18794: (Chamberlain) Haiti-Boatpeople (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By MARK STEVENSON

   ACUL DU NORD, Feb 18 (AP) -- The men painstakingly shaping the wooden
stay of a boat with a homemade tool reckon it'll be ready in two months to
take to the seas and, hopefully, reach the shores of Florida.
   These would-be migrants are preparing their escape from Haiti at a time
of rebellion that poses the greatest threat yet to the presidency of
Jean-Bertrand Aristide. But their reason for fleeing has been the same for
many years -- the lack of jobs and a future.
   "There is no work here, no money, nothing to do," 26-year-old Dorelus
Franco said Wednesday, standing guard over two half-finished boats as
another man worked on the wooden stay with a sharpened piece of steel.
   "I want to go," Franco said. "I'm planning to go."
   "You have to understand there is such a big difference between here and
there," said Jean Baptiste, 31.
   The 30-foot and 40-foot vessels were begun months ago at this hamlet
called Camp Louise on Acul Bay, about 10 miles west of Cap-Haitien, where
Aristide militants barricaded themselves against a feared rebel incursion.
   The boats already have their ribs and keels laid out and just await
their planking and tarring.
   Aid agencies, Caribbean nations and the United States fear the bloody
uprising that began Feb. 5 and has taken 60 lives could spark a mass exodus
of Haitians.
   One sign that a refugee crisis is imminent would be a large-scale
construction of boats like these. In Washington on Wednesday, State
Department spokesman Richard Boucher said there are no signs of such
activity, but the administration wants to "make sure that we're prepared
should something happen."
   Amnesty International warned the emergence among rebel leaders of
ex-soldiers and death squad leaders means "fears of a mass population
outflow from Haiti are bound to increase."
   Tens of thousands of Haitian boatpeople fled to U.S. shores to escape
brutal military leaders who ousted Aristide in 1991. Hundreds of Aristide
supporters were killed, maimed and tortured before President Clinton sent
20,000 U.S. troops to restore Aristide and halt the exodus.
   But boatpeople have begun leaving again since donors froze aid over
flawed legislative elections, aggravating already difficult living
conditions in the country.
   U.S. Coast Guard patrols have caught some 1,126 Haitians at sea since
October, compared to 2,013 in the previous 12 months. Those who don't make
it to shore are returned home.
   A spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Joung-ah
Ghedini, warned Tuesday that Haiti's situation "could go from precarious to
a full-blown emergency" on short notice.
   At Acul Bay, the idyllic setting -- the crystalline waters of the
Caribbean, the banana trees, the beaches -- belies the utter hopelessness
of the residents.
   "Everyday is a holiday because there is never any work here," said
Altiery Saintil, 31.
   Asked if they would leave for Miami, about a dozen of the 15 townspeople
gathered at a crossroad nodded their heads.
   "Everyone one of us would go. Every one," said Pierre Robinson, 23, who
hopes to become an engineer but can't afford to attend college.
   However, many said they would not risk the voyage on the rickety boats
being built in the bay, into which 50 or 60 people could cram for the
dangerous crossing.
   It's not known how many Haitians die trying to reach the United States.
Stories surface only when a boat capsizes close to Bahamian or U.S. shores.
And then there are the constant patrols of the U.S. Coast Guard.
   "We won't go that way, because the Americans catch you at sea and they
just send you back," Saintil said.
   But given the more attractive price of a boat trip -- about $800 versus
the $5,000 needed for fake documents and a plane ticket -- most who leave
do so by sea.
   As the adults worked on the craft, a young girl in a ragged T-shirt that
read "Miami" frolicked amid the half-built vessels, and adults were left to
wonder.
   The U.S. Coast Guard last stopped Haitian boatpeople on Feb. 1, when 148
people were caught at sea.
   "Why? Why do they not want us there?" Baptiste asked.