[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]

 
                                 HAITI

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. OWENS of New York. Mr. Speaker, I rise to applaud the resolution 
of the United Nations which calls for the use of any means necessary to 
set the people of Haiti free and restore Democratic government in 
Haiti.
  The people of Haiti are being held hostage by a band of military 
criminals. These same criminals signed an agreement which the United 
Nations was part of. The Governors Island agreement must be reinforced.

                              {time}  1620

  The Governors Island agreement must be enforced by the United 
Nations, because they were a party to it. Nobody forced Mr. Cedras to 
sign that agreement. He signed the agreement, and he has reneged on the 
agreement.
  He insists on holding the nation of Haiti as a hostage. We must free 
the people of Haiti from this band of military thugs.
  The United Nations has enunciated a clear principle of the new world 
order. It ought to be followed in the new world order from now on. If 
an agreement is made by an international body like the United Nations, 
it ought to certainly insist that that agreement be lived up to.
  Governments elected by the people will be supported by the United 
Nations. They will not allow criminals in or out of uniform to hijack a 
nation and take it over because they happen to have all the guns and 
they are able to do that.
  Haiti has been hijacked. Any democratically elected government 
anywhere in the world should be able to depend on the nations of the 
world which are legitimate, legitimate governments of the world, not to 
recognize illegitimate governments, or certainly not to recognize 
criminal governments taken over by gunpoint.
  In this country, negative politics have distorted the facts about 
Haiti. There are some people who are so concerned with embarrassing the 
administration on its foreign policy, no matter what it might be, that 
they are overlooking, confusing, lying, and doing everything necessary 
to escape the truth of the Haitian situation. The truth of the Haitian 
situation is that America has always dominated Haiti. From the very 
point where it received its independence, this Nation has always played 
a dominating role in determining policy in Haiti.
  This Nation trained the army in Haiti. This Nation, until very 
recently, had the leaders of the military government of Haiti on the 
payroll of the CIA. We are very much involved in the affairs of Haiti, 
and to talk about it as if it is somebody else's business, to say that 
Haiti is not worth one drop of American blood is to distort the facts. 
We dominate the situation.
  Most of the businesses in Haiti that are foreign businesses are 
American businesses. We have dominated it for long before we invaded 
Haiti, before we dominated the Haitian situation.
  If we want to leave the Haitian situation, take hands off, leave them 
to their own fate, first we must correct our past errors. First, we 
remove the army we trained, remove the army we supplied the equipment 
for, and we supplied supplies, the leaders who were on the payroll of 
the CIA. They are the problem. We must take care of the problem we 
created before we do anything else.
  The administration and congressional leadership must act on the basis 
of the facts which they know historically to be true and on current 
facts which are not known by the general public. The current facts are 
that 70 percent of the people voted to elect the present leader. The 
head of the Government of Haiti is here in Washington.
  We will not be invading Haiti. The United Nations is not talking 
about invading Haiti. It is talking about using any means necessary to 
restore the legal, democratically elected Government of Haiti. In other 
words, we are going to take back the head of the Haitian Government, 
and we are going to protect the head of the Haitian government and all 
the other people who were elected in Haiti. This is our duty.
  We are to understand also that only the people who have the facts in 
leadership can make these kinds of judgments. It should not be done by 
public opinion polls. When Abraham Lincoln decided to free the slaves, 
Abraham Lincoln was outvoted by his Cabinet. Every member of the 
Cabinet said, ``No, you should not issue the Emancipation 
Proclamation.'' But Abraham Lincoln not only had the facts but he had 
the vision, and he set America free, began the process of setting 
America free from the evils of slavery.
  When President Truman was called upon to recognize the State of 
Israel, everybody in his Cabinet said, ``No.'' The public opinion polls 
said, ``No, we should not recognize the State of Israel.'' President 
Truman decided to recognize the State of Israel. He set in motion a 
process by which other nations recognized the State of Israel, and a 
whole new democracy was born in the Middle East as a result.
  We are at that kind of critical point. The President and the 
leadership of the Nation should show the kind of vision and the kind of 
understanding of the situation that is shown in these two critical 
situations.
  Let us put the fate of the Haitians back in their own hands. Let us 
do that by first removing the mad dogs, the war criminals, the people 
who have hijacked the nation from office, and restoring John Bertrand 
Aristide, who is the legally, democratically elected President of 
Haiti, as soon as possible.

                          ____________________