[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 142 (Tuesday, October 4, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: October 4, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                                 HAITI

  Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, yesterday marked 1 year since the United 
States mission in Somalia went tragically wrong and 18 American 
soldiers died. Seventy-nine more were wounded. I doubt that Americans 
will ever be able to forget the graphic pictures of our men in uniform 
being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. As the Rules Committee 
meets today to consider a rule for the long-awaited Haiti resolution, 
that incident is likely to be in the minds of many Members who are 
wondering: Are we headed down the same road in Haiti? With each day 
that passes it seems more likely. On Sunday, officials confirmed that 
the mission that once was to contain fewer than 15,000 American troops 
has swelled to 20,931. And, while the administration hailed the arrival 
of 262 Caribbean troops yesterday, it is abundantly clear that this is 
an American mission implemented with American tax dollars and American 
soldiers and, in the eyes of many of our allies, at the expense of 
American credibility. In the weeks before United States forces landed 
in Haiti, Americans were assured by the administration that our men and 
women in uniform would not be drawn into the middle of Haitian-on-
Haitian violence; that they wouldn't become the policemen in a 200-
year-old Haitian civil war. Today, it seems clear that that promise--
like many others from this administration--is no longer operative. 
Saturday's headlines read ``The Decision Not To Be Police Backfires'' 
and ``Pressure on U.S. To Disarm Haiti's Paramilitary Groups'' and ``At 
Least Five Killed in Clashes as GIs Stand Off.'' By the next morning 
the administration appeared to have responded to the pressure and the 
headlines were ``U.S. Forces To Widen Role in Curbing Haiti Violence'' 
by Monday morning: ``In Haiti, U.S. Raid Finds Dancers Instead of 
Gunmen'' or, from my district ``Armed-to-the-Teeth Americans Raid 
Harmless Garden'' and ``U.S. Raids Haiti Firms for Weapons.'' Today we 
read: ``GIs Arrest Members of Notorious Haitian Militia.'' They just as 
easily could have read ``U.S. Troops Drawn Further Into Haiti 
Quagmire.'' Yesterday, American troops raided a stronghold of the armed 
political group FRAPH in search of weapons and then had to turn around 
and protect the members of that organization from the mobs outside. All 
of this points to what this morning's Wall Street Journal called the 
``Schizophrenic Nature'' of United States relations with the different 
segments of Haitian society. The United States says it won't take over 
responsibility for policing Haiti. However, our troops are told they 
may intervene in the event that FRAPH and/or the police mistreat 
Haitian civilians. Or, they may intervene to save the police and 
members of FRAPH if the mobs turn against them. No wonder many American 
soldiers are as confused and frustrated as one young man quoted in the 
weekend paper: ``Ask anyone down here what we're doing and they'll say 
`I don't know this is a joke.'' When the House adjourns this week, we 
will do so for the better part of 4 months. In that length of time, the 
United States mission in Haiti could evolve into almost anything. I 
don't support the Hamilton-Torricelli resolution that we will consider 
today in Rules because it seems to be a backhanded endorsement of a 
backward and dangerously undefined operation in Haiti. I do support the 
deliberative process and believe that we cannot leave here on Friday 
without having given careful and thorough attention to the more than 
20,000 American troops in the middle of an explosive situation in 
Haiti.

  I have just been advised on my way over this morning to speak here 
that the Committee on Rules that was supposed to take up the resolution 
today on how we will deal with Haiti has had that item withdrawn from 
its agenda. That means we will not be getting into this debate later in 
the week. The fact that we have been able not to have a debate in this 
body, the House of Representatives of the people of the United States 
of America, on a subject where we have now more than 20,000 troops 
committed in a dangerous situation is extraordinarily remarkable. I 
hope Members will not tolerate the idea of us delaying the debate 
longer and not allow us to go home until we have resolved this issue to 
get our troops back now.

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