TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/120291/1202103.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 10KB | 189 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 24

IMMIGRATION

Tragedy on the High Seas


The Coast Guard's attempts to stem a new surge of Haitian
immigrants ignite a debate over political asylum

By DAVID ELLIS -- Reported by Bernard Diederich/Miami and J.F.O.
McAllister/Washington


    If Haiti were ruled by communist dictators rather than
military tyrants whose only ideology is power, the multitudes
who have set sail from that downtrodden country in a desperate
bid for freedom in the past month might well have found refuge
in the U.S. Instead, those who dared the perilous 650-mile
voyage toward America found that America has no place for them.
Since the latest outpouring of Haitian refugees began, the U.S.
Coast Guard has plucked them by the thousands from their leaky
vessels and held them in detention centers or aboard American
ships. And then, until a federal judge ordered a temporary halt
to the practice last week, the U.S. shipped hundreds of them
back to the benighted nation they had tried so desperately to
escape.

    The exodus is in large part an unforeseen result of a
well-intentioned U.S. policy. After the September coup that
ousted Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti's first democratically
elected President, the country plunged even more deeply into
violence and deprivation. The suffering has been worsened by a
U.S.-backed trade embargo by the Organization of American States
designed to pressure the illegal government into restoring
Aristide to power. Gasoline and fuel-oil supplies are scarce,
and political repression against Aristide's supporters is
fierce. More than 400,000 citizens have fled the capital of
Port-au-Prince for the countryside. More than 3,300 have been
intercepted by Coast Guard cutters as they attempted the risky
passage to Florida. An untold number of others have perished,
including 135 who drowned when their overloaded boat capsized
off the coast of Cuba last Tuesday.

    That tragedy intensified demands from refugee advocates
and Democratic Congressmen for the Bush Administration to
suspend the forced repatriations of the boat people and permit
them to remain in the U.S. until conditions in Haiti improve
and the government is restored. But the President, seeking to
dissuade thousands more Haitians from taking to the water in the
hope of gaining asylum, insisted that the massive interception
of the boat people that started last month must continue.
Allowing the boat people to enter the U.S., he warned, would
only lead more Haitians to risk their lives in the dangerous
journey.

    Of those taken into custody by the Coast Guard, 538 have
been shipped back to Haiti, 350 have been sent to camps in four
Caribbean nations, and more than 2,300 are aboard Coast Guard
cutters or have been transferred to U.S. troop ships and the
American naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. According to
Coast Guardsmen who took part in the rescue effort, many of the
fleeing Haitians' boats are no better than floating coffins.
Many of the passengers are so seasick, hungry and dehydrated
that they cannot answer the questions put to them by overworked
immigration officers stationed on the cutters.

    Beyond its professed concern for the Haitians' safety,
however, the Administration's stance on the boat people reflects
long-standing immigration policies. Like most nations, the U.S.
divides would-be refugees into two groups, and treats each very
differently. Those with a "well-founded fear of persecution"
because of their race, religion or political views are granted
political asylum. But the U.S. lumps all except a microscopic
number of Haitians into the category of "economic migrants,"
maintaining that because they are merely fleeing from poverty
and generalized chaos and violence, they do not qualify for
resident status. "In Haiti people are still free to practice
their religion and to hold a job -- if they can find one,"
explains a State Department spokesman. In 1981 the Reagan
Administration reached an agreement with Haitian dictator "Baby
Doc" Duvalier that permits -- but does not require -- the U.S.
to return Haitians suspected of trying to illegally enter its
territory, provided Haiti gives assurances that no reprisals
will be taken against them. Through the end of 1990, more than
24,000 Haitian refugees were caught trying to enter the U.S.,
but only five were granted political asylum.

    Some opponents of the Bush policy charge that it is shaped
by racism against citizens of a black nation. Others are
angered by the contradiction between this policy and the
practice in other situations, when the U.S. brushed aside the
distinction between economic and political refugees in order to
further the fight against communism. From 1983 to 1989, for
example, 12,316 refugees from Daniel Ortega's Nicaragua were
welcomed by the U.S., and this year alone 2,000 Cubans have been
granted permanent-resident status under an anti-Castro law
passed in 1966. The U.S. has even criticized its staunchest
allies when they tried to deport economic refugees from
communist countries. On Oct. 17, George Bush fired off a letter
to British Prime Minister John Major, reaffirming U.S.
opposition to the forced repatriation of the 64,000 Vietnamese
boat people who have sought refuge in Hong Kong until conditions
in Vietnam improve. Four out of five of them are considered to
be economic refugees.

    Earlier this month, when only a relative handful of
Haitians were attempting the sea trek, some members of Congress
asked Bush to allow some of the refugees into the U.S. on a
temporary basis. The legislators reasoned that such a quiet
humanitarian gesture would ease the painful effects of the
embargo without encouraging others to flee. The Administration
shelved the suggestion, though it did launch a perfunctory
effort to persuade Haiti's democratic neighbors to resettle some
of the refugees. Belize agreed to take 100 boat people -- if
they tested negative for the AIDS virus. Honduras, Venezuela,
Trinidad and Tobago agreed to accept a total of 450 Haitians.

    The legal and diplomatic niceties mean little to the boat
people, who regard the voyage to America, no matter how
daunting, as less risky than remaining in their own country.
U.S. officials say there is no evidence that Haiti's military
rulers will take revenge against those who have been
repatriated. But they also admit that conditions inside Haiti
have become so horrendous that the American embassy in
Port-au-Prince has been reduced to a skeleton staff, leaving the
monitoring of abuses to a beleaguered network of human-rights
organizations. According to them, security forces under the
command of Port-au-Prince police chief Major Michel Franois, the
mastermind of the coup, have persecuted hundreds of young men
believed to be Aristide supporters. Last week a Haitian
bodyguard employed by U.S. Ambassador Alvin Adams was dragged
out of his house by a group of unidentified gunmen and shot to
death.

    Alain St. Ville, 27, a young Aristide supporter driven out
by the junta, is one of just 100 Haitians who have been allowed
to apply for political asylum since Aristide was toppled. A
musician from Port-au-Prince's poorest neighborhood, St. Ville
left the country in a small sailboat after a neighbor warned
that soldiers were looking for him. "There were 52 of us," St.
Ville says. "None of us knew the sea. It was horrible. But we
kept saying anything is better than staying to be shot by the
soldiers."

    Last week Aristide began negotiations for his return with
members of Haiti's National Assembly in Cartagena, Colombia.
There was little hope for a quick settlement, however, because
the army leaders who hold veto power over the talks insist that
Aristide will not be allowed back until the economic embargo is
eased. Moreover, Jean-Jacques Honorat, premier of the illegal
government, says the former President will face criminal charges
if he sets foot in Haiti. For his part, Aristide has reaffirmed
support for a military reform program, a pledge that triggered
his overthrow in the first place. Most diplomats think Aristide
will return several months after a new compromise Cabinet is
appointed.

    Until the government is restored to Haiti and the embargo
is lifted, the exodus is likely to continue. Even if the
federal judge in Miami who temporarily enjoined the
Administration from sending the boat people back to
Port-au-Prince eventually rules that the repatriations are
legal, the U.S. must find a more orderly and humane way to cope
with the problem.

    One possible solution would be for Attorney General
William Barr to invoke a provision of the Immigration Act of
1990 that permits the government to extend "temporary protected
status" to certain foreign nationals who do not qualify for
formal refugee status but who were displaced by war, natural
disasters or generalized civil strife. Such protection would
apply only to Haitians who actually reach the U.S., leaving open
the possibility that the Coast Guard would keep on with its
interceptions.

    If the Administration decides to be generous to fleeing
Haitians, money for a temporary refuge program has already been
authorized by Congress: a $35 million fund that the President
can tap once he declares an immigration emergency. The crisis
now unfolding off Haiti's coast surely qualifies.