14069: (Chamberlain) Haiti-Return to Misery (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By PAISLEY DODDS

   ACUL DU NORD, Haiti, Dec 11 (AP) -- When Jose Morency and more than 200
other Haitians made a dash for the Miami coastline after their boat ran
aground, he plunged his hands into the U.S. shore and filled his pockets
with sand as a souvenir.
   Like him, the sand was sent back to Haiti.
   "I'm back in the same place I started from and now things are even
worse," said Morency, 22, idle in the dilapidated wooden house he shares
with a dozen siblings. "We're at our limit."
   In the two weeks he was away during his late October bid to enter
America, the political situation in Haiti deteriorated. Steady protests
have erupted against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's embattled
government, blamed by many for increased poverty and insecurity.
   In the past three weeks, more than 350 people have been injured and
three killed in clashes between Aristide partisans, opposition supporters
and police.
   The Bush administration has tried to discourage fleeing Haitians,
stepping up Coast Guard patrols and detaining illegal Haitian migrants
pending deportation.
   A year ago, most were freed while their applications were considered.
Now, most are quickly repatriated. Those who file for asylum are detained.
   "I wasn't even given the chance to ask for political asylum," Morency
said. "The translator asked me why I left and I told him I was running from
Aristide supporters. After days of detention in Miami, I was sent back and
nothing else was said to me."
   The Immigration and Naturalization Service refuses to discuss asylum
policy, INS spokeswoman Ana Santiago said.
   But Cheryl Little of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center said making
asylum claims can be difficult for Haitians who fail to reach dry land.
Even if migrants are questioned aboard Coast Guard cutters, claims can't be
processed without asylum officers present.
   "Our concern is those interviews are not nearly as thorough as they need
to be, if they occur at all," Little said. "Haitians genuinely in fear for
their life today have nowhere to go."
   Meanwhile, reports of political intimidation are increasing.
   In the west-coast town of Gonaives, Aristide militants allegedly torched
homes of more than a dozen opposition supporters Dec. 1. Scores of
journalists have been harassed -- and two killed in the last two years --
for reports critical of Aristide.
   While the government said it opposes violence and intimidation, Morency
and others say police sympathetic to Aristide harass them.
   Haiti's charged political situation has made things worse for Morency,
whose large family saved what it had to send him on the boat. He said his
politics have all but eliminated his opportunities in his home village of
Acul du Nord, 30 miles west of Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second largest city.
   About 90 percent of villagers are unemployed, and most live off of the
land or money from relatives abroad.
   Morency left Haiti on an overcrowded wooden boat. Some passengers
reportedly drank their urine to survive after running out of water on the
eight-day journey.
   The boat arrived in Miami on Oct. 29 and, with the U.S. Coast Guard in
pursuit, 211 Haitians jumped overboard and made a dramatic dash to shore
and onto a major highway.
   Seventeen who did not make it to land were sent home Nov. 5. Most others
still are detained in Miami.
   "Since I've been back I've been hiding and moving from house to house so
the Aristide supporters won't find me," said Jasmin Destin, 28. "As soon as
there's another boat, I'll be on it."
   Destin leapt off the boat and was almost at the shore when a woman
grabbed his ankle for help, delaying him long enough for the Coast Guard to
detain him.
   He said he was held aboard a Coast Guard boat for nearly a week, given
only a little food and a small blanket.
   "The only country that could have helped us has turned its back," said
Destin's grandfather, Jean Blaize.
   President Bill Clinton's administration sent 20,000 troops to Haiti in
1994 to oust a three-year-old military regime, reinstate Aristide as the
Caribbean nation's first democratically elected president and halt an
influx of tens of thousands of boat people.
   Eight years later, the desperate, dangerous journeys continue.
   "All that I have to show for the trip is the sand I picked up when I was
in the water, but now even most of that has disappeared," Morency said.
"We're all losing hope."