami until well after nightfall.

Dozens of Haitian community activists and immigration lawyers
rushed to the scene, along with a swarm of reporters, in an
attempt to ensure humane treatment for the refugees. Immigration
officials said that the refugees would be taken to the Krome
Avenue Detention Center, and some of the women to an INS
detention center in Broward county, which is just north of
Miami's Dade county. There were also children on the boat, which
authorities said might be taken to Boys' Town, a Catholic
juvenile center in West Miami.

Unlike other refugees who make it to U.S. shores, Haitians are
detained in jails rather than being released into the community
to stay with friends or family while they await a decision on
their asylum claims. Cuban refugees are even more privileged,
being granted almost automatic asylum if they reach U.S. shores.

The refugees claimed that their boat had come directly from
Haiti. Some said they had been at sea for 8 days, others 18 days.
They also claimed to have picked up 3 Cubans on a raft along the
way, claimed North Miami Mayor Joe Celestin, who spoke to some of
the refugees at the scene.

The boat, which had apparently run aground after the Coast Guard
pursued it for 2 hours starting at 2 p.m., was towed away after
the refugees were all off it.

Among the passengers was a woman 5 months pregnant, who was taken
to Jackson Memorial Hospital and treated for dehydration.

After their capture, the refugees were loaded into windowless
white buses and driven to detention facilities.

"Due to the Bush administration's blockage of all loans and aid
to Haiti, the economic situation in the country is very, very
bad," said Lavarice Gaudin, a leader with the Miami community
organization Veye Yo. "This is why people are fleeing. People
have no choice. Tomorrow there might be another boat."

Rarely are Haitian asylum claims granted. On Oct. 25, 44 men and
8 women were deported to Haiti. Some of them had been held in INS
detention facilities for over a year. Veye Yo held a picket
outside the INS Miami headquarters on Tuesday night to demand the
release of the refugees and equal treatment for Haitian refugees.
The group plans a larger demonstration for Wednesday.

"Haitians are always discriminated against in this country," said
Gaudin, who was at the scene of the refugees' landing. "If they
were Cubans, the authorities would bring them water, food, and
clothing. But they treat the Haitians differently. I saw some of
the officers who got on the boat were holding their guns cocked
and ready as if they were going to war with somebody."

Last year, the Coast Guard intercepted on the high seas 1400
Haitians fleeing to the U.S..


A LETTER FROM PAUL LARAQUE

Kim Ives
Haïti Progrès
1398 Flatbush Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11210

New York, October 25, 2002

Dear Kim:

I want to thank you for inviting me to participate in the special
program held by the Haitian Collective at WBAI yesterday, October
24. I congratulate all of you for such a program. Unfortunately,
I did not have time to express my opinion on the current
political situation in Haiti.

My wife, Marcelle Pierre-Louis Laraque, and I went back to our
native land for the first time in 1986, after 25 years in exile,
at the fall of the Duvalier dynasty. When she retired in 1989, we
left the United States with the hope to stay in Haiti until
death. We were visiting our children and grand-children in New
York when the Cédras/François military clique overthrew president
Jean-Bertrand Aristide's government on September 30, 1991 and
killed thousands of poor people. On December 7 of the same year,
my younger brother, Guy F. Laraque, was murdered in Delmas, Port-
au-Prince, by "zenglendos," criminals of Haitian origin sent back
from the U.S. to disrupt social life and prevent the people from
organizing a revolutionary movement capable of resisting both the
Haitian oligarchy and foreign domination.

During President Aristide's exile here, Alexander Taylor, co-
director of Curbstone Press, asked me what he could do to help
Haiti, in his own field. I suggested an anthology of Haitian
poetry translated into English. The great American poet Jack
Hirschman, founder of the "Jacques Roumain Cultural Brigade" in
San Francisco, whom I had met thanks to your mother Jill, thought
it would be better to concentrate on Haitian Creole poetry. Then,
we did "Open Gate"* together.

In 1994, President Aristide accepted to regain power through a
multinational occupation of our country, under Washington's
control. My wife and I could not accept it. Our second exile
started. Marcelle's death on November 15, 1998 left me on the
border of despair. I am surviving because of my family's love and
the solidarity of comrades like you.

Neither "Lavalas" nor "Convergence," both at the service of the
dominant classes and of Washington's neo-liberal economy for
capitalist globalization, can solve the problems of the Haitian
people. Peaceful if possible, violent if necessary, only a
revolution will. The struggle continues.

I will die with Haiti and Marcelle in my heart.

Sincerely,
Paul Laraque

* Open Gate: An Anthology of Haitian Creole Poetry, Curbstone
Press, 2001.

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