16513: (Hermantin) Miami-Herald editorial-Policy on Haitians still wrong (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Sat, Aug. 23, 2003

Policy on Haitians still wrong

VERBATIM

In tribute to Arthur C. Helton, a longtime refugee and human-rights advocate
killed in the bombing of U.N. headquarters in Baghdad this week, we excerpt
a column that he wrote for The Herald on Haitian refugees in 1991. Many of
the questions he posed remain concerns today.

Images of men, women and children encamped indefinitely on the decks of U.S.
Coast Guard cutters in the Windward Passage are haunting our consciousness.
Fortunate to be rescued from the small, unseaworthy boats in which they have
fled, Haitians crouch on the cutter decks, awaiting the next determination
of their fate.

Will they be given safe haven in the United States or some other country in
the region? Or will they instead be returned by U.S. authorities to Haiti
and possibly fall victim to anarchic violence or targeted repression?

In forging a response to these questions, the United States has chosen the
one approach forbidden by international refugee law -- return of Haitians
without adequate assurances that they are not refugees who fear persecution.
In the process, the United States is also creating a precedent that is
wholly destructive of the international consensus on refugee protection. The
countries of Western Europe, for example, can now cite the actions of the
United States to justify rejecting safe haven for Yugoslavians fleeing that
terrible conflict. . . .

President [George H.W.] Bush has justified the return decision as an attempt
to avoid a ''magnet'' effect creating an exodus from Haiti. But reports from
U.N. and various embassy officials in Haiti estimate any potential outflow
at no more than 5,000, hardly an unmanageable number. The State Department
supports the return solution with the assertion that there is no history of
persecution of Haitian boat people -- despite disturbing reports by
human-rights groups. . . .

The sad tale of the Haitian boat people is not new. The U.S.-Haitian
interdiction agreement was established in September 1981 by the Reagan
administration in an effort to stem the arrival of Haitian boat people.
Under this program, U.S. Coast Guard vessels are authorized (not required)
to stop and board Haitian and unflagged vessels on the high seas and return
them to Haiti.

Immigration and Naturalization Service interviewers examine the intercepted
Haitians on the cutters. If found to have a reasonable fear of returning to
Haiti, the person is to be taken to the United States to apply for asylum.
But conditions on the cutters and at Guantánamo make impossible a fair and
reliable assessment about who merits refugee protection. The procedures are
simply incapable of identifying all of the Haitians who fear persecution in
their homeland.

. . . The outrageous and brutal fact is that the United States is returning
refugees to a place where they may face persecution. This is as wrong as it
gets with respect to the human rights of refugees, and it must be ended.

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