[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 131 (Monday, September 19, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 19, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
               TRIBUTE TO THE HONORABLE JAMIE L. WHITTEN

  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, and my colleagues, first I just want to take a 
minute before I get into the business that I planned here before the 
House, talking about the situation in Haiti, and join my other 
colleagues in also commending the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. 
Whitten] for his tremendous service in this House.
  As a new Member, I have not had the opportunity to know him like 
others have. But when you come here and you see sometimes the way the 
place is run, you are concerned a bit about it. But I will never 
forget, February 2, when I took on the House leadership on the question 
of a rule. A lot of folks do not know how the House operates. But as 
you can tell now, there are not too many Members in the Chamber, and 
most of the time, most of the Members are not here for the debate. But 
at least during my short time in the House, Mr. Whitten has been here 
on a regular basis and hears the debate.
  He was here that day that I made a plea to defeat that rule. And even 
though the has been a chairman and a member of the opposition, I will 
never forget the day that, again, February 2, that he heard my debate, 
he heard my plea for some needed change in the issue of regulatory 
reform and he voted to defeat that rule, he voted with me. And ever 
since I have had a great admiration for him.
  I remember the same day that many of his colleagues from the other 
side of the aisle came to him and tried to get him to change his vote, 
and he stuck with me, a new freshman Republican Member. So I will 
always remember that and admire him for his tenacity and for his 
tremendous service to this body and that big difference he made to me 
on my particular issue.


                           situation in haiti

  Ladies and gentleman of the House and Mr. Speaker, I also wanted to 
address the House for a few minutes on an issue that I feel is of 
extreme importance, and it is an issue that is ongoing right now with 
our troops landing in Haiti. It is an issue that I have been very 
personally concerned about.
  Before I came to this body I was involved in international trade, and 
had some business experience and was in Haiti before the fail of the 
Aristide regime. So I have a little bit of insight into the situation 
here, and I have closely followed the issues relating to Haiti.
  I come from the State of Florida, and no State in the Nation has 
probably been impacted more by the Federal policy relating to this 
nation than the State of Florida.
  My colleagues and Mr. Speaker, it really concerns me that this 
administration and this President may be determined to repeat the same 
mistakes. Let me say that I felt that it was a mistake in the beginning 
to propose a reversal of the Bush policy relating to immigration of 
Haitians into the United States.
  We changed that policy, or at least proposed to change the policy, 
when the President was President-elect, and we saw the effects of that 
proposal on the State of Florida and on this Nation.
  I think President Clinton did not learn then, and we are paying now, 
for that first mistake that was made way back when he was President-
elect. It was a mistake to transport HIV-infected Haitians to the 
United States, contrary to Federal law. Remember, this House passed and 
reconfirmed the law that did not discriminate against anyone on the 
basis of race, religion, creed, other preferences, but said that no one 
would be permitted into this country who was HIV infected. We had 
trouble paying for the HIV infected and AIDS patients in our own 
country, and did not have the funds to pay for others. We did not learn 
then, President Clinton did not learn then, and we are paying now for 
that mistake.

  In my State we have Haitian aliens and their children, Haitian 
immigrants, who are dying now of AIDS from that influx, and we do not 
have the money even to bury them or to provide for them.

                              {time}  1520

  It was a great mistake to ignore international accords and law and 
cut and run, as the United States did last year from Port-au-Prince 
Harbor. President Clinton did not learn then, and we are paying now and 
my State is paying and the United States is paying.
  It was a mistake in my opinion to impose economic sanctions on a 
country, and I spoke right on this floor, that it was going to be a 
mistake to impose sanctions on a country where the average per capita 
income is 53 cents per day. I knew from my experience and we know now, 
you could forecast that that policy was not going to work. Those 
economic sanctions were not going to work.
  President Clinton did not learn then, and we are paying now.
  It was a mistake to destroy with those economic sanctions 60,000 
manufacturing jobs in Haiti and grind that country into the deepest 
poverty it has ever seen. It was a mistake to destroy those 
manufacturing jobs because they provided income for nearly a third of 
the population and sustenance to nearly a third of the people in that 
island nation, the ripple effect of those 60,000 jobs which we have 
destroyed.
  President Clinton did not learn then, and we are paying now.
  What concerns me, as we are here today is that we have not learned 
the mistake of 20 months ago. I have only been in this body for that 
period of time, but 20 months ago, it was a mistake to turn a 
humanitarian mission into a nation-building fiasco that cost U.S. 
taxpayers $2 billion and also cost us 36 precious American lives.
  President Clinton did not learn then, and we are paying now.
  This really concerns me, my colleagues, this particular policy. 
Because that was a well-intended humanitarian mission and many of us 
supported it. That was not the point. The point was we got into nation 
building and attempting to restore democracy. That is where we have 
spent not just the half a billion dollars that was spent on 
humanitarian aid but $2 billion on military aid. We paid then, and we 
are paying now.
  I hope we can learn from the lessons of history. I hope that the 
American taxpayer does not pay again.

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