[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 105 (Wednesday, August 3, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 3, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Goss] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, we have talked a lot about the situation in 
Haiti, and we talk about it quite often here in the abstract as a 
foreign policy debate and wonder why the President of the United States 
has not consulted with the U.S. Congress. But while we are talking in 
the abstract about this policy and the procedures and the niceties of 
protocol and the best wisdom that we can provide to the President in 
this matter of foreign policy, there is a reality of life.
  The reality of life in Haiti today is pure misery. While we are going 
through this process up here, I think it is important to know that 
every American should understand that this is costing more than just 
taxpayers' dollars. We are talking about hundreds of billions of 
taxpayers' dollars to support the President's policy right now, but I 
want to talk about it for a moment in terms of Haitian lives.
  Americans are supporting a foreign policy, whether they know it or 
not, right now, that is investing money in the systematic destruction 
of the infrastructure of a friendly foreign nearby country, the country 
of Haiti. It is a fact that more than 1,000 children a month are dying 
there now, because they lack food, they lack medical treatment, they 
lack necessary sanitation facilities.
  There is fouled water there everywhere. It is rampant. There is more 
disease than ever before. That was a problem that we had even before we 
had this embargo, these sanctions that are being placed on that 
community.
  There is no trash removal, of course, of any type. And we have got 
vermin and flies and bugs and disease-carrying from rodents and so 
forth running around biting the children and the population of the 
island, creating even more disease. Of course, without the relief 
supplies getting through, there is no medical treatment.
  We find that in the places where there has been medical treatment, in 
places like the wards in the St. Catherine's Hospital in the poorest 
part of town, in Cite Soleil, in Port-au-Prince, we find they are 
turning the children away who desperately need the services because the 
malnourishment wards are full. There is no more room for these 
children.

  We find that some of the desperate and poor Haitian families are 
actually abandoning their children in hospitals with missionaries, 
hoping that somebody will be able to provide for them better than they 
are able to provide for them.
  We have even gone so far as to hear reports that people are raiding 
the cemetaries and digging up the coffins, stealing the brass handles 
off the coffins so they can sell them and then using the coffins, 
chopping them up for wood for fuel, because wood is so precious in the 
country and fuel is what they need for cooking, to clean the water, and 
so forth. This is a very, very bad situation in a nearby, friendly 
country. And we are helping to make this through our embargo.
  No American should misunderstand that fact. I hope no American can 
condone that fact. I certainly cannot.
  We talk also about the problems now of, well, what about the 
refugees? How about the people who want to get away from this. It turns 
out there is something like 1,400 Haitians right now who are stranded 
in Haiti who have been approved to come to the United States through 
our process down there, but because of the embargo there is no way to 
get them here. They are trying every way they can to get out of Haiti 
and get to the United States to get the attentions that they need.
  Apparently you cannot charter aircraft or do anything because it 
takes a violation or a waiver for the sanctions and we are reluctant to 
ask for a waiver for the U.N. sanctions because we are trying to make 
this embargo work, which is missing the target, of course, and hitting 
only the poor and making them more miserable.
  It is not only can we not get these folks out of harm's way and out 
of misery in Haiti who have been approved to come to the United States 
under the processing situation we have, we have no way to protect them 
while they are there. We are now beginning to see reports of people 
standing in line to get to the consulate to get this processing done to 
come to this country who are legitimate refugees. And we find we cannot 
protect them and they are being beaten by thugs and some of the 
military.
  How much of this is true, we do not know, but we are beginning to 
read these reports in the newspaper.
  We are also reading reports about people trying to, as it were, scalp 
ways to get to the United States or scalp tickets to get on an 
aircraft.

                              {time}  1550

  In fact, they are even scalping permission to get into these consular 
sections that are United States property, United States territory, 
where we are going about our processing business, and the Haitian 
guards outside will not allow people to go in who are just standing in 
line unless there is a little payoff involved. It is beginning to look 
something like Casablanca, for those who saw the movie. Unfortunately, 
in this one there is no Humphrey Bogart to come riding to the rescue. 
There is no last seat on the plane to Lisbon, here. These people are 
stuck there in harm's way, and we are making much of the harm. I think 
it is, frankly, inexcusable.
  Mr. Speaker, there are many other reports that are going on right now 
about the cost to the American taxpayer in this, but I think the most 
important point that I want to make, at this stage, is that there is a 
better way to do what we are doing.
  Lawrence Pezzello, who was the assistant who was working on this, the 
assistant to the President, who got fired for political reasons, has 
clearly stated that we were making good progress negotiating a 
settlement with the properly duly elected, democratically elected 
members of the congress, and we need to talk to those people. They said 
they want to talk to us. I believe we can avoid all this misery and 
provocation and talk of invasion if we will talk to the members of 
congress who are duly elected in Haiti.

                          ____________________