[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 127 (Tuesday, September 13, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 13, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
               ADMINISTRATION PLANS FOR INVASION OF HAITI

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Mica] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, we cannot ignore the lessons of our time, nor 
can this Congress and this President ignore the lessons of just the 
past 20 months.
  Remember, my colleagues, just Somalia. We spent nearly $2 billion in 
Somalia on military assistance. I am not talking about humanitarian 
assistance, but $2 billion of taxpayer money in Somalia.
  Not only did we spend money, we wasted nearly 36 American lives. I 
ask how now as we face a President who is bent on sending troops to 
Haiti, how can we face the parents of the men and women who will serve 
there and die there, and how will we explain to them that it was in our 
national interest?

                              {time}  1640

  If you look at Somalia, the reports just in the last few weeks are so 
grim; we spent that money and those American lives, and the situation 
is just as grim and as sad as it was the day our troops arrived there.
  We cannot reverse the clock for the sake of restoring the credibility 
of President Clinton. We cannot now expend American lives and we cannot 
really expend hard-earned taxpayer dollars.
  Any invasion of Haiti should be an invasion that is led by United 
Nations forces without United States troops. This Congress and this 
country spend billions of dollars paying the bill for the United 
Nations. What we need to do is be paying and providing the leadership 
for international peace and for international justice, not with U.S. 
troops.
  I believe that it is highly offensive to this Congress, I believe it 
is highly offensive to the American people for our President to seek 
the United Nations approval of his action and not allow that question 
to be debated here on the floor of the people's House.
  If we leave questions of sending our troops to the United Nations, 
what have we done to the U.S. Congress?
  Now, let us look at the lessons again of this particular situation 
and this President and this administration. We must learn from what we 
have done.
  First, when I was a Congressman-elect and it was President-elect 
Clinton, he said right after the election he would reverse his policy 
on Haitian immigration into the United States. Look at what that did to 
my State of Florida. I knew what it would do. I was there in the 1980's 
and saw what happened with the Mariel boatlift. I telegrammed the 
President-elect, and you did not have to be a rocket scientist to 
figure out that we would have thousands of people come in, and I warned 
him that people would come and people would die, and people came and 
people died.
  We had 42,000 leave Haiti. Our State is not without a heart. We took 
in 12,000 of those, and the remainder were sent back to Haiti in a 
disaster created by this President. Even before he had taken office, he 
began this history of this disaster.
  Next we have left in Guantanamo Bay the HIV-infected Haitians. 
Thirty-three of my colleagues signed with me a request asking the 
President to override a Department of Justice decision contrary to the 
law of this Congress and that we passed, and send those HIV-infected 
back to Haiti. Instead, he ignored our plea, and he sent them into the 
United States.
  What was the result of this failed policy? Those people are dying in 
my State. I have received letters asking for donations to bury the 
babies of the Haitian immigrants, another failed policy of this 
administration.
  When will we learn? No State has suffered more than my State of 
Florida. We are paying the bills for the education, for the 
hospitalization, and for the welfare of these people when we have 
people in our own State that we cannot provide for.
  Remember, if you will, the further course of history of Haitian 
policy with this administration. We negotiated an agreement in 
Governors Island, and we ignored that agreement at Governors Island. It 
goes on and on, and it is such a said chapter.
  We sailed into Port-au-Prince harbor, and then we sailed away.
  Now, I am asking you, Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, we have an 
opportunity not to make another mistake here. We have an opportunity 
not to cause another human tragedy, not to cause another financial 
tragedy to the people of this country.
  So I urge you to learn from the lessons of history and not make 
another mistake in Haiti.

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