[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 139 (Thursday, September 29, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 29, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
     THE COMING DEBATE IN CONGRESS ON AMERICA'S OCCUPATION OF 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, on this eleventh day of the occupation of 
Haiti by the American armed services, I think it is appropriate that 
people in this country know that we in Congress have not given up our 
determination to have a debate on this subject here, and to deliberate 
what is going on, what is at risk, what are the costs involved, what 
are the likely standards of measure of what we have achieved anything, 
and the question of the way we get out of the quagmire we have gotten 
ourselves into.
  Mr. Speaker, this debate will be coming forward, I think in a more 
formalized fashion next week. We have been promised that by the 
Majority Leader in response to a colloquy from the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Cox]. I understand that there is now a bill coming 
forward from the Committee on Foreign Affairs, which is also going to 
come up to the Committee on Rules, so we are finally beginning to get 
the mechanisms of Congress focused on this situation where, in a 
friendly neighboring country of the United States of America, we have 
about 16,000 or so men and women in our armed services in a hazardous 
situation. It is not outright combat, of course, as we all know, but it 
is deadly serious situation, and in fact, there are casualties.

                              {time}  1940

  I have just come from a meeting with a person who has been in contact 
with family and friends and relatives in Haiti this afternoon, and the 
situation is becoming much more unstable in terms of the extremes that 
exist in Haiti. The pro-Aristide forces are sort of manifesting 
themselves more regularly and more intensely because there is an 
understanding that the military, the Haitian military, is not there to 
resist and this is like sort of a great venting exercise, and old 
scores are being threatened to be settled. We have found that in places 
like Cap-Haitien up on the north coast, there is a real feeling of 
anxiety and we are told yesterday that in the northern departments, 
things have become even more chaotic, particularly in the Department of 
the Northwest. That is the northern rim of Haiti. We are told there 
that the military has virtually disappeared, gone into the woods. Five 
anti-Aristide supporters were killed by pro-Aristide supporters either 
yesterday or today. Stores are being looted, particularly the food 
stores because people see this as not only the opportunity to get even 
but the opportunity to get some food which they need as the result of 
the embargo we have had on that country for so long which has made 
things so difficult in that country.
  Also, I have not read any news accounts or heard on the media yet, 
but we are informed also that the pro-Aristide people suffered 
casualties at the installation of the mayor who came out of hiding and 
was reinstalled, the mayor of Port-Au-Prince, somebody apparently threw 
a grenade into a crowd there and five pro-Aristide supporters were 
killed.
  Every day as we go back and we look at the violence and the 
escalation of violence, we discover first we are talking about 1 or 2, 
then we are talking about 5 or 10, and presumably it is going to keep 
escalating that way, a little bit at a time, a little bit at a time, as 
people get even.
  The problem here is that it is our Armed Forces that are in the 
middle of all this and we do not have a firm understanding of when they 
are coming back or exactly what it is they are going to accomplish. We 
all are fervently behind them, in protecting them in every possible way 
with the best equipment, the best training, all of the things we want 
our men and women in harm's way to have so that they can take care 
of themselves and carry out their mission. But this mission is a little 
different. These folks are standing around in the middle of what are 
about to be riots all over the country with no clear orders of how they 
cope with all of that. Perhaps in some cases not even manpower. But up 
on the north coast of Haiti, we are now told that our forces have been 
asked to provide police protection for the stores and to, in fact, 
replace the Haitian army which has disappeared, gone off into the woods 
across the cities of the north. That mission, of taking on that role in 
addition to other chores of protecting themselves, is an extremely 
important concern.

  The anarchy that is beginning to grow in Haiti I think is something 
that we cannot fail to address. It would be bad enough if there were 
not American forces there. It is something we should attend to, because 
we have an interest in a friendly neighboring country having this kind 
of difficulty. But the fact that our troops are there and the fact that 
the U.S. Congress has not yet had a vote on that or deliberated on the 
issue of the safety of our troops and when they are coming back is to 
me unpardonable and unconscionable.
  Sooner or later there will be accountability to the American people 
for the policy that the Clinton administration has used and the lack of 
justification for why this House has not debated and not executed our 
responsibilities to the people we represent on behalf of our armed 
service personnel there.

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