[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 134 (Thursday, September 22, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 22, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                   THE CONTINUING SITUATION IN HAITI

  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, I have come many time to the well in the past 
several months to talk about the situation in Haiti. It is a continuing 
situation. Frankly, we are getting more news from Dan Rather about what 
is going on down there, more accurate information than we are getting 
from the administration up here, despite the fact we had a briefing 
earlier this week from former President Carter, General Powell, and 
Senator Nunn and the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State.
  But events are moving very rapidly, as we can see. I think a number 
of things are called for. First of all, I hope that the President of 
the United States will give us an explanation of some of the things he 
said last Thursday night a week ago when he spoke to the Nation on 
prime time.
  Mr. Speaker, I not that many of those within the beltway are very 
troubled about some of the things in that speech. I go to Bob Novak's 
column in the Washington Post. I will quote from that.

  Apparently, Mary McGrory was in attendance at the press conference. 
Mary McGrory asked the President the question:

       You accused the military leaders in Haiti of maintaining a 
     reign of terror. You said they were responsible for 2,000 
     deaths. Why did you accept an agreement that allows them to 
     stay in Haiti and perhaps run for elected office there?

  Now, reading on in Mr. Novak's column, he says:

       The President stumbled through his answer but the truth is 
     that he had been spreading unverified propaganda, and now he 
     was dealing with the real world.

  I think there are an awful lot of people worried that perhaps our 
State Department and our White House, and our Defense Department, our 
National Security Council, have been taken in by some propaganda. 
Certainly there is plenty of propaganda in play because passions are 
running very high on either side, whether it is the pro-Aristide side 
or the pro-junta side. Unfortunately, nobody is talking to the middle 
ground. The people who advocate a positive, responsive, moderate 
reaction to what is going on down there. We have people in Haiti who 
are ready to play that role, and they are called properly elected and 
democratic members of their congress, as it were, parliamentarians, 
deputies of those chambers. I think there are things in the President's 
speech that are going to need justification. People in America are 
asking why do we have the most brutal dictator in the western 
hemisphere last Thursday night who is suddenly working with our 
military, trying to deal with the situation in Haiti in this process 
now? Why did the President say there were 300,000 Haitians hiding in 
the countryside who were about to become refugees? Perhaps suggesting 
we need to be worried in Florida that somehow 300,000 more refugees 
were going to get into leaky boats and come across the water into the 
United States illegally.

                              {time}  1650

  Why did the President say that invasion was the only solution? All 
means had been exhausted? We were going to have an invasion because 
there was no other course for America? I think those are explanations 
that need to be made by the White House to the people of this country, 
and I also think they need to be made to the Congress of the United 
States. It seems to me Congress has the job of not only legislation, 
but of oversight, and I think that the White House has overlooked some 
of the things that we should apply some oversight to.
  I would like to know what our policy is trying to accomplish right 
now in Haiti. We read of problems with our rules of engagement, 
soldiers not quite sure whether they are supposed to do something or 
not do something when they see a situation of violence. We see that the 
rules of disengagement, how are we going to get out, when are we going 
to get out, are very much up in the air. We read a statement in today's 
paper, and I am quoting from the New York Times:
  Pentagon officials said it was because they had not yet had time to 
come to grips with the complexities of rules of engagement that had 
been rewritten only a few dozen hours earlier which is why nobody 
really knew what we were supposed to do if our troops witnessed 
violence down there.
  The whole question of the sanctions on the embargo which was supposed 
to have been lifted, we are now told we cannot lift the embargo until 
the U.N. says it is OK, and the U.N. will not say it is OK until 
Aristide returns, but Aristide will not return until the generals have 
left. The generals will not leave until they have been granted amnesty, 
and the Aristide people will not grant them amnesty. That is the 
ultimate catch-22.
  So, instead of a workable accord, we now got a bilateral catch-22 
that is being supervised by the United Nations. That is no formula for 
success when we have men and women in uniform in harm's way.
  I see my distinguished colleague, the gentleman from California [Mr. 
Dornan] is present in the Chamber. I yield to him.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bishop). The time of the gentleman from 
Florida [Mr. Goss] has expired.

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