[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 66 (Tuesday, May 24, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 24, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                 TRIBUTE TO RANDALL ROBINSON AND FAMILY

                                 ______


                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, May 24, 1994

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to rise before you to pay 
special tribute to a brave and selfless American, Randall Robinson, 
executive director of TransAfrica. With the support of his wife Hazel, 
and 4-year-old daughter Khalea, Mr. Robinson endured a fast for 27 
days, in his effort to end the summary repatriation of Haitian 
refugees. Mr. Robinson embodies the commitment to democracy that our 
country has long embraced.
  To dramatize his demand for just treatment of Haitian refugees, Mr. 
Robinson began his fast on April 12, surviving on a diet of juices and 
water in a basement room of his office. He pleaded, like countless 
others, for an end to the Clinton administration's inhumane and racist 
policy of automatically returning fleeing Haitians to a land terrorized 
by a rampaging military.
  Randall Robinson is not a faceless man. He had already proven his 
great courage in 1984, when he began a campaign to oppose the apartheid 
system in South Africa. His actions sparked a movement which ultimately 
led to the enactment of American sanctions against South Africa. His 
contributions resulted in the creation of democratic opportunity in 
South Africa, and this year's historic elections.
  Mr. Robinson ended his fast on Sunday, May 8 when President Clinton 
announced a change in the policy of summary repatriation.
  Washington Post columnist Donna Britt, described Mr. Robinson in an 
April 29 article as a man, ``who would rather die than not risk 
everything to save Haitians--real people, too, with wives and husbands 
and cute little girls--attempting to flee a killing field.''
  Mr. Speaker, I submit this article for the edification of my 
colleagues.

               [From the Washington Post, Apr. 29, 1994]

              A Very Good Man Hungry for a Very Good Cause

                            (By Donna Britt)

       On Saturday night, President Clinton dined with hundreds at 
     the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner on 
     asparagus and Roma tomato salad, petit filets of beef and 
     salmon and a dessert of fresh berries in Grand Mariner sauce 
     served in a chocolate scoop.
       That same night, my family gathered at a favorite eatery to 
     consume angel hair pasta, Caesar salad, a wheelbarrow-sized 
     burrito and barbecue chicken pizza.
       In the basement that is now his home, Randall Robinson 
     feasted on two glasses of tomato juice and some spring water. 
     His wife, Hazel--who on weekend nights leaves their 4-year-
     old daughter, Khalea, at home with a friend to join him--
     sipped iced tea.
       By now, many Americans know about the 19-day fast of 
     Robinson, 52, executive director of TransAfrica, a group that 
     lobbies on behalf of Africa and the Caribbean. He says he 
     will subsist on juice and water until the United States ends 
     its policy of automatically repatriating all Haitian refugees 
     back to an island where many are immediately murdered.
       As somebody who has real trouble bypassing a Snicker Doodle 
     at the mall, I felt many things when I learned of Robinson's 
     fast: admiration, awe--and fear. A story from a colleague 
     explains the fear:
       Last week, after ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand 
     Aristide spoke of Robinson's stance to a crowd in Los 
     Angeles, a female Haitian emigre approached. ``Is Randall 
     Robinson black or white?'' she asked.
       He's black, Aristide replied. The woman looked crestfallen.
       ``You should find someone white to fast with him,'' she 
     said. ``Because Americans won't care if a black man dies.''
       In truth, many Americans are too numbed by images of death 
     from Bosnia to Rwanda to a Japanese airfield to be exercised 
     about the death of anyone who wasn't an ex-president or a 
     suicidal rock star.
       It's also true that if white Americans were dying in the 
     streets the way black citizens are, our government would come 
     to a standstill until the carnage stopped. Like that 
     woman, I wonder: Can the threatened demise of anybody as 
     devalued as a black man change a U.S. policy that results 
     in other blacks' deaths?
       But this column isn't about desperate city youths killing 
     each other out of ignorance and despair. It isn't about 
     somebody faceless, who can be dismissed as a druggie or gang 
     member who ``deserves'' it.
       It is about Randall Robinson. It is about the man whose 
     1984 arrest with two others started a ball rolling that grew 
     into a boulder massive enough to flatten a virulently racist 
     regime--and to help spawn this week's historic South African 
     elections.
       It is about an eloquent, flesh-and-blood guy who delights 
     in a pigtailed daughter, a child who nightly sketches family 
     pictures and whose eyes fill when she's asked about his 
     absence. ``I miss kissing Daddy when he comes home from 
     work.'' Khalea says. ``But he has to help the people in 
     Haiti.''
       It's about a man whose son, Jabari, 19, will attend Lincoln 
     University, and whose aspiring-writer daughter, Anike, 22, 
     says, ``The word `proud' is so small [to describe] having a 
     person in your life who inspires you to want to do the most 
     passionate thing for your beliefs.''
       It's about a man whose face makes you believe it when he 
     says he ``can't imagine life'' without his wife, Hazel Ross 
     Robinson, a foreign policy adviser to House Armed Services 
     Committee Chairman Ronald V. Dellums (D-Calif.). ``I believe 
     in what Randall's doing,'' she says. ``But as a wife, it is 
     heartbreaking.'' Her husband's doctor says that the always-
     slim activist has lost eight pounds and that the protein 
     level in his blood has dropped below normal.
       It's about someone who literally would rather die than not 
     risk everything to save Haitians--real people, too, with 
     wives and husbands and cute little girls--attempting to flee 
     a killing field. People whose attempts to escape an island 
     where thugs hack to death democracy-seekers with machetes, 
     lop off their faces and feet the remains to pigs, are 
     thwarted by U.S. vessels that scoop them up and return them 
     ``home.''
       Some of us don't know what to make of a guy who'd abandon a 
     graceful colonial-style house, beloved Chopin recordings and 
     even his gorgeous office upstairs to exile himself to a 
     Spartan room in TransAfrica's basement.
       I don't. I woke up at 4 a.m. yesterday, haunted and taunted 
     by the magnitude, the madness, of Robinson's mission. The 
     darkness couldn't obscure my sense that his stance makes my 
     own efforts to make the world a farer, more loving place seem 
     cowardly, ineffectual.
       But each of us, I told myself, has power. More than we even 
     begin to exert.
       President Clinton, who like me, ate well on Saturday, has 
     the power to keep this man--and by extension, thousands of 
     Haitians--alive. If he can move beyond his ennui and fear, he 
     can by executive order rescind the automatic repatriation 
     order he once railed against during his presidential 
     campaign.
       We have power too: In fingers that can dial the White House 
     and tie up phone lines at Congress; in feet that join 
     tomorrow's 11 a.m. rally at the U.S. Capitol; in hearts that 
     can pray for Robinson's continued strength.
       We have the power to be just a bit braver. To acknowledge, 
     at our next meal and the next, one man's willingness to 
     sacrifice that and so much more--for a good cause.

                          ____________________