30417: Durban (pub): NY Times on Capsized Refugee Vessel (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Lance Durban <Lpdurban@yahoo.com> posts the following from New York
Times...

May 19, 2007
New Routes and New Risk to Flee Haiti
By MARC LACEY
PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos, May 16 ? There is no conceivable way
to get from this island to Miami by bus. But the traffickers who ply
Haiti?s northern coastline in search of those willing to risk their
bleak lives for better ones abroad tell some tall tales to fill their
rickety boats.

They describe this island chain, 150 miles off Haiti?s northern coast,
as being an easy hop to Miami, the ultimate goal of most migrating
Haitians. Sometimes they tell migrants from Haiti?s interior that the
United States is a bus ride away as they talk of the big paychecks and
full stomachs that await them.

The reality is different, of course, as was made clear when an
overloaded Haitian sloop capsized off the coast of Turks and Caicos
recently. As many as 90 migrants may have died in that episode, which
passengers on the vessel blamed on the aggressive tactics of the local
police.

They were part of a swelling number of Haitians abandoning their
country this year, apparently disillusioned with the slow pace of
change coming from Haiti?s year-old government. But with patrols along
the Florida coastline making it increasingly difficult to land there,
desperate Haitians are ?island hopping,? as the United States Coast
Guard calls it, looking for alternative routes and badly straining
relations with their neighbors.

Turks and Caicos is hop No. 1, and it is not altogether happy about it.
Local Haitians charge that authorities? efforts to combat illegal
migrants have become so aggressive that they believe accusations that a
police boat may have caused the capsizing of the Haitian vessel on May
4, despite official denials.

Haitians now make up a huge percentage of the population here,
exceeding the number of other residents, according to government
estimates. With migrant boats landing regularly, authorities here and
across the Caribbean are struggling to contain them.

?It?s a tremendous strain on the government, and we?d appreciate
international assistance,? said Lee Penn, who runs the detention center
for illegal migrants in Providenciales, the financial capital of Turks
and Caicos. ?We?re feeding them and housing them and repatriating them
? and it?s costing us.?

What exactly happened at sea on May 4 remains uncertain, and is still
under investigation by maritime authorities from Britain, which
administers the territory.

But it is clear that the voyage was hellish. After a day and a half
packed together in a tiny craft, with nothing but water all around, the
migrants finally saw lights on the horizon as they approached Turks and
Caicos. Excitement grew, and then dreams turned to nightmares.

With a police boat on the scene in rough waters, the Haitian boat went
over on its side. Screams filled the air and bodies hit the water. In
all, 61 dead Haitians were plucked from the sea, some of them with
shark bites. Twenty or so others were never found.

?The closest thing I could compare it to was Katrina, with that many
people floating in the water,? said Lt. Cmdr. Jennifer Arko, a Coast
Guard helicopter pilot who responded to the scene and who had done
search-and-rescue work over post-hurricane New Orleans.

Of the 69 men and nine women who survived, none would succeed in
escaping their desperate lives back home. All were flown back to Cap
Haitien, a city on Haiti?s northern coast and a major departure point
for migrants.

Inspector Hilton Duncan of the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police
Force said it was a fierce storm, not the police, that forced the
Haitian sloop to capsize. He acknowledged that the crowded boat was
being towed to shore by the police when it went over. Immediately, he
said, a rescue effort ensued, involving the police, other government
boats, good Samaritans and the Coast Guard.

?For five officers on a boat, at that time of morning, with that type
of weather, rescuing 78 people ought to bring a commendation,? said
Inspector Duncan. ?But people don?t see it that way.?

But before they were returned home, the surviving Haitian migrants
charged that the Turks and Caicos police boat had not responded to
their capsized vessel, as the police originally said.

The migrants charged that the police had rammed them in the rough
waters and that the overloaded sloop went over when it was being hauled
farther out to sea by the police boat.

?We fell into the water and many people drowned,? Marcelin Charles, 37,
one of the passengers, told The Associated Press. ?I was swimming past
dead bodies left and right.?

The tragedy focused attention on the growing exodus of Haitians in
recent months and the increasing enforcement efforts to thwart them. In
April alone, the United States Coast Guard picked up 704 Haitians at
sea, almost as many as the 769 migrants interdicted during all of last
year.

President René Préval took office last May amid high expectations that
he would end a long bout of violence and economic stagnation. But
reversing course has proved challenging: after a spike in kidnappings
at the end of 2006 that terrorized residents of Port-au-Prince, Haiti?s
capital, the United Nations peacekeeping force in Haiti has only
recently begun to make headway in controlling the insecurity there.
Meanwhile, hunger and joblessness linger.

The Haitian migrants follow the wind to the Bahamas, to Bermuda, or
here in Turks and Caicos, any place that might offer a way to make a
living or might take them closer to the United States.

It is a pattern similar to that of other Caribbean migrants. Cubans,
for instance, are trying alternative routes to escape that island. The
emerging route: west to the Mexican coast and then overland to the
United States border.

But Haitians have it harder than others. They are not allowed to stay
if they reach American soil, like the Cubans. They are not granted
temporary protected status while their countries recover from war and
natural disasters, like those who have fled Honduras, Nicaragua and El
Salvador.

And if they make it ashore on Turks and Caicos, their efforts at escape
have just begun.

Immigration agents are on the lookout for illegal Haitians throughout
the eight inhabited islands that make up Turks and Caicos, demanding
proof of legal residency from everyone they stop.

?We?re a small country, and if these people are continuing to come, it
causes problems for us,? Mr. Penn said. ?We?ve become a stepping
stone.?

Residents here speak of the need to maintain their identity. A British
territory, the islands have a governor appointed by Queen Elizabeth as
well as a local premier. One government survey estimated the population
at 33,000, only a third of whom are longtime residents. Haitians make
up the bulk of the foreigners.

In recent months, immigration agents in search of illegal Haitians have
waited outside Haitian churches on the island to grab parishioners
without papers. In one case, they barged inside All Saints Baptist
Church and took five migrants out. Legal Haitians who hire or house a
migrant ? or even allow one into their homes ? face legal jeopardy,
local Haitians say.

Residents recall that back in 1998 another boatload of escaping
Haitians died off the shore here, after the police fired at the boat.
Authorities say they were firing warning shots and did not cause that
vessel to capsize.

?We?re still human and ought to be treated that way,? said James
Prosper, a Haitian-born pastor who has lived in Turks and Caicos for 24
years and who complained to the government recently about the rough
treatment endured by those caught without papers.

?If a Haitian is mistreated, I feel it, because it?s in my blood,? said
Ronald Gardiner, a Haitian-born businessman who is now a ?Belonger,? as
citizens of Turks and Caicos are called.

On Turks and Caicos, Haitians pick up trash and sweep the streets. They
make the hotel beds and pour the concrete.

The tourism industry here is booming, a far cry from the 1990s when a
Gallup poll found the islands had the lowest name recognition in the
world. Now, Hollywood stars vacation in hidden bungalows. Other
well-heeled sun worshipers fly in on tickets that can cost less than
the several thousand dollars some Haitians pay to get a spot on a
sloop.

The police here say some migrants smuggle drugs and guns, which means
every sloop is considered a security threat. In fact, the recent deaths
revived a call among local officials to create a defense force to
better patrol the surrounding waters.

?These are poor people seeking a better life but among them are
criminals,? Inspector Duncan said in an interview. ?We believe some of
them may be former members of the Tontons Macoute,? a reference to the
armed thugs who ruled the Haitian countryside during the long years of
the Duvalier dictatorships.

The Haitian authorities hope the tragedy may help keep more Haitians
home. They are considering using photos of the latest overturned vessel
and the resulting bodies thrown into the sea as part of a public
education campaign to discourage others from making the trip.

?The answer to migration is economic development and, as you know, that
won?t happen overnight,? said Louis Joseph, who is Haiti?s ambassador
to the Bahamas. ?When you don?t have money to eat or to send your
children to school, you don?t know what to do. So you leave ? or you
try, like these people did.?