[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 143 (Wednesday, October 5, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: October 5, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
    LIMITED AUTHORIZATION FOR THE UNITED STATES-LED FORCE IN HAITI 
                               RESOLUTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of today 
and rule XXIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the 
Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the 
joint resolution, House Joint Resolution 416.

                              {time}  2136


                     in the committee of the whole

  Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the 
Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the 
joint resolution (H.J. Res. 416), providing limited authorization for 
the participation of United States Armed Forces in the multinational 
force in Haiti and providing for the prompt withdrawal of United States 
Armed Forces from Haiti, with Mr. Mazzoli in the chair.
  The Clerk read the title of the joint resolution.
  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the order of the House of today, the first 
reading of the joint resolution is dispensed with.
  The text of House Joint Resolution 416 is as follows:

                             H.J. Res. 416

       Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
     United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This joint resolution may be cited as the ``Limited 
     Authorization for the United States-led Force in Haiti 
     Resolution''.

     SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND STATEMENT OF POLICY.

       (a) Findings.--The Congress finds the following:
       (1) On September 18, 1994, the special delegation to Haiti 
     succeeded in convincing the de facto authorities in Haiti to 
     sign the Port-au-Prince Agreement under which such 
     authorities agreed to leave power.
       (2) On September 18, 1994, after the Port-au-Prince 
     Agreement was reached, the President ordered the deployment 
     of United States Armed Forces in and around Haiti.
       (3) On September 21, 1994, the President submitted a 
     report, consistent with the War Powers Resolution (50 U.S.C. 
     1541 et seq.), on the introduction of United States Armed 
     Forces into Haiti.
       (4) The Congress fully supports the men and women of the 
     United States Armed Forces who are carrying out their mission 
     in Haiti with professional excellence and dedicated 
     patriotism.
       (b) Statement of Policy.--The Congress declares the 
     following:
       (1) The United States-led force in Haiti should use all 
     necessary means to protect United States citizens, to 
     stabilize the security situation in Haiti so that orderly 
     progress may be made in transferring the functions of 
     government in that country to the democratically-elected 
     government of Haiti, and to facilitate the provision of 
     humanitarian assistance to the people of Haiti.
       (2) Transfer of operations in Haiti from the United States-
     led force in Haiti to the United Nations-led force in Haiti 
     should be facilitated and expedited to the fullest extent 
     possible.
       (3) United States Armed Forces should be withdrawn from 
     Haiti as soon as possible.

     SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.

       (a) Authorization.--Subject to subsection (b), United 
     States Armed Forces are authorized to participate in the 
     United States-led force in Haiti only--
       (1) to protect United States citizens;
       (2) to stabilize the security situation in Haiti so that 
     orderly progress may be made in transferring the functions of 
     government in that country to the democratically-elected 
     government of Haiti; and
       (3) to facilitate the provision of humanitarian assistance 
     to the people of Haiti.
       (b) Limitations.--
       (1) Termination of authorization.--The authorization 
     provided by subsection (a) shall expire on March 1, 1995.
       (2) Prohibiton on foreign command.--United States Armed 
     Forces described in subsection (a) shall remain under the 
     command and control of officers of the United States Armed 
     Forces at all times.

     SEC. 4. REPORTS TO CONGRESS.

       (a) In General.--The President shall submit to the Congress 
     reports on--
       (1) the participation of United States Armed Forces in the 
     United States-led force in Haiti and the United Nations-led 
     force in Haiti, including--
       (A) the number of members of the United States Armed Forces 
     that are participating in such United States-led force and 
     such United Nations-led force;
       (B) the functions of such Armed Forces; and
       (C) the costs of deployment of such Armed Forces; and
       (2) the efforts to withdraw United States Armed Forces from 
     Haiti, including--
       (A) for the purpose of achieving a transition from the 
     United States-led force in Haiti to the United Nations-led 
     force in Haiti, the status of efforts to implement the Port-
     au-Prince Agreement and to otherwise carry out the terms of 
     Untied Nations Security Council Resolutions 917 (May 6, 1994) 
     and 940 (July 31, 1994);
       (B) the status of plans to accomplish such transition to 
     the United Nations-led force in Haiti; and
       (C) the status of plans to withdraw United States Armed 
     Forces from Haiti.
       (b) Reporting Dates.--A report under this section shall be 
     submitted--
       (1) not later than November 30, 1994, covering the period 
     since September 18, 1994;
       (2) not later than December 31, 1994, covering the period 
     since the report described in paragraph (1); and
       (3) not later than February 1, 1995, covering the period 
     since the report described in paragraph (2).
       (c) War Powers Resolution Reporting Requirements.--The 
     requirements of this section do not supersede the 
     requirements of the War Powers Resolution (50 U.S.C. 1541 et 
     seq.).

     SEC. 5. REASSEMBLY OF CONGRESS.

       It is the sense of the Congress that the Speaker of the 
     House of Representatives and the majority leader of the 
     Senate, acting jointly after consultation with the minority 
     leader of the House of Representatives and the minority 
     leader of the Senate, respectively, should monitor closely 
     events in Haiti in considering whether to exercise any 
     authority that may be granted to reassemble the Congress 
     after the adjournment of the Congress sine die, if the public 
     interest shall warrant it.

     SEC. 6. JOINT RESOLUTION PROHIBITING CONTINUED USE OF UNITED 
                   STATES ARMED FORCES IN HAITI.

       (a) In General.--If a joint resolution described in 
     subsection (b) is enacted, the President shall remove United 
     States Armed Forces from Haiti in accordance with such joint 
     resolution.
       (b) Description of Joint Resolution.--For purposes of 
     subsection (a), a joint resolution described in this 
     subsection is a joint resolution the matter after the 
     resolving clause of which is as follows: ``Pursuant to 
     section 6 of the Limited Authorization for the United States-
     led Force in Haiti Resolution, the Congress hereby directs 
     the President to remove United States Armed Forces from Haiti 
     not later than 30 days after the date of the enactment of 
     this joint resolution, except for a limited number of members 
     of the United States Armed Forces sufficient to protect 
     United States diplomatic facilities and personnel.''.
       (c) Priority Procedures.--
       (1) Introduction of joint resolution.--Paragraph (2) shall 
     only apply to a joint resolution described in subsection (b) 
     and introduced on or after the date on which the President 
     submits, or is required to submit, the report required by 
     section 4(b)(3).
       (2) Consideration of joint resolution.--Only one joint 
     resolution described in subsection (b) and introduced in 
     accordance with paragraph (1) shall be considered in 
     accordance with the procedures described in section 7 of the 
     War Powers Resolution (50 U.S.C. 1546), except that, for 
     purposes of such consideration, the term ``calendar days'' in 
     such section shall be deemed to mean ``legislative days''.

     SEC. 7. DEFINITIONS.

       For purposes of this joint resolution, the following 
     definitions apply:
       (1) Legislative days.--The term ``legislative days'' means 
     days in which the House of Representatives is in session.
       (2) Port-au-prince agreement.--The term ``Port-au-Prince 
     Agreement'' means the agreement reached between the United 
     States special delegation and the de facto authorities in 
     Haiti on September 18, 1994.
       (3) United nations-led force in haiti.--The term ``United 
     Nations-led force in Haiti'' means the United Nations Mission 
     in Haiti (commonly referred to as ``UNMIH'') authorized by 
     United Nations Security Council Resolutions 867 (September 
     23, 1993), 905 (March 23, 1994), 933 (June 30, 1994), and 940 
     (July 31, 1994).
       (4) United states-led force in haiti.--The term ``United 
     States-led force in Haiti'' means the multinational force 
     (commonly referred to as `'MNF'' authorized by United Nations 
     Security Council Resolution 940 (July 31, 1994).

  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Hamilton] will be 
recognized for 2 hours, and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman] 
will be recognized for 2 hours.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Hamilton].
  Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Chairman, the House tonight begins debate on one of the most 
serious foreign policy questions we have faced this year: United States 
intervention in Haiti.
  It is vitally important that we have this debate, and that we act. 
Twenty-thousand United States troops are in Haiti tonight. The House 
has not yet voted on this question. Tomorrow Members will have an 
opportunity to vote.
  Tomorrow, Members will have a chance to vote on House Joint 
Resolution 416, which was reported out by the Committee on Foreign 
Affairs. Tonight, I would like to spend a few minutes describing this 
resolution.
  House Joint Resolution 416 is a straightforward piece of legislation. 
It does three things. It authorizes the United States military 
operation in Haiti until March 1, 1995. Second, it sets out the limited 
purposes of that operation. Third, for those who oppose the United 
States presence in Haiti beyond March 1, it guarantees a vote on a 
resolution directing the President to withdraw the troops.
  I believe the House should act on this resolution because the United 
States has important interests in Haiti. I have consistently believed 
that force should be used in Haiti only as a last resort, after all 
diplomatic and political approaches had been exhausted. Now that the 
intervention has taken place, however, we want it to succeed.


                          u.s. stakes in haiti

  What are United States interests in Haiti today? First, a stable 
environment in Haiti will reduce the flow of refugees to the United 
States and elsewhere in the region, and secure our borders. Second, 
ousting the de facto military leaders and restoring Haiti's duly 
elected leaders protects democracy in the hemisphere. Third, the U.S. 
has a strong humanitarian interest in ending human rights abuses and 
alleviating suffering in Haiti.
  Fourth, the United States has an interest in proving that we mean 
what we say. Two Presidents endorsed the objective of returning the 
legitimate government to power in Haiti. The intervention authorized by 
this resolution meets these objectives and promotes these interests.


                       congress should authorize

  Three weeks ago, just before the President sent United States troops 
to Haiti, Members said the President should not commit troops without 
an authorization.
  In voting on this resolution, Members have an opportunity to exercise 
their constitutional responsibility. Congress should share 
responsibility any time U.S. troops are deployed abroad for possible 
combat purposes. Congress should be on the record. If Congress is to 
play a role in these very difficult decisions, Members must be willing 
to step up to the plate. We do that by voting on the question of 
authorization, not simply by expressing our views through a sense of 
Congress resolution.

  The fact that we are authorizing after the operation has begun makes 
no difference. The House faces a clear choice: Do United States troops 
in Haiti continue to operate solely on the President's authority, or do 
they also have the support and authorization of Congress? I believe we 
ought to authorize.


                            March 1 deadline

  Some of my colleagues believe that U.S. troops should come home 
immediately. Others say they ought to be home by the end of the year. I 
believe that is too soon. The President has committed the United States 
to an important mission: to bring stability to Haiti so that the 
Haitians can try to restore peace and civil order. We ought to give the 
Haitians some time to accomplish this. I believe March 1 is an 
acceptable deadline for this authorization.
  Other says that March 1 is too soon, or that it is wrong to set any 
kind of deadline. I think most of my colleagues would oppose an open-
ended authorization. They do not want the United States to get bogged 
down in Haiti. They want to see some limit to our presence there.
  In short, the deadline in this resolution makes sense.
  First, it should provide enough time. The Pentagon has said that the 
job of the United States-led mission can and should be completed within 
6 months. This resolution provides the time our military has said they 
need to get the job done.
  Second, the March 1 deadline provides some pressure to make sure the 
job gets done in that time frame. It is intended to provide incentive 
to avoid mission creep or any plans to keep the United States-led force 
in Haiti indefinitely.
  Third, this resolution does not tie the President's hands. The 
authorization provided by the joint resolution expires March 1. The 
Congress can vote to extend that authorization, or take any other 
action at that time.


                        limited mission in haiti

  This resolution does make clear, however, that we are authorizing the 
deployment in Haiti for limited purposes: To protect United States 
citizens; to stabilize the security situation so that progress can be 
made in transferring the functions of government to the democratically 
elected government in Haiti; and to facilitate the provision of 
humanitarian assistance.
  House Joint Resolution 416 does not authorize nation-building. It 
does not authorize U.S. troops to rebuild democracy. United States 
Armed Forces should not be running Haiti, or rebuilding it. That is 
the responsibility of Haitians themselves, with help and support from 
the international community.


                          expedited procedure

  Finally, this resolution guarantees that Members of Congress will 
have the opportunity to vote again, after March 1, 1995, if they do not 
approve of the President's plans for a U.S. role in the United Nations-
led force.
  I know some of my colleagues wish the President had never committed 
troops to Haiti. But the troops are there and it is unwise to pull them 
out immediately. Passage of this resolution will guarantee a chance to 
vote on this issue again after Congress reconvenes early in 1995.
  Specifically, this resolution provides expedited procedures for 
consideration of a joint resolution that would direct the President to 
withdraw all United States troops from Haiti, after March 1, 1995.


                               conclusion

  I urge my colleagues to support this resolution. It sets a 
responsible middle course for our policy in Haiti.
  It supports United States troops in Haiti, while clearly defining the 
limited role they will play; it gives U.S. troops a reasonable period 
to accomplish their mission, while not tying the President's hands; and 
it puts Congress on record in support of the President's policy, while 
retaining our prerogatives to pass judgment on the continued wisdom of 
this operation at a later date.

                              {time}  2140

  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself as much time as I may 
consume.
  (Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Chairman, as we meet today, 25,000 United States 
troops are bearing the burden of an extremely difficult mission in 
Haiti, performing the mission in an outstanding manner with the 
excellence we have come to expect of them.
  We often speak abstractly of ``the use of force'' or ``American 
military might.'' But, we all know that those vague expressions boil 
down to our young men and women at the bottom of the chain of command, 
turning down blind alleys in Haiti, trying to police and restore order 
in a place that has never known it.
  In the course of this debate, I ask my colleagues to search their 
consciences as to whether, on this day, we will concern ourselves with 
the security of those young men and women in our military who defend 
our interest each and every day.
  Let us ask ourselves whether we will defend the constitutional 
prerogatives of this Congress. And, let us also consider, after all is 
said and done, whether we will just go along with a fateful decision to 
put U.S. lives on the line in a mission that most of us believe to be 
ambiguous and ill-conceived.
  All of us support the ideals of constitutional democracy and the 
respect for human rights in Haiti. And I strongly support President 
Aristide's early return. He has become a powerful symbol to Haitians 
who hope that, at long last, representative democracy might be 
respected and the promise of economic stability and social justice 
might be kept.
  However, along with many of my colleagues, I have not been convinced 
that the use of American military force was necessary to achieve those 
worthy objectives.
  Mr. Chairman, the President should have come to the House before 
deploying troops in Haiti. Instead, he rushed to launch an invasion 
even while his own negotiators were in the clutches of potentially 
hostile elements.
  Mr. Chairman, I oppose the proposal by the gentleman from New Jersey 
[Mr. Torricelli] House Joint Resolution 416, because it retroactively 
provides congressional authorization for the unilateral decision by the 
President to deploy United States Armed Forces in the occupation of 
Haiti. Moreover, like the policy that it blesses, this resolution 
ignores the will of the American people. Congress should move instead 
to call for the immediate, safe, and orderly withdrawal of United 
States troops from Haiti.
  I cannot, as House Joint Resolution 416 would have it, sign onto any 
foolhardy strategy that neglects the bitter lessons of the fruitless 
United States occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934 or our recent 
costly experience in Somalia.
  Let there be no doubt: By approving House Joint Resolution 416 we 
would be authorizing a mission and I quote from the Torricelli 
resolution, ``to stabilize the security situation in Haiti'' in the 
course of the transition back to a democratic government.
  This language accepts President Clinton's definition of the United 
States mission in Haiti, despite the fact that ambiguous objectives, 
improvised rules of engagement, and ever-expanding tasks assumed by the 
United States military have rendered this definition virtually 
meaningless.
  This vague authorization could lead our troops down a blind alley 
with unintended consequences.
  Moreover, the President has made it absolutely clear that, in his 
view, he does not need congressional authorization to continue the 
occupation of Haiti.
  The only real effect of the Torricelli resolution, therefore, is to 
authorize the mission through March 1, after which the President can be 
expected to proceed with his plan to deploy 2,000 to 3,000 United 
States troops in Haiti through February 1996 under a U.N. peackeeping 
force. The March 1 date in this resolution, in sum, also is 
meaningless.
  Also, under this resolution, Congress would not have an opportunity 
even to reconsider the long-term deployment of United States forces in 
Haiti until early April 1995.
  If Congress were to move as quickly as possible, as provided for 
under this resolution, to disapprove the deployment of United States 
forces, those troops might still be in Haiti--with the implicit 
blessing of Congress--more than 7 months from now.
  Moreover, this resolution does not ensure that United States forces 
in Haiti will remain under the operational command and control of 
United States military officers at all times, because it carefully 
exempts the planned U.N. peackeeping phase from its prohibition on 
foreign command.
  Our colleague from California, Mr. Royce, has authored a worthy 
amendment to address that glaring defect.
  Mr. Chairman, we have developed a substitute to the Torricelli 
resolution on Haiti with the following key provisions that better 
reflect the will of the House: It expresses the sense of the Congress 
that the President should not have ordered the occupation of Haiti. It 
says that the President should immediately commence the safe and 
orderly withdrawal of United States forces from Haiti and should 
conclude that withdrawal as soon as possible in a manner consistent 
with the safety of those forces.
  It expresses the same of the Congress that the President should take 
diplomatic steps to set up a U.N. peackeeping operation in Haiti 
composed of military personnel from other countries.
  In the event that the President has failed to respect the will of 
Congress by withdrawing the forces, this substitute also provides for 
House and Senate votes no later than January 21, 1995, on a resolution 
requiring the withdrawal of U.S. forces within 30 days.
  This substitute also prohibits foreign command or operational control 
of United States forces in Haiti at all times. It also requires 
Presidential reports on the costs of all Haiti expenditures, on human 
rights, and on plans for withdrawing United States forces.
  Mr. Chairman, President Clinton made a unilateral decision on Haiti. 
Now, we are each called upon to decide for ourselves whether the 
President's policy is worthy of our support. Of all the ambiguity about 
our mission in Haiti, there is one immutable fact before us today: A 
vote for Mr. Torricelli's resolution, House Joint Resolution 416, is a 
vote for the President's policy to put American lives on the line in 
Haiti.
  My colleagues, I believe we can better respond to the will of the 
American people by supporting the substitute to the Torricelli 
resolution that I will offer during the course of this debate.

                              {time}  2150

  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from 
New York [Mr. Engel].
  (Mr. ENGEL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chairman, I have always believed, and I have said this 
many, many times, as a member of the House Committee on Foreign 
Affairs, that foreign policy ought to be bipartisan, and I do not 
believe we ought to use serious events in foreign policy to bash the 
President. I believe when the President is right, he is our President, 
and ought to be supported.
  During the Persian Gulf war, I broke with my party and supported 
President Bush, because I felt that he was right, and let me just say I 
think we need to give credit where credit is due. President Clinton 
sent envoys to Port-au-Prince. They negotiated a settlement. As a 
result, our troops occupied Haiti without having to shoot their way 
through and, indeed, we have seen during the course of events that the 
Haitian people have welcomed our troops and that the President really 
has done a good job here.
  Now, I wish that the President had come to Congress prior to sending 
the troops to Haiti, because I think that Congress does have ultimate 
authority in making these decisions. But the fact of the matter is that 
right now we are faced with the fact that we do have troops in Haiti 
who are performing a mission and who, so far, have performed it very 
admirably, and the mission has been successful.
  I think it is very, very important that Congress now authorizies that 
mission, and that is what H.J. Res. 416 is doing. I think that it is 
very important to have this resolution. We can debate the merits of it. 
We can debate whether or not the March 1 deadline is something that 
ought to be there, and quite frankly, I have some doubts about that, 
because I think that we have gone into Haiti to do a job, and we ought 
to do the job, we want to get out as soon as possible, but I think that 
we need to stay until the job is done.
  I believe that we do have vital interests in Haiti. Ask anybody in 
south Florida, ask anybody who has looked at our immigration policies 
that have fallen apart. We understand that when Haitian boat people 
come to this country trying to get into this country to flee tyranny 
and oppression in their country that certainly we do have a vital 
interest in who comes to our shore.
  This is not something that is on the other side of the world. This is 
very close to us in our own Western Hemisphere, and what goes on in 
Haiti certainly affects us here in the United States.
  Let me say to my colleagues that I think in some quarters of this 
Congress there is a dangerous attitude of isolationism, and while it 
might be very nice to say we have pressing problems at home, and we 
should take care of those problems first, and I do agree, I think as a 
superpower, we certainly have an interest in what goes on in the rest 
of the world, particularly when it is in our hemisphere right here at 
home.
  I do not think we should cut and run or pass resolutions that say we 
made a mistake or the President made a mistake. I do not think the 
thing here is to score political brownie points. The thing here is to 
say we have our troops in Haiti who are doing a job, who have done it 
admirably; we support them; we want to continue the mission and then 
get out. That is what H.J. Res. 416 provides, continue the mission and 
get out, authorize the U.S. operation in Haiti, sets the limited 
presence in Haiti, provides for a resolution, if we need to stay beyond 
March 1. I think that what this Congress ought to do now is 
responsibly, in a bipartisan approach, support our forces in Haiti and 
say that we have a job to do, and when that job is completed we ought 
to get out.
  I think that is in the best tradition of bipartisan foreign policy 
that Congress has done through the years, and I think that is what we 
ought to do now.
  Let me again say the President should have come to Congress first, 
but let us also give credit where credit is due. The operation has been 
a success. It is continuing to be a success. This Congress needs to 
support our troops in Haiti.
  I will certainly support H.J. Res. 416, and will look at any 
amendments, and I commend the gentleman from New Jersey, my friend, for 
putting forth this resolution.
  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 9 minutes to the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Cunningham].
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, let me address some of the comments of 
the former speaker, and I am sure that the gentleman is sincere in his 
statements.
  But I would like to take a look at what has happened in the past. I 
remember when George Bush wanted us to support Desert Storm, and the 
majority of the Members on the other side of the aisle turned their 
backs on our men and women in uniform in Desert Storm. It was not until 
after that mission was successful that we were forced to come back here 
and vote so that Democrats could have a cover vote on Desert Storm. 
Those are the facts.
  When they talk about bipartisanship, let us make sure that we talk 
bipartisanship. Because when it fits the other shoe, that is not the 
case under this body.
  Let me take a look at what has happened. The President had months to 
prepare. He scaled down two aircraft carriers, loaded helicopters, 
loaded Army, brought all the equipment on, went to the United Nations 
for approval, went to the U.N. How about the U.S.? How about this body?

                              {time}  2200

  How about this body? The gentleman stated he should have come to 
Congress. If the President even felt he was right in being able to 
invade Haiti, why did he bypass this body and yet go outside of it? So 
when you say we cannot say that the President made a mistake, let me 
tell you why the President made a mistake. Did you know that by not 
coming to Congress, our men and women do not fall under the Geneva 
Convention? Just that little fact. If we had had anybody taken 
prisoner, just like in Vietnam, because it was not an act of Congress, 
they would not be covered; they would be called jailbirds, not 
prisoners of war.
  I remember we wanted to look at domestic policies, Members on that 
side of the aisle every day look at the billions of dollars we spent in 
the extension of Somalia, and we got 22 Rangers killed and 77 wounded 
because we had an administration that would not give them the armament.
  Now put yourself in those situations, put yourself in the situation 
of a father given the Medal of Honor by the President of one of those 
Rangers. When you talk about mistakes, when Dante Caputo, an emissary 
who wrote the memo on the 23d of May, saying that the President was 
doing this to boost his polls, on the 23d of May, gentlemen, he spelled 
out the whole thing. We want to bring Mr. Caputo back here and under 
oath have him testify about Strobe Talbott and the mission in Haiti.
  So, yes, we do need to take a look at what happened.
  What about the multinational force the President said was out there? 
Do you know that until day 5 we did not have a single multinational 
force? Where was that multinational force when our men and women were 
taking the risk going into Haiti? They were nowhere to be found.
  Do you know how many there are today? Ten. Ten of them in a safe 
haven in Haiti.
  We are out there taking the risk.
  You say what about the Haitians, what about the boat people who are 
coming across? How about the Caribbean Nations we have been so good to 
and have taken care of? It would be less expensive until we can force a 
peaceful resolution in Haiti.
  You say not to say the President made a mistake. I disagree.
  I take a look at the commitment and the things we are trying to do in 
this Congress, and it is wrong. I do not like our troops under U.N. 
Control. President Bush in Desert Storm had our troops under Colin 
Powell, Schwarzkopf, and we had control of them, not the U.N., not the 
Boutros/Boutros-by-golly.
  But we had control of our troops.
  I will fight and do everything I can to take that control away.
  So, yes, I think the President did make mistakes. I think we need to 
point it out so we do not make these same mistakes in the future.
  Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I yield to the gentleman from New York.
  Mr. ENGEL. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Chairman, I want to remind the gentleman and point out the fact 
that I believe 87 Democratic Members did vote for the Persian Gulf 
support.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. The gentleman is exactly right.
  Mr. ENGEL. And I was one of those 87 Members.
  I also remind my friend that I do not think any of the Republican 
Presidents came to Congress for the invasion of Grenada, for the 
invasion of Panama, or for the bombing of Libya.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Let me deal with the question. We were in a different 
time in the history of this world and of this Nation. In Grenada, you 
remember the Soviet Union was still the Soviet Union and Cuba was still 
a definite threat to the United States. You remember the Cubans in 
Grenada were building hardened runways for bombers that could reach the 
United States. To me that is a national security threat. And the Cubans 
themselves.
  Then you look at Panama, there is a little thing called the Panama 
Canal, which was a national security threat. At the same time some 
Members of this body supported the Sandinistas, which we were afraid 
that the same individual in Panama was supporting, and at the same time 
the Panama Canal was a threat and a tie to the drug cartel. So I do not 
think you can draw any parallel.
  Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.
  Mr. TORRICELLI. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Chairman, I want to identify myself with the gentleman's comments 
about the American forces remaining under American control. We have 
that right and responsibility to our Armed Forces.
  Those of us who drafted the resolution felt so strongly about that 
point that we inserted the following: ``U.S. Armed Forces described in 
section A shall remain in the command and control of the officers of 
the United States Armed Forces at all times.''
  I therefore suggest to the gentleman one way to make sure these 
forces are kept under U.S. control is to vote for the resolution.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I thank the gentleman.
  Is this true during the peacekeeping forces? Second, who is going to 
pay for it? Who is paying for the guns, the buyback, who is paying the 
Haitian soldiers, how much is the United States going to pay in this 
peacekeeping force? All of these questions, when we take a look at and, 
in my opinion, we are in a place where we do not belong in the first 
place.
  Haiti could sit there for the next two decades and not be a threat to 
the United States.
  Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield further?
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.
  Mr. TORRICELLI. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Chairman, the question of command under the peacekeeping forces 
of course is not addressed in our resolution or, in my understanding, 
in the gentleman's. Indeed if the gentleman, at a future time, wants to 
have a resolution dealing with that, I think many of us would be 
sympathetic. We have dealt only with U.S. forces in the occupation.
  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I yield to the gentleman from New York.
  Mr. GILMAN. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Chairman, in our resolution, the substitute resolution we address 
that issue and we demand that our U.N. peacekeeping forces, the U.S. 
part of that would be under U.S. command.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Let me just tell the gentleman sincerely, we look at 
Somalia and Bosnia and Haiti, and I look at the Navy. We have had to 
send back 35 ships for repair. We have had three air wings stand down 
because they do not have fuel or parts to fly. Top Gun, the famed Top 
Gun, did not fly all this month because it did not have fuel to fly 
against this one class.
  This is what we are doing, we are cutting training, cutting 
readiness, taking money out of the budget to support things like this. 
When the President says he wants a well-trained force highly equipped, 
and you push out and beyond the year 2010 a new airplane, the inventory 
is going down. My problem is we have as much operations today as we had 
in Vietnam and in Desert Storm, but we are killing our troops.
  Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. Chairman I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from 
New York [Mr. Owens].
  (Mr. OWENS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. OWENS. I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me.
  Mr. Chairman, this is a nonpartisan debate. I want to emphasize that. 
It can be very useful in throwing light on the circumstances 
surrounding the liberation of Haiti. The debate can make an 
immeasurable contribution to the making of foreign policy for this 
hemisphere in the future. It is not partisan, because there are 
Democrats who disagree with the actions being taken in Haiti as well as 
Republicans.
  We would like the American people to listen very seriously to the 
principles involved here, to the comparison of this particular action 
in Haiti with other actions that have been taken in this hemisphere; 
Grenada, Panama. It is very important because if we want to decide 
suddenly it is wrong to do it this way, it was wrong to do it that way 
in Grenada, Panama and maybe we will set some standards for the future 
that all Presidents will follow.
  In setting those standards, I think we should consider very seriously 
the following: This is not an invasion of Haiti. This is a liberation 
of the people of Haiti. It is not even an intervention because the head 
of state of Haiti, the democratically-elected President of Haiti, has 
been here in Washington for the last 2 to 3 years. We took back and are 
taking back the government that was elected by the people of Haiti, the 
democratically-elected government.
  That is not an invasion. That does not compare to Grenada. Grenada is 
a little island with 100,000 people at that time. We moved in there 
overnight with something like 17,000 troops, for an island of 100,000 
people.
  You know, there was no discussion, there were no negotiations with 
the leaders of Grenada. Whether you like them or not, at least there 
should have been some kind of negotiations. There was no consultation 
with the United Nations. That is totally different from what happened 
in the case of Haiti. For 3 years, for 3 years negotiations have gone 
on, deliberations with respect to Haiti. The use of force was 
undertaken only after all other efforts had failed.
  It was only as a last resort.
  This is a liberation not an invasion, not an intervention. This is 
military assistance for a democratic ally in this hemisphere.
  When we liberated Paris, we did not call that an invasion, when we 
liberated France, we did not call that an invasion. They were being 
held captive, an allied occupied nation. The greatest, riskiest 
undertaking was the landing at Normandy and that was undertaken to 
liberate a continent, to liberate Europe.

                              {time}  2210

  As my colleagues know, we did that because it was necessary to save 
democracy in Europe, because it had a bearing on our own Nation, a 
liberation of an occupied allied nation. This is a hostage rescue 
operation. We had hostages. Seven million people in Haiti were being 
held hostage by an armed forces of 7,000, but that armed forces had all 
the guns, they had all the armor, they had all the equipment. That 
armed forces had been trained.
  Listen. It was trained by the United States of America. Most of the 
officers were trained at Fort Benning, GA. The Haitian army is a 
creation of the United States of America. General Powell said in a 
debriefing at the White House after the negotiations that on the walls 
of the military compound in Haiti there are the pictures of all the 
commanders of the Haitian armed forces, and the first two people on 
that wall are American Marines, white American Marines who commanded 
the first armies of Haiti. They established the army.
  We cannot say that Haiti does not matter to us. We created the armed 
forces. We have dominated Haiti commercially, politically, militarily, 
since Haiti came into existence. That has been the history.
  As we have always been concerned about any nations in this 
hemisphere, suddenly we cannot become unconcerned. We have to be 
concerned about Haiti also because of the large number of refugees that 
have come from Haiti in an attempt to get into this country. We cannot 
turn our back on refugees. We are party to international conventions. 
We have a long history of accepting refugees.
  We have done things to the Haitians that were never done to anybody 
else, especially laws that have been erected in order to keep the 
Haitians out, in order to stop our country from behaving in a most 
inhumane way, in a totalitarian way. It was necessary to resolve the 
conflict in Haiti and allow a situation to exist in Haiti where the 
people of Haiti would want to stay at home and those who were outside 
would go back home, as they will now. They will go back home.is is not 
an invasion, and I say, You can look at your television sets and see 
that it's not an invasion. We're not an occupying army. We are a 
liberating army. The people have welcomed this liberating army. They 
are jubilant that they can again breathe free as human beings who are 
not under the domination of a set of military criminals. There wasn't 
an invasion, not a declaration of war.

  The action in Haiti must not be compared to Korea, or Vietnam, or 
world War II. It must be compared to Grenada, to Panama, Nicaragua. We 
have a tremendous amount of military assistance we gave to the Contras 
in Nicaragua.
  Actions taken by the United States in this Western Hemisphere is what 
we are talking about. Let us decide how we are going to behave. Are we 
going to go it alone in this hemisphere and not be concerned about all 
the other nations, and to what extent shall we be concerned? If 
criminals took over Puerto Rico tomorrow, and Puerto Rico is a part of 
the United States, but if criminals took over any island close to the 
United States tomorrow, are we just going to turn our backs and say the 
criminals can have the island? If they are using the island for the 
transshipment of drugs, are we going to turn our back and say that they 
can continue to transship drugs into this country? The great rationale 
for the invasion of Panama was the transshipment of drugs into our big 
cities going through Panama. We have not even talked about the extent 
to which they have gone through Haiti and the criminals who control 
Haiti, how they enrich themselves through the drug transshipment 
industry.
  President Clinton has acted with the noblest of motivations. There 
was no political gain from going into a situation to liberate a people 
who can do nothing for him politically, to liberate a people when the 
polls showed that they were not in favor of it, to liberate a people 
when most of the Members of Congress were against it. There was no 
political motivation here. It was the noblest of motivation, the kind 
of motivation that Abraham Lincoln had when he set the slaves free. He 
had nothing to gain politically. he was criticized around it. Everybody 
else opposed it. When Abraham Lincoln acted to set the slaves free, it 
was the right thing to do.
  A great nation like the United States should use its power, use its 
prestige, to help the least of the nations among us, and Haiti is the 
least, represents the least, of the nations among us. We have done the 
right thing in saving Haiti from a group of military thugs who are 
holding the people of Haiti hostage in order to set a good example for 
what we do in the future. It ought to be an example which will guide 
foreign policy in the future. We have more to fear from criminals now 
than we have to fear from Communists or any other people or 
ideologists. Criminals are a major force throughout the world. They are 
selling nuclear weapons into all kinds of activities, and who knows 
when they will next take over a nation somewhere near us and we will 
have to act.

  So, let us proceed with a debate with the understanding that this is 
a new world order, we have an armed forces that is already there. What 
do they do in their spare time? You know, are the forces utilized here 
doing something they would not be doing on a training exercise? This is 
like a huge training exercise. Not a single soldier has been killed 
yet, not a serious casualty yet.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Mazzoli). The time of the gentleman from New York 
[Mr. Owens] has expired.
  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield an additional minute to the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] to allow the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Cunningham] to address him.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. OWENS. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, I would say to my good friend that I 
would agree with him that, if Haiti were developing nuclear weapons, if 
there were a real threat, or some power went in there, I think the 
President would be fully within his rights. But the logic that the 
gentleman uses on drugs, on immigration and refugees, if that was the 
logic, Mr. Speaker, we would have invaded Mexico a long time ago just 
from California.
  We spoke to Colin Powell, and he said, and I quote, ``I have great, I 
have great, reservations about what we did in Haiti,'' and I take a 
look at why we need to go into different nations. There are a hundred 
different places we can go into, and my only point is; it is that they 
were not the same initiatives as far as national security in either of 
Grenada or in Panama and that Haiti could sit there for the next two 
decades and not be a threat to the United States.
  Mr. OWENS. Panama was a drug problem.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. It was a drug problem; I agree. But we also had a 
Panama Canal, and Panama was much more of a drug problem than ever in 
Haiti.
  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from 
Kentucky [Mr. Bunning].
  (Mr. BUNNING asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. BUNNING. Mr. Chairman, what do the Washington Post, the New York 
Times, and 73 percent of the American people have in common? All of 
them agreed that we should not have invaded Haiti.
  Even the liberal press that normally blesses any Clinton undertaking 
has agreed that Mr. Clinton should have sought congressional approval 
before invading Haiti.
  Now, weeks after the fact, we are just getting around to debating 
this miserable policy. Congress should not be consulted as an after-
thought when American troops are being put in harm's way.
  While there are times when it is appropriate for a President to act 
first and seek the blessing of Congress later, this was not one of 
those cases.
  There were no American lives in danger as there was in Grenada, where 
stealth was important to rescue American students.
  There was no drug smuggling dictator who was violating United States 
law, as there was in Panama.
  Haiti had not invaded a neighboring country which was in danger of 
being wiped off the map if the United States did not intervene 
immediately.
  In short, there was no reason for the United States to commit troops 
to an invasion without Congress first expressing its will and the will 
of the American people.
  In this Kentuckian's opinion, we had no reason for waging war on that 
tiny country.
  Congress should speak loudly and clearly that we do not approve of 
Mr. Clinton's misguided attempt to meddle in the internal affairs of 
Haiti.
  We should not give our retroactive support for an ill-conceived 
occupation of a country where we simply have no national interest.
  Let us get our troops out as quickly and safely as possible.

                              {time}  1020

  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. Chairman, I yield 7 minutes to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania [Mr. Foglietta].
  Mr. FOGLIETTA. Mr. Chairman, amidst the gamesmanship that is being 
played by some leaders to gain political advantage out of our mission 
in Haiti, I want to state unequivocally that I support what our men and 
women in the Armed Forces are seeking to achieve just 700 miles from 
our border.
  First and foremost, I support the principles behind this mission. 
Just as important as it is to return democracy to Haiti, it is vital to 
stop the brutality of the military regime that overturned the will of 
70 percent of the Haitian people. The rule of the military leaders was 
a reign of terror, torture, and a climate of fear was used as a means 
of suppression.
  It is within the interests of the United States to halt this pain in 
a nation so close to our borders. Every day that Cedras, Francois, and 
Biamby ruled the streets of Haiti was another day of embarrassment to 
our Nation, which is now the sole remaining world leader.
  It is important that we halt the tyranny which was leading to an 
unacceptable influx of immigrants at a time when immigration is one of 
the most compelling issues confronting us.
  It is also in our national interests to depose the unelected leaders 
of Haiti, who most believe are part of the Caribbean-South American 
drug trafficking axis. We believe that we do have a vital strategic 
interest in removing the military government that deposed President 
Aristide.
  We believe that the end of our mission will occur as soon as is 
possible, but we must finish the job. It would be wrong to set an 
arbitrary deadline for withdrawing the troops in this mission, and it 
would be a dangerous precedent for future efforts.
  If this legislation would be passed to set a date certain, we can 
just hear the whispers of the democracy foes in Haiti. ``Let's just 
wait until March 1st. Wait it out until March 1st, and then we will be 
free to go back in to continue our rape, our murder, our slaughter.''
  We must not place handcuffs on our troops when they are out to 
perform a perilous mission.
  Lieutenant General Shelton and all of our troops in Haiti deserve 
incredible credit for an overwhelmingly successful mission thus far. 
Thousands have landed without a single combat death, thank God. And as 
Anthony Lewis noted in the New York Times on Friday, the Haiti mission 
lacks the confusion of the Grenada effort and the excessive force of 
the Panama effort. Instead of the political rhetoric and whining, we 
should all be making speeches expressing pride in this mission.
  In addition to being a model of military effectiveness, it is 
achieving clear milestones on the way to a goal, which is the 
restoration of democracy in that country. The Parliament has begun to 
meet and fairly consider the amnesty resolution, which is part of the 
Clinton-Carter agreement. The mayor of Port-au-Prince, an Aristide 
ally, has returned to his office. People in Haiti are feeling the 
shackles of repression removed and are taking part in peaceful 
demonstrations throughout that country. Democracy Is returning to 
Haiti.
  In the same vein, we believe that order is the order of the day in 
Haiti, and we are distressed by the spin that news reports are putting 
on the state of civil affairs there. There is no chaos, and there are 
no riots. Rather, we are proud of the effectiveness of our troops in 
preserving the peace in understandably difficult conditions.
  It is not antiseptic or perfect, but our troops are performing 
superbly. The attacks on the mission are unfair to them, and they 
should stop. The cynical commentary feeds American unease and distrust 
in this effort. Rather, they should be feeling a swell of pride that we 
are able to use our power to achieve this honorable purpose.
  It is proper to return President Aristide to his office in Port-au-
Prince. The propaganda campaign, unfortunately aided and abetted by our 
Central Intelligence Agency, has been effective, but has been mean-
spirited and filled with lies. None of the stories are consistent with 
the facts or our familiarity with a man who many of us have gotten to 
know. He is a man of peace, of purpose, of quiet effectiveness. While 
we know he will not be a stooge, we believe he will be a friend to our 
Nation, and, importantly, will not be a coconspirator in drug 
trafficking, which is killing a whole generation of America's young 
people.
  Moreover, he has been chosen by 70 percent of the Haitian people in a 
fair election, where participation surpassed that of even our most 
recent American elections.
  We hope that our troops continue, with God's help, to make this a 
successful effort. Let us not tie their hands. Let us restore democracy 
to Haiti. Let us not set any date certain. Let us give our troops the 
time to do the job.
  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 14 minutes to the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Cox].
  Mr. COX. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Chairman, we will shortly be debating the Torricelli-Hamilton 
resolution, which will authorize President Clinton's occupation of 
Haiti through March, 1995. It is critically important for Congress and 
the American people to understand why our troops were sent into harm's 
way, and on this point the Torricelli-Hamilton resolution is quite 
explicit.
  According to the resolution, our forces are to be used to protect 
United States citizens, to facilitate the provision of humanitarian 
assistance, and, here is the ringer, to stabilize the security 
situation in Haiti.
  The last purpose, of course, is the critical one, since our citizens 
in Haiti have never yet been in danger and there has never been any 
suggestion that 28,000 troops and two aircraft carriers are necessary 
to facilitate humanitarian assistance.
  The American people need to know that the security situation in Haiti 
has never in two centuries been stabilized. They need to know that our 
soldiers' mission will not be to install a democratic government, but 
only to install Jean-Bertrand Aristide. That is a very different 
matter.
  By voting for the Torricelli-Hamilton resolution, this body would be 
voting to authorize the use of United States forces for 6 months, to 
install and then prop up a murderous, bitterly anti-American, leftist 
demagogue, and we will be authorizing the kind of ill-fated nation 
building that President Clinton was forced to abandon just a year ago 
until Somalia.
  The American public and the Congress deserve a closer acquaintance 
with Father Aristide, as President Clinton calls him. Father Aristide 
was suspended from the priesthood in 1988 for, and I quote, 
``incitement to hatred and violence.'' Father Aristide has reviled Pope 
John Paul II from the pulpit as nothing more than ``the CEO of a 
multinational corporation whose job was to ensure company profits.'' 
And Aristide has not stopped at mere words. In 1991, Aristide's mobs 
destroyed the old cathedral of Port-au-Prince, the archbishop's house, 
and the Vatican Embassy, and tried to lynch the archbishop and the 
Vatican nuncio.

                              {time}  2230

  Archbishop Leanza, the Vatican envoy, was saved when one of his 
neighbors pretended to have orders from Aristide to spare him. The 
neighbor had, in fact, been pretending. Father Aristide never sent any 
reprieve.
  Aristide's penchant for violence has been directed far beyond his own 
church. On the wall of his office in Haiti, Aristide had a painting of 
himself smiling down on a mob carrying tires, gasoline, and matches.
  I have here a reproduction of that painting. Here is Father Aristide. 
Here are the flames. Here is the tires. Here is the gasoline, the 
matches, and the mob surrounding the capital.
  This painting hung in Aristide's office when he was President. The 
grisly necklaces that his followers used to murder their opponents are 
referred to in slang as Pere Lebrun, Pere Lebrun being a noted tire 
dealer in Haiti, sort of the Michelin man of Haiti. This photograph of 
the painting shows that the painting itself that hung on Aristide's 
wall contained the following inscription: ``If our power is threatened, 
little Aristide, if you have a problem, command us to march and solve 
it with necklacing.''
  This is the humanitarian democrat, Aristide, our troops are sending 
back to Haiti with his very interesting taste in art.
  Mr. Speaker, this is what we would be voting to authorize. There is 
more.
  In September 1991, Aristide told a crowd of supporters that they 
should give his opponents ``what they deserve,'' the necklace. Let me 
quote exactly what he said of it, Mr. Speaker. This is what he said 
about necklacing.

       What a beautiful tool. What a beautiful instrument. What a 
     beautiful device. It is pretty. It looks sharp. It is 
     fashionable. It smells good. And wherever you go, you want to 
     smell it.

  A few days after delivering that speech, a mob of Aristide's 
supporters attacked Sylvio Claude, a Baptist minister, two-time 
Presidential candidate in Haiti and the head of the opposition 
Christian Democratic Party. Sylvio Claude had been jailed and tortured 
under the Duvalier dictatorship. He sought refuge in a police station 
but he was thrown to the mob which beat him to death and burned and 
mutilated his corpse.
  Also, 3 months earlier, Father Aristide told another mob that, and I 
quote:

       The people have their little matches in their hand. They 
     have their little gasoline not far away. Does the 
     constitution tell the people they have the right to forget 
     necklacing? No, you will learn to write necklacing. You will 
     learn to think necklacing. You will learn to use it when you 
     must.

  Contrary to President Clinton's contentions, Aristide is a committed 
opponent of democracy and repeatedly subverted his own constitution 
during his tenure in power. As a priest, father Aristide's slogan was, 
``revolution, not elections.''
  Once installed in power, he repeatedly attacked the national 
legislature, which was as freely elected as he was. He packed the 
supreme court and refused to submit the names of his justices to the 
Parliament, as the constitution required. When the chamber of deputies 
sought to investigate Aristide's Prime Minister for gross corruption in 
August 1991, Aristide's mobs surrounded the Parliament with tires and 
gasoline in had, dragging out and beating legislators and torching 
union offices and opposition headquarters.
  In September, during a third attempt to question the Prime Minister, 
Aristide himself appeared in the Parliament with a vase of flowers to 
remind legislators that if they tried to question his fellow thug, the 
flowers would decorate their graves. The legislature was completely 
stymied. They adjourned, which touched off the constitutional crisis 
that led to Aristide's overthrow.
  I would like to ask my colleagues how they would feel, if President 
Clinton, to pass this resolution to put pressure on Congress to pass 
the Torricelli-Hamilton legislation, called a mob of thousands of 
people armed with Molotov cocktails into in the streets of Washington 
to surround this capital; if armed thugs entered this building and 
dragged some of our colleagues from both parties away for a beating 
before then heading off to burn the AFL-CIO, the Chamber of Commerce, 
the RNC and the National Cathedral; if President Clinton named five so-
called justices the Supreme Court and refused to allow the Senate to 
vote on them; what if he drove the Nation's religious leaders not just 
out of Washington but out of the country; and, according to 
substantially documented accounts, in the Haiti context, ordered the 
murder of one of his democratic rivals for the Presidential nomination. 
I would ask if my colleagues would regard this as the action of a 
sincere Democrat, however large his electoral majority in 1990; or if 
they think that the landslides enjoyed by Presidents Reagan or Bush in 
1980, 1984, and 1988, gave them the right to subvert and brutally 
coerce the other two branches of our Government. It would appear that 
this is exactly what we are saying about the so-called democratic 
President of Haiti.

  Mr. Speaker, the Congress should also know that the lives of United 
States soldiers are being put at risk to restore a man who has made his 
career denouncing the United States.
  In 1986, in a speech to a huge mob, Aristide asked the crowd, and I 
quote:

       Who is Satan, we or the Americans? The Americans. Who is 
     the most Satanic, the Americans or the American government? 
     The American government, down with Satan. Down with 
     imperialism.

  In 1987, in an open letter to our embassy in Port-au-Prince, Aristide 
denounced the Reagan administration's efforts to promote 
democratization in Haiti, which had resulted in the flight of Baby 
Davulier Doc the previous year. He said, Aristide said, ironically 
enough, ``The U.S. government has no right to stick its nose into 
Haitian elections.''
  More recent Aristide remarks and actions have been little better. For 
the 3 days after our troops went in, Aristide refused to express even a 
word of thanks to the soldiers who will apparently be protecting him. 
And to this day he has refused to sign a status of forces agreement for 
our forces in Haiti. This is a vital document that records the rights 
of troops in that country in an apparently successful effort to 
blackmail the administration into more extensive commitments to disarm 
his opponents and serve as bodyguards for his cronies.
  Finally, Congress should know that Aristide hates economic freedom, 
too. He wrote a whole book entitled Capitalism Is a Mortal Sin. He has 
repeatedly excoriated capitalism, free enterprise in his writings and 
his speeches. He modestly noted in his 1992 autobiography:

       I did not invent class struggle anymore than Karl Marx did. 
     But who could avoid encountering class struggle in the 
     streets of Port-au-Prince?

  In the same volume he tells us of his admiration for the Castroite 
terrorist Che Guevara, who embodied, as Aristide says, ``the values of 
beauty, dignity, respect and love.''

  We are now told that Aristide has grown, that in his 3 years of 
exile, this man of God has developed a deeper insight into the moral 
questions raised by burning people alive and destroying churches. It is 
true that he has already instituted a sweeping reform of his past.
  He told me point blank in a meeting just a few days ago in the 
Capitol, there were no instances of necklacing during his tenure as 
President of Haiti.
  The omens for the future are less promising. Aristide is recruiting a 
post-invasion security force from refugees at Guantanamo Bay using his 
former police chief, Lt. Col. Pierre Cherubin. Cherubin stand as 
accused of participating in drug trafficking and of ordering brutal 
human rights violations.
  The most notorious of these brutal human rights violations was the 
execution style murder of five teenagers in Port-au-Prince during 
Aristide's tenure. A Clinton administration official gave the 
Washington Post classified reports detailing the evidence that Cherubin 
ordered the torture and killing of Aristide's political opponents in 
1991. And Rene Preval, the corrupt thug who served as Aristide's Prime 
Minister, remains one of Aristide's closest confidants today.
  In short, Mr. Speaker, we are being asked to authorize to give our 
congressional formal approval to using American soldiers to place in 
power an anti-democratic, anti-capitalist, anti-American, anti-
religious demagogue.
  I want to make clear that I am in no way apologizing for the military 
dictatorship that toppled Aristide. They are clearly as bad as he is or 
worse. To the contrary, my point is that the United States should not 
play favorites among such unsavory alternatives. We certainly should 
not attempt to deceive either the people of Haiti or the people of the 
United States about the nature of our protege.

                              {time}  2240

  Mr. Chairman, we are further told that this will not be another 
Somalia-style nation-building exercise. That is also not true. By 
restoring President Aristide; by committing tens of thousands of U.S. 
troops for half a year; by committing thousands of our personnel for a 
multi-year presence; and by assembling a huge aid package--the Clinton 
administration has made solving the problems of this chronically 
unstable nation, the problem of the United States.
  Haiti has never had a democratic government in its long, difficult, 
and bloody history. Of Haiti's 6.7 million people, 75 percent live in 
absolute poverty. Per capita income is $280. The unemployment and 
malnutrition rates are 50 percent. The illiteracy rate is 64 percent. 
Infant mortality is 10 percent; life expectancy is 54 years. President 
Clinton's embargo, which he imposed after the collapse of the 
Governor's Island Accord in October 1993, has worsened this situation, 
has further impoverished the poorest country in the hemisphere. It has 
destroyed over 100,000 jobs, and produced rampant malnutrition. It has 
worsened infant mortality.
  Virtually the only infrastructure that now exists in Haiti was 
created during the last American military occupation of Haiti. That 
temporary affair lasted almost 20 years. Clinton administration 
officials have said that a massive United States aid program is now 
required for Haiti. Enforcing the economic embargo and dealing with the 
resultant refugees has already cost the United States taxpayer over 
$200 million. The Defense Department estimates that its military 
operation will cost half a billion dollars more, just over the next 7 
months. Having wrecked the already impoverished Haitian economy through 
sanctions, the Clinton administration is now preparing a huge economic 
reconstruction plan to pay off Haiti's overdue foreign debts, and 
rebuild Haiti's crumbling infrastructure. The State Department won't 
put a price tag on the total package, but states that it goes ``well 
beyond'' an earlier 5-year, $1 billion international plan. President 
Aristide, the man who wrote about the ``deadly economic infection 
called capitalism,'' is said to be on board. And as for his conversion 
to ``elections, not revolution,'' only time will tell. But the lives of 
our troops are, in a very real sense, on the line.
  The Clinton administration has said that our troops will be replaced 
within months by a U.N. peacekeeping force, but they have not pointed 
out that fully half that U.N. force, some 3,000 troops, will be 
Americans.
  The stated military purpose of the Clinton Haiti policy is to protect 
the civilian government and maintain civil order. These are goals that 
no Haitian Government has accomplished successfully in almost two 
centuries. Why, Mr. Speaker, would we want to buy this trouble? It is 
almost exactly 1 year after the debacle in Somalia. Why can't this 
administration learn?
  President Clinton has given yet another reason for intervention: to 
stem the flood of Haitian immigration. But his own embargo has been the 
prime engine for immigration from Haiti. President Clinton's embargo 
has destroyed nine-tenths of Haiti's industrial jobs. It has created 
rampant malnutrition in an already impoverished country. And the surges 
in boat people are directly correlated to his own flip-flops on 
immigration policy. After the 1992 election, Haitian immigration surged 
because Haitians believe candidate Clinton's campaign promises about 
granting temporary asylum. Haitian immigration declined dramatically 
after Bill Clinton broke his promise. Haitian immigration has 
consistently ebbed and flowed with this administration's vacillating 
refugee policy. A clear policy, and an end to the embargo, would 
address this issue. We don't need an American occupation of Haiti to 
fix that.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, we are told that a United States occupation of 
Haiti is necessary to restore American credibility. Of all the 
arguments advanced by President Clinton for this mission, Mr. Speaker, 
this is the most galling. America--the United States of America--has no 
credibility problem except President Clinton. We won the cold war, 
broke the Soviet Union, and freed Eastern Europe. We defeated one of 
the largest, most lavishly equipped armies in the world, almost without 
loss of American lives. We are the only superpower in the world today. 
Our credibility isn't in question. And let me add, Mr. Speaker, it is 
too late in the day to say that President Clinton's credibility is in 
question, either. After backing down in Korea, after backing down in 
Somalia, after backing down in Bosnia, after backing down in China, and 
after 2 years and six or seven Haiti policies, I don't know of anyone, 
anywhere, who does not question President Clinton's credibility. They 
know the answer to that one, and that answer isn't going to change at 
this late date because we have finally, after 2 years of bluster and 
backtracking, run off three Haitian colonels. Plunging thousands of our 
troops neck-deep in this snakepit isn't going to convince Kim Jong-Il 
or Slobodan Milosevic of our credibility. Adopting--at long last--a 
clear, consistent policy keyed to our own national interest rather than 
the President's political interest, and focused on the very real 
threats to that interest that exist in places like Korea--that will 
provide Mr. Clinton with some badly needed credibility.

  In closing, Mr. Speaker, I want to join all my colleagues on both 
sides of the aisle in expressing my relief that our troops are not 
facing immediate danger today. But make no mistake, the lives of our 
troops, and American credibility, are both being placed at daily risk 
in a cauldron of violence, for reasons that have nothing to do with our 
national interest, and everything to do with President Clinton's 
political viability.
  From first to last this President's Haiti policy has reeked of the 
crassest political motivations. His defenders now argue that because 
his Haiti policy is so broadly unpopular around the country, it proves 
he can't be motivated by politics. I am afraid the answer to that, is 
that it proves the incompetence of the Clinton foreign policy. The 
evolution of the Clinton policy is reflected in memoranda sent to U.N. 
Secretary General Boutros-Ghali by Dante Caputo, his special 
representative. Caputo wrote, on May 19, based on his discussions with 
Clinton administration officials, that ``Haiti represents a test case 
for which the United States has to have found a solution before 
November.'' On May 23, he wrote further that ``the President of the 
United States' main advisers are of the opinion that [the invasion of 
Haiti] * * * is politically desirable. * * * The Americans see in this 
type of action a chance to show, after the strong media criticism of 
the administration, the President's decision-making capability and 
firmness of leadership in international political matters.'' The next 
day Caputo reported that the Clinton administration ``will not be able 
to stand for much longer, until August at the latest, the criticism of 
their foreign policy on the domestic front. They want to do something. 
They are going to try to intervene militarily,'' and intervene he did, 
without authorization of this Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, the American people are mortally weary of a Haiti policy 
that, is every step, has been dictated by the necessity of maintaining 
Bill Clinton's political viability. We owe it to our troops, and to the 
very real threats to our national interest that do exist in the world, 
to end this nation-building adventure as swiftly as possible.

                              {time}  1090

  Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from 
Colorado [Mr.Skaggs].
  Mr. SKAGGS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the 
time.
  Mr. Chairman, I think it is important for the House to stop for a 
moment and understand what we are engaged in here. In that context, I 
want to express my appreciation to the committee and to the gentleman 
from New Jersey [Mr. Torricelli] for their efforts in fashioning House 
Joint Resolution 416.
  Mr. Chairman, it is an awkward task for the committee to have 
performed, at best, given the circumstances that we faced, but it is 
better to deal with the situation after the fact than not at all with 
regard to the responsibilities of the legislative branch of Government.
  Mr. Chairman, we had an extremely close constitutional call with 
respect to an invasions of Haiti. As Members are quite well aware, the 
planes had launched and then were recalled. I think only by virtue of 
the success of former President Carter in negotiating an agreement at 
Port-au-Prince at that very time was the Nation spared a constitutional 
tragedy.
  Mr. Chairman, it is essential now, even in retrospect, for this body 
to exercise our responsibility constitutionally, or risk letting it 
wither from disuse. It is for that reason that, again notwithstanding 
the after-the-fact posture we now find ourselves in, that I have 
offered in committee and to the Committee on Rules explicit language 
even now putting Congress on record as to the constitutional reality 
that existed at the time the Port-au-Prince agreement was reached, and 
that is that absent that agreement, the Constitution of the United 
States would have required the President to obtain the approval of 
Congress before ordering our Armed Forces to invade Haiti.
  Mr. Chairman, I believe that the Committee on Rules has proposed a 
rule that we will take up tomorrow that will incorporate that language 
into the committee's resolution. I look forward to the adoption of that 
rule and, therefore, to the affirmation by the Congress of this 
important constitutional principal.
  Mr. Chairman, if we do not now assert that responsibility, I do not 
believe we can complain later when some President in the future acts in 
disregard of the important prerogatives of this body.
  Mr. Chairman, I had and I still have many questions about the wisdom 
of this intervention. I believe the President would have been well 
advised and more to have forged a partnership with Congress before 
committing this country and its Armed Forces in Haiti. I was as 
outspoken about that point as I could be, and as I think any Member of 
this body was before September 18. I feel no less strongly about it 
tonight.
  Mr Chairman, the fact of the matter is that the President did act 
without us, and that action has changed the reality which we must now 
deal with. Now we must do our best in a very awkward set of 
circumstances, do our best, I think, to serve two very fundamental 
objectives: first, asserting the profound constitutional responsibility 
and prerogative of the Congress, the legislative branch of our 
Government, in these circumstances; and, second, serving the real 
national interest as it now has to be defined, given the fact of the 
deployment of troops, given the fact that United States power and 
prestige are now fully implicated in Haiti, and given the fact that 
surely we must prefer this mission to succeed, however promptly it 
needs to be concluded.
  Mr. Chairman, I think House Joint Resolution 416 deals decently and 
responsibly with an inherently awkward situation in meeting these two 
objective. Even now, Mr. Chairman, after an intervention, it is vitally 
important for us to be mindful of the proper role of Congress under 
these circumstances.
  Mr. Chairman, for us to assert our responsibility here is not to 
indulge in some vain turf struggle with the executive branch of 
Government. Rather, I think this debate and the votes that will come 
tomorrow will serve to honor the profound wisdom of the Founders, who 
understood that on matters of such importance, the people have to be 
heard, and that that is to be accomplished through the debate and the 
vote of their Representatives in Congress.
  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 7\1/2\ minutes to the 
gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Smith], the ranking Minority Member of 
the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere.
  Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from New Jersey [Mr. Smith].
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Smith] is recognized 
for 11 minutes.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding.
  Mr. Chairman, in the Committee on Foreign Affairs last week we had an 
extensive debate on House Joint Resolution 416 which eventually was 
approved on a party-line vote. The primary issues revolved around the 
fact that the bill provides a retroactive authorization for the 
President's decision to launch an invasion and occupation of Haiti, 
putting the lives of U.S. military personnel in danger, and the 
question remains whether or not the date for the so-called withdrawal 
by March 1 is actually binding.
  Assistant Secretary Wendy Sherman testified last week, Mr. Chairman, 
that the March 1 date is non-binding and has no legal teeth. I think 
that should be noted up front by Members. I, as did another member of 
our committee, had asked that the Assistant Secretary provide this 
information to us in writing. We are still waiting, and I think that is 
symptomatic of the kind of responses we have been getting throughout 
this entire process.
  While we are waiting for the letter detailing the administration's 
position, as to whether or not the March 1 date is binding, we will 
hold our breath. Certainly her oral testimony put her on the record as 
saying it is non-binding.
  Mr. Chairman, I know my good friend, the gentleman from New Jersey 
[Mr. Torricelli], has very sincere and well meaning intentions in 
offering this resolution, but let me say at the outset that my 
opposition is to the deployment of our forces.
  Let me make it very clear that I do not question the capability, the 
commitment, or the professionalism of our forces in Haiti. As in 
previous engagements and deployments, our forces are acting with great 
courage and with great distinction. That should be noted. I do not 
think there is any doubt on either side of the aisle that we are very 
proud of our men and women in uniform.
  Mr. Chairman, my concerns, however, are for the health and well-being 
of our soldiers. Sending our forces into combat--or into any hostile 
territory--is the most serious decision that anyone can make. On 
September 18, absent a compelling national interest, our Commander-in-
Chief put U.S. forces in danger of death and maiming, without first 
seeking authorization from those who directly represent them, their 
families, and their children; that is to say, the Congress.

                              {time}  2250

  Mr. Speaker, this is not some petty turf battle. The administration 
went to great lengths to procure United Nations authorization while 
utterly by-passing approval from the United States Congress. Even now 
House Joint Resolution 416 and the other amendments that will be 
offered are disregarded by the administration as superfluous and 
unnecessary. Members on both sides of the aisle, it seems to me, 
believe that this debate and a binding resolution justifying or turning 
down an invasion and occupation should have been held prior to, not 
after, the fact.
  Mr. Speaker, I make no apologies for questioning the wisdom of Mr. 
Clinton's stewardship of foreign policy in general and policy toward 
Haiti in particular. One only has to look at the myriad of flip-flops 
and vacillations to know that this administration has not had a steady 
hand when it comes to foreign policy--and one might even make that 
charge domestically--but foreign policy has been constantly changing 
with the sand shifting from under. Flip-flops have been had in Somalia 
itself where there was mission creep. Originally the operation was a 
humanitarian mission which we all supported, but we started going after 
Mr. Aideed and others, and the whole policy in Somalia changed.
  Look at the flip-flop on the People's Republic of China where Mr. 
Clinton as a candidate accused Mr. Bush of coddling dictators in 
Beijing.
  Mr. FOGLIETTA. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. FOGLIETTA. Would the gentleman comment on the peace initiative in 
the Middle East that our President is leading right now? Would the 
gentleman say that is an unsuccessful policy?
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I am glad to comment, then I will go back to 
my comments.
  First, I am very happy with what has been happening in the Middle 
East. I think it also should be noted that there are many, many others 
involved, including foreign ministers from other nations, and we all 
support the progress. But, there have been some very notable foreign 
policy debacles, including Somalia and Bosnia. As ranking member of the 
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, I have seen that Mr. 
Clinton has had many policies on Bosnia. Unfortunately, that lack of a 
steady hand has led to a lack of trust in our policy.
  I led a delegation to China in January when it was the 
administration's position that human rights were inextricably wed to 
our trading policy and the most-favored-nation status. I was told by 
Chinese leaders that the administration in Washington would not live up 
to their threats. I could not believe my ears. Things had actually 
gotten worse in China, and this administration's bluff was being 
called. Sure enough, when the record was clear and the decision day 
came, this administration completely decoupled human rights from most-
favored-nation status.
  Again, people can have differences as to what is the best means to 
promote human rights. I happen to believe linkage is important. Mr. 
Clinton had issued an executive order clearly articulating the linkage 
of trade and human rights, only to completely trash that executive 
order when the time for decisions came. He completely decoupled the 
issues. We must be wary of this because that provides the backdrop for 
the administration's Haitian policy.
  Who can forget Mr. Clinton on May 27, 1992, proclaiming, ``I am 
appalled by the decision of the Bush administration to pick up fleeing 
Haitians on the high seas and forcibly return them to Haiti before 
considering their claim to political asylum.'' He said, ``This is 
another sad example of the administration's callous response to a 
terrible human tragedy.'' Then he went on to say that if he were 
President, he would give them temporary asylum. That would be fine, I 
guess, if he meant it.

  By January 14, 1993, President-elect Clinton had reversed his 
campaign policy and announced, ``The practice of returning those who 
fled Haiti by boat will continue, for the time being, after I become 
President. Those who do leave Haiti by boat will be stopped and 
directly returned by the United States Coast Guard.'' Hopes were 
raised, Mr. Chairman, and then hopes were dashed.
  In July 1993, the President's policy on Haiti was based on the 
Governor's Island Accord, and we all had high hopes for that accord.
  The lack of foreplanning and resolve, however, displayed by the 
retreat of the U.S.S. Harlan County in early October 1993, only served 
to embolden General Cedras, the Haitian military thugs and the 
paramilitary groups. A tightened fuel embargo was implemented and the 
Haitian economy gasped. President Aristide initially agreed to pursue a 
coalition government, at the encouragement of his Prime Minister Robert 
Malval, but Aristide backed off and Malval resigned by December, as 
planned.
  A new effort to seek a political solution was undertaken between 
President Aristide and members of Parliament. Former opponents in the 
Parliament as well as leaders in the business community and labor 
unions joined the consensus, but these considered initiatives fell 
victim to domestic politics in the United States.
  Mr. Chairman the noose of sanctions was again tightened. At the 
insistence of the United States, in May 1994, the United Nations voted 
for a commercial embargo on Haiti, imposed a worldwide visa ban on 
supporters of the military regime and urged freeze of all assets held 
by the regime's supporters.
  The United States made changes in its refugee processing policy, in 
accord with hunger-strike politics. The flood of refugees was 
unrestrained--the television images of thousands--more than 16,000 
refugees--led to the President's changing his refugee policy yet again 
on July 5. Refugees had to demonstrate a ``well-founded fear of 
persecution.'' Within a day, on July 6, safe haven would be available 
to refugees who simply said they feared persecution at home. The ever-
changing policy sent mixed messages of hope, despair, and irresolute 
threats. The President failed to maintain any policy he set. In fact, 
all indicators pointed to the fact that the President had resigned 
himself to the use of troops to restore the democratically-elected 
government of Haiti. As our friend in the Senate [Mr. Dole] reminded 
us, it was `an invasion in search of a rationale.''
  In closing, I agree with the gentleman from California [Mr. Cox] who 
raised some very serious questions about President Aristide's past. At 
a meeting last week with the Committee on Foreign Affairs, I asked Mr. 
Aristide if he had ever embraced violence in general, or necklacing in 
particular. He said he had not, but the record clearly shows otherwise. 
I saw actual footage of his speech on Front Line, and I do not think 
they were playing games with the translation. President Aristide spoke 
about the smell, and the graceful and dazzling sight of the heinous 
practice of necklacing.
  Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.
  Mr. TORRICELLI. First it is important I think for Members to 
understand that while we would have welcomed it, indeed the 
administration is not supporting this resolution at the moment. This is 
a resolution that is brought from our committee. Indeed, with the 
unanimous vote of Democrats on the committee and some Republicans on 
the committee.
  I would also like the gentleman to note that in Section 6 of our 
resolution, there is an expedited procedure for the House to be able to 
vote after February 1 on the removal of United States forces from 
Haiti. We would have that available to us as we would in your own 
resolution.
  I say that because the gentleman correctly notes that unfortunately, 
and in my judgment arrogantly, Assistant Secretary Wendy Sherman did 
note the administration might not comply with our request. However, we 
have put this in in that instance.
  I further want to note that while she testified to that extent, I 
believe it would be extraordinary and I would find it highly unlikely 
that after a vote of this Congress in that regard, the President would 
not comply with our wishes.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, so the 
record is very correct on this, the vote was unanimous on the 
Republican side against the resolution. Not one Republican voted in 
favor of it.
  Mr. TORRICELLI. I stand corrected. I though there were 2 who voted 
the other way.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. And, I agree with the sense as conveyed to 
us by Assistant Secretary Wendy Sherman that the deadline might have 
political force, but the March 1 deadline would not have a legally 
binding force. I think many people are under the mistaken view that 
somehow March 1 is etched in stone and the troops are out as per this 
resolution and that needs to be clarified.
  Mr. TORRICELLI. If the gentleman would yield further, the gentleman 
is correct in his account of Wendy Sherman's testimony, but again I 
want to say that I cannot believe that indeed she was speaking for the 
President, that if this vote were held, that the President would not 
comply. But furthermore again after February 1 a member can come to 
this floor under expedited procedure to force a withdrawal under our 
resolution.
  Mr. FOGLIETTA. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. FOGLIETTA. I would like to ask the gentleman if I may, if he has 
ever read the speech, or the translation of the speech to which he 
refers for the necklacing allegedly stated by President Aristide.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I have the speech. More importantly, I have 
seen the translation. I do not speak Mr. Aristide's language, but the 
translation I saw I believe is accurate. Let me say again, I first saw 
the actual visual depiction aired by Front Line.
  Mr. FOGLIETTA. In reading the speech, does the word ``necklacing'' 
appear anywhere in that speech?
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. The actual word does not, but everyone 
considers it to be that.
  Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
New York [Mr. Owens].

                              {time}  2300

  Mr. OWENS. The gentleman, along with other speakers, has indicated 
that President Aristide's regime was a murderous regime or his 
followers were murderers. There is no documentation of this anywhere in 
the observations of the United States, in the observations of the OAS 
or in the observations of Amnesty International. All three groups, 
Amnesty International, the OAS observers, the U.N. observers, all agree 
that the criminal regime which overthrew President Aristide is 
responsible for at least 3,000 killings, at least 3,000 killings during 
the time that they have been in power.
  What body does the gentleman cite that can document murders committed 
by the followers of President Aristide? What credible body can the 
gentleman cite as documentation?
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Let me say first of all that no one 
countenances what the Haitian military thugs have done. Everyone I 
think is agreed, and the President was right in depicting those 
individuals for the kind of atrocities they have committed.
  Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
New York [Mr. Owens].
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. OWENS. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. The State Department's Country Reports on 
Human Rights Practices cites instances, and I will put this entire 
quote in the Record. The charge has been repeated that he incites mob 
violence. The speech at the palace is only one example where people are 
drawn by his speeches, and encouraged by his comments to do those kinds 
of things.
  Mr. OWENS. The charge the gentleman makes, the charge other people 
have made, and we have heard it many times, there is no documentation 
of any people being killed by Aristide followers on the magnitude of 
those being killed by the people that overthrew him. You know we cite 
him as a murderous regime. Cedras's regime is the murderous regime.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Let me read:

       President Aristide, however, appeared less concerned about 
     prosecuting members of the military accused of human rights 
     abuses if they were supporters or appointees of his 
     Government. The police on July 26 tortured and murdered five 
     young men who were in police custody, following an 
     investigation, the Army recommended to President Aristide 
     that a lieutenant and the enlisted men under his command at 
     the time be brought to trial for the killings. The President 
     attempted publicly to exonerate the officer, believed to be a 
     militant Aristide supporter. President Aristide also failed 
     to condemn categorically all recourse to popular justice 
     through mob violence. The Aristide Government made no effort 
     to identify and bring to justice those responsible for the 
     wholesale killing, looting, and burning that occurred after 
     the failed Lafontant coup in January. The only response to 
     three official requests to the Aristide Government for 
     information on the status of the investigation into the death 
     of an American citizen, Richard Andre Emmanuel, who was 
     killed by mob violence in late February, was that the 
     investigation ``was still in progress.''

  This is credible evidence from our own State Department.
  Mr. OWENS. The police over there threw out Aristide.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Let us not forget my friend, that General 
Cedras was put into his position by President Aristide.
  Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman 
from Georgia [Ms. McKinney].
  Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Chairman, this administration's policy to return 
President Aristide to power is a right one. This is one of the few 
times that the United States has proposed the use of troops not for the 
purpose of installing a puppet regime, not for the purpose of 
installing a dictatorship, but for the purpose of reinstating a 
government fairly-elected by the people. We have been decisive and 
tireless in our efforts to ensure that democracy prevails in this 
hemisphere and elsewhere.
  The administration should be commended for its dogged commitment to 
sustain peace, protect human rights, and end the atrocities in Haiti. 
The fruitful negotiations with the Haitian military leaders demonstrate 
our resolve to return Haiti to the path of democracy.
  It is pivotal that Haiti emerge from the turmoil that has ensued 
since the forced departure of President Aristide 34 months ago. Our 
President's diplomacy has achieved this--thus ending the illegal 
control of Haiti from military dictators.
  There always has been a link between Haiti's history and ours. The 
successful accords reached at the 11th hour on September 18 brought us 
from the brink of an invasion to the brink of peace and the orderly 
transfer of power. The 15th of October, when the military leaders step 
down, will be a hallmark day in the history of both Haiti and the 
United States. Most of all, however, October 15 will be a hallmark day 
for democracy and those who believe and live by its principles.
  Peacekeeping and peacemaking always are the preferred solution to any 
conflict. The United States should never sit back and allow democracy 
to be hijacked.
  Because of President Clinton, the transfer of power and the 
restoration of democracy in Haiti has begun.
  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to the 
gentlewoman from Maine [Ms. Snowe] a member of the Committee on Foreign 
Affairs and the distinguished ranking member of the Subcommittee on 
International Operations.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the 
time.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this resolution because while 
our troops are in Haiti, America's interests are not. I oppose this 
resolution because it does give retroactive congressional approval to a 
mission we should not be leading and gives approval to the use of 
American troops in a nation we should not be occupying, and it gives 
approval to a mission whose objectives the administration is not 
defining.
  What we should be debating today, in fact, we should have been 
debating weeks ago, is a resolution seeking Congress' and the American 
people's approval of the use of American troops in Haiti. It is 
important to point out the President is prepared to invade Haiti 
without the authorization of Congress or the approval of the American 
people. We know he would never have gotten such authorization at the 
time because he never clearly defined the goals or the national 
security interests that were at stake.
  Perhaps what is more shocking, Mr. Chairman, is that the President 
decided to seek the opinion and the permission not of the American 
people and their elected representatives but rather the permission of 
the unelected bureaucrats at the United Nations. Somewhere this 
administration missed the boat on setting priorities with respect to 
consultation. In fact, this marks the first time a President sought 
permission from the United Nations for intervention in our hemisphere.
  We are being asked to endorse a mission in which the administration 
has violated its very own criteria for the use of American military 
forces, criteria outlined last year by Secretary Christopher himself. 
He said the goal of the operation has to be clearly stated to the 
American people. He said the likelihood of success has to be very 
important, and that an exit strategy has to be clearly articulated, and 
lastly, the action has to have the sustained support of the American 
people.
  When in fact we know that none of these objectives and criteria have 
been met, and while this resolution seeks to endorse the President's 
mission in Haiti, the reality is that the objectives of this mission 
are as vague today as the moment when our troops landed in Haiti. And 
as the rules for engagement of our troops are continually being 
improvised, their task and responsibilities are being expanded daily. 
But more importantly, when we commit men and women to risky situations 
we must clearly define and articulate our mission.

  Have we so soon forgotten the horrible lessons of Somalia? I for one 
have not, because there were two brave men from my district who were 
killed in that exercise in the back alleys of Mogadishu.
  We would hope that we would understand what our missions and 
responsibilities are in Haiti, unlike Somalia. We should not forget 
what happened in Somalia when we know that the mission changed. In 
fact, the President said he did not realize the mission had changed 
from a humanitarian mission to one of capturing Aideed. And then of 
course our troops were uninformed with respect to that, that it was a 
humanitarian mission and then it was a mission to capture Aideed. Then 
of course it changed back to more of a diplomatic solution, except that 
information did not reach our rangers, and we know what happened.
  As Larry Joyce, father of one of the men who was killed in that 
ambush said, Haiti is Somalia with a Caribbean address. He said that, 
in fact, when we do not have clearly defined objectives, an end goal, 
it can end badly.
  How can we let ourselves be trapped in the same situation in Haiti 
all over again? With each passing day when we see the ambiguity and the 
vagueness of the responsibilities and that they are changing with each 
passing day, the similarities become unfortunately much more evident. I 
think that it is important that we defeat this resolution and accept 
the substitute that will be offered tomorrow.
  I think that we ought to be clear when we vote against this 
resolution what it is not. It is not a vote against the admirable goal 
of someday achieving a democratic Haiti. It is not a vote against using 
military force where it is necessary and when it is necessary. It is 
most certainly not a vote of no confidence in the ability of our 
American forces to get the job done quickly and well. But this is a 
vote to ensure that our men and women in uniform are never ever put at 
risk in a region where our vital national security interests are not at 
stake, and perhaps more critically, when our President has failed to 
define what our national security interests are and what is at stake 
for this country.

                              {time}  2310

  Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from 
New Jersey [Mr. Payne].
  Mr. PAYNE of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, let me say that I, too, am 
wanting to commend our President, President Clinton, for taking a bold 
stand to say that the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, the Statue 
of Liberty, those things this Nation was founded on, once again, are 
alive and well in this country.
  I am just amazed at the speeches that I hear about we should never 
ever do things when our national security is not at risk. I do not 
understand what we mean by our national security. I think that anytime 
this great country has a goal that our national security is at stake, 
because the manner in which we live up to our word has a lot to do with 
the way we are perceived in the future; I have seen us talk to North 
Korean dictators where we are willing to send hundreds of thousands of 
troops, and perhaps so, because we feel that democracy must be 
preserved. We have seen us for 45 years fight the evil empire of the 
Soviet Union, spending billions and billions of dollars in that 
defense. As a matter of fact, in the 10-year period we spent $3.5 
trillion to defend Western Europe against the Soviet threat, and we all 
are proud that we won the cold war.
  Now here in our hemisphere we have a challenge to democracy. We have 
a country where we have been tied to ever since our revolution. As you 
know, the Battalion of Colored fought in the Battle of Savannah. Many 
Haitians died for our independence in the Revolutionary War. As a 
matter of fact, several of those men went back, and in 1804 Haiti 
became an independent nation. They fought for our independence. That 
was a long time ago, and you say, ``Well, so be it.''
  There were many people who have been involved in the whole question 
of our growth and development. As a matter of fact, because the Haitian 
military defeated Napoleon's army, France was broke. They had the 
Louisiana Territory, and in fact, had to sell Louisiana Territory to 
the United States of America, therefore relieving the United States of 
the threat of France on its western borders.
  There are so many incidents that we can cite as relates to Haiti's 
intervention and its history of being involved with our history.
  In World War II, the President of the United States, President 
Roosevelt, asked, ``How could this small country be of assistance to 
the United States?'' Roosevelt replied that ``The United States has 
suffered a loss of rubber supplies through the Japanese invasion of 
Southeast Asia,'' and suggested Haiti convert its agricultural economy 
to the production of rubber trees. Agreeing to the challenge, the 
mahogany trees and other plants indigenous to the island were cut down 
to make way for the Firestone plantations. New plants to produce latex 
were planted. None of this was successful, leading to soil erosion, 
leaving Haiti, the most densely populated country in the world in 
relationship to acres of arable land; yes, once again, our Marines in 
1915 went into Haiti, but for the wrong reasons, to protect the 
interests of the United States sugar and fruit growers. We left in 
1934.

  But we have seen when people say why should we have any kind of 
intervention in Haiti, why do we have any involvement there, there are 
many reasons why we should.
  When we talk about how mean and evil Aristide was, the number of 
people who left Haiti during his reign by boat was less than 300. In 
1993 alone, 42,576 Haitians were picked up by the Coast Guard. Close to 
80,000 Haitians have left that country since that time, and so what I 
am saying is that we have an interest. I think that we have a national 
interest.
  I am very pleased that Lt. Col. Michel Francois has decided to leave. 
I hope Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, who Aristide put into that office at the 
insistence of our Ambassador, who said, ``Let us expand your 
government,'' and he was not Aristide's choice, but in order to comply 
and to have this institution of the military involved in the new 
government, he agreed to do that. Brig. Gen. Philippe Biambi ought to 
also leave.
  I was very pleased to hear Emanuel Constant, the Front for 
Advancement and Progress of Haiti, the FRAPH group, said we no longer 
should have violence in our country, and I think that this would be a 
victory for the United States and our policy to keep this Nation and 
this world free.
  A world without laws is a world of chaos.
  Our interests, our national interests, are at stake when we have a 
world where there are no laws.
  And so once again, I congratulate President Clinton for stating the 
case, for doing the right thing, and I am very pleased that things are 
working out well, and I would hope that my colleagues would listen to 
what General Shelton has said, ``Please, do not tie our hands. Please, 
do not tell us how to run our military operation. Please, let us 
complete the job like we know it should be done.''
  Let us not let politics and reelections put our men and women in 
harm's way, and so once again, I commend the President.
  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 12\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from California [Mr. Dornan].
  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, we are about to adjourn the 103d Congress 
here in a couple of days, hours, and I find myself finally listening to 
a debate on an area of the world where American men, and now women, are 
in harm's way.
  This is not under a bill that we are discussing this tonight, merely 
a unanimous-consent, like one big giant multihour special order. But 
that is great.
  Tomorrow we will have a rule, a bill, and continued debate, and I 
hope that the average audience of the 1,200,000 Americans who are 
serious enough about their government, civic affairs, and world affairs 
who track the proceedings of this House, Mr. Chairman, are staying with 
us, particularly on the east coast where it is already 11:18 at night, 
and that they will follow the debate tomorrow, because this is 
important.
  One of the worst killers in this hemisphere is the former chief of 
police, Michel Francois, who left his native land in disgrace, along 
with some thugs in a four-wheel vehicle. But he did not leave the 
island of Hispaniola. He merely crossed the border into the other two-
thirds of the island, that is, the Dominican Republic. He is close. His 
evil presence is close, and now we find that maybe we are hoping 
General Biambi and General Cedras will follow him. Follow him where? To 
the Riviera, where somebody leaked our plan to give these people 
several million dollars, as we flew Jean-Claude Duvalier, ``Baby Doc,'' 
out of that country in a big Air Force airplane to the Riviera where he 
lived off the stolen money of the dirt-poor people of Haiti for years, 
where his wife went on $50,000-a-day shopping sprees, outdoing even 
Imelda Marcos, has now left ``Baby Doc'' because he has run out of 
money in the French Riviera?
  That plan was blown up. Somebody leaked it, a secret operation to try 
to save American lives and get a new start and get these people out of 
the country.
  Now, if Cedras and Biambi do leave, they will undoubtedly just cross 
the border into Santo Domingo, and their evil presence will be hovering 
around.
  Here is the problem we have: This self-excommunicated former priest, 
and I am a stumbling practicing Catholic. I know by the laws and rites 
of Melchizedek, once a priest, a priest forever, even if you are on 
death row, even if you are in prison for molesting altar boys where you 
should have been horsewhipped publicly, you are still a priest in 
prison.

                             {time}   2320

  But no powers of the priesthood, no saying mass, no hearing 
confessions, no burying the dead.
  When Pat Buchanan calls him Father Aristide, he is wrong. When Rush 
Limbaugh calls him Father Aristide, he is wrong. And when Bill Clinton 
calls him Father Aristide, he is wrong. He is not a practicing Catholic 
priest.
  As Chris Cox said earlier, he was thrown out of the Selesians of Don 
Bosca with prejudice. I repeat what Chris said is accurate. I called 
Rome. I got the word. It is accurate.
  For inciting mobs to violence and killing.
  Yes, there are human rights groups that attribute the death of a 
former presidential candidate, pastor, Baptist minister Silvio Claude. 
They could not find any tires, so they did not get to necklace him. So 
they merely beat him to death, lynched his corpse, and then burned him. 
They did have gasoline available. I saw human rights groups ladies 
spokesmen from Haiti say the other night on the evening news, ``Oh, 
yes, we attribute that human rights death directly to Jean-Bertrand 
Aristide.''
  Now let us get this speech. This will be a first on the House floor 
or the Senate floor. I did go to the Library of Congress, and I tried 
to get the speech, Tom, in Creole. Well, it was not in French, it was 
in Creole. And I did get from the Foreign Broadcast Information 
Service--and they are going to get me the exact Creole--the full 
translation. It is a long, fulsome speech. The buildup to the very 
clever references to the necklacing without using the word necklacing 
are blatantly apparent. I will give them to you. Any reasonable 
person--I do not think you have seen this.
  Mr. FOGLIETTA. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. DORNAN. Yes, I yield.
  Mr. FOGLIETTA. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Chairman, would the gentleman also refer to the part of that 
speech where he starts to talk about the Constitution and then tries to 
draw an analogy between the Constitution and the air that is breathed?
  Mr. DORNAN. I will be fair. I will not rebuff the pleas of the 
gentleman in whose district resides the Liberty Bell, of course not.
  This address was about 3:30 in the afternoon. They give it as 
Greenwich mean time. It was all FEBIS statements put into this document 
available to all Members of the House and Senate. It was 3:30 in the 
afternoon. He had just returned from the United Nations. In New York, 
September 27, 1991. He had been in office since February 7. He said--
there are some excerpts missing here, some words that are indistinct, 
but it is pretty carefully translated.
  It starts out saying that the middle class must acknowledge, they 
must say, ``I made this money, my money, through malpractice, and from 
now on watching the national pride dancing like a flag, I will 
cooperate by using the money,'' word indistinct, bracket, unbracket, 
``to create work opportunities and to invest in economic activities so 
more people can get jobs. If you,'' referring again to the middle 
class, ``do not do so, I feel sorry for you, I really do.'' Laughter 
from the crowd. ``It will not be my fault because this money you have 
is not really yours. You acquired it through criminal activity. You 
made it by plundering and embezzling, you got it through negative 
choices you made. You got it under repressive regime. ``You acquired it 
under a corrupt system. You made this money through means that you know 
was--were wrong.''

  Today, 7 months after February 7, in a day ending in 7--September 
27--I give you one last chance. I ask you to take this chance because 
you will not have 2 or 3 more chances, only 1. Otherwise it would not 
be good for you.'' Applause from the audience.
  Now he goes on to talk about God's justice is slow. Did all of the 
middle class make their money through ill practices? His word is the 
French Creole, bourgeoisie. And the crowd shouts ``no.'' But they are 
in the minority. Keep in mind that--you have been to Haiti and I have 
been to Haiti twice down there; I wandered through the poverty areas. I 
had a nun in City Soleil recognize my Montagnard bracelet from the 
central highlands of Vietnam. ``Where were you?'' This came from 
Khartoum. ``Oh, we build hospital in Khartoum. North Vietnamese took me 
prisoner after the Americans left, very brutal, marched me down to 
Hanoi, 9 months I was a prisoner. Walked me all around there, showed me 
the contamination, the babies, the short lifespan.'' That poor City 
Soleil, the translation for us in Sun City. Not like Sun City in 
California or anywhere else in this hemisphere. City Soleil is the 
poorest place in the world.
  But I got to walk, a little moped, and went through all the richer 
neighborhoods. All those people up in the hills. That tiny little upper 
class, the bourgeoisie middle class are listening on radio and watching 
them on television. I have seen the color clips of these. So he says, 
``Okay, some of you are honest, but not much. We are going to work with 
you.'' He calls the other false patriots. The French word is patripoch, 
patripoch, false patriots. Then he comes to this. However, if I catch a 
thief, a robber, a plunderer, or an embezzler, if I catch a fake 
lavalas, his political groups, and he changes his thought and he 
switches from ``I'' to ``you.'' If you catch someone who does not 
deserve to be where he is, do not fail to give him what he deserves. 
The first time he uses that expression. Crowd cheers. Do not fail to 
give him what he deserves. He is talking about necklacing, my 
colleagues, there is no doubt about it. The crowd cheers. Do not fail 
to give him what he deserves.
  Mr. FOGLIETTA. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. DORNAN. Yes.
  Mr. FOGLIETTA. I thank the gentleman.
  The gentleman talks about necklacing. Where does he get that from?
  Mr. DORNAN. Well, if the gentleman will watch, he builds up to it, he 
uses code works in Creole, he uses a code word going back all the way 
to Toussaint L'Ouverture and where there had been amnesty before and 
where they killed 200 men that surrendered their arms in past Haitian 
history, the early 19th century. So when he says I will give them the 
amnesty, talking about expatriates that were all slaughtered, everybody 
knows what he means. So now comes the fourth time. This is--I am going 
to use rough words here--this is Mussolini-style. I have never heard a 
Member in this Chamber or the other or in my whole political life ever 
repeat himself more than once. You will see it in this well, I may have 
done it where you say this Member is not going to do that, that Member 
is not going to do that, I repeat.
  But now he continues, a fourth time, do not fail to give him what he 
deserves. Fifth time, do not fail to give him what he deserves. All 
this time whipping up the crowd. This is why he is defrocked as a 
priest.
  Then he says your tool is in your hands. Here comes the necklacing. 
Your instrument is in your hands, your constitution is in your hands. 
Do not fail to give him what he deserves. Louder cheers from the crowd. 
That device is in your hands. Your trowel is in your hands. The bugle 
is in your hands. The constitution is in your hands. Do not fail to 
give him what he deserves, sixth time.
  I thought we had hours left. Does anybody know the name of the staff 
sergeant from the Green Berets back in Fort Bragg who was shot in the 
stomach? Anybody know that? I did not think so. I did not see a single 
hand go up there. His name is Don Holsted. Don Holsted took a bullet in 
his guts. And the triple draft dodger literally dodged that bullet 
because if Don Holsted was up at Dover tonight instead of arriving at 
Fort Bragg tonight at 5:00, married, two kids, I would have been on 
their floor burning his name into your brain. This self-excommunicated 
Catholic priest was not worth the death of a 25-year-old staff sergeant 
named Don Holsted. Every night I literally like a school boy get down 
on my knees and say ``God help Bill Clinton. Do not let one American 
die in this policy. Give us a miracle.'' I believe it is a miracle 
because I got activated for the Santo Domingo crisis as a seaplane 
pilot. I went down there in 1965. We lost over 50--I will have the 
exact figure--men fighting in the streets when we went three on April 
28. Do you know how long we were in Santo Domingo on April 28 of '65, a 
month after LBJ put the Marines on the beach at Danang on the other 
side of the world? Seventeen months, over 50 deaths. We left with 
somewhat of a civil situation there, but Santo Domingo has had a much 
higher standard of living. Let me finish this speech. Now he is talking 
about Macoutes here. Tonton Macoute thug killers. He says article 291 
of the Constitution, our Constitution, which is symbolized--here is 
where he gets a little bizarre--which is symbolized by the center of my 
head. He has a little pattern baldness, like a tonsure. It symbolizes 
by the center of my head where there is no more hair, provides that 
Macoutes are excluded from the political game.

                              {time}  2330

  Macoutes are excluded from the political game. Macoutes are excluded 
from the political game. This guy loves repetition. Macoutes are 
excluded from the political games.
  See the Mussolini style there?
  Do not fail to give them what they deserve, seven times. Do not fail 
to give them what they deserve, eight times. You spent three sleepless 
nights in front of the national penitentiary. If one escapes, do not 
fail to give him what he deserves, No. 9. You all watch him all 
Macoutes activity throughout the country, we are watching and praying, 
we are watching and praying. If we catch one, do not fail to give him 
what he deserves. There is No. 10.
  And then he goes into the direct description of smelling burning 
flesh.
  I say to the gentleman, ``Tom, this ain't no Catholic priest that you 
and I ever encountered in our lives.''
  Mr. FOGLIETTA. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. DORNAN. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. FOGLIETTA. Does the fact that I am standing here with the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens], the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. 
Payne], the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Torricelli], and myself, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Foglietta], have anything to do with 
your combining the black priest with Mussolini?
  Mr. DORNAN. I do not even look at it as black. Since I marched with 
Martin Luther King, I am colorblind. How does the gentleman like that?
  I do not look at this as black.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] 
has expired.
  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Chairman, I will pick that up tomorrow. I say to the 
gentleman that in my heart and brain he is looking at a colorblind 
Congressman. I never think of it that way.
  Cedras is black.

             [From the Heritage Foundation, Sept. 16, 1994]

                       Aristide in His Own Words

(By Lawrence T. Di Rita, Deputy Director of Foreign Policy and Defense 
                                Studies)

       President Clinton intends to invade Haiti to ``restore 
     democracy'' in a country which has known no democracy in 
     nearly 200 years of independence. Clinton Administration 
     officials believe that Haitian democracy today is embodied in 
     the person of Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide. While it is true 
     that he was elected in 1990 as Haiti's president, Aristide's 
     controversial career, which led to his ouster in 1991, raises 
     serious questions about whether the United States should be 
     betting the lives of Americans and its international 
     credibility on him.
       A Roman Catholic priest, Aristide was dismissed from the 
     Church's Salesian Order in 1988 for ``incitement to hatred 
     and violence * * * and profanation of the liturgy.''\1\ 
     Aristide turned to politics in the fall of 1990. He was 
     elected in December of that year. Although elected 
     democratically, Aristide governed quite un-democratically. He 
     established a reputation, in the words of New York Times 
     correspondent Howard French, as ``an insular and menacing 
     leader who saw his own raw popularity as a substitute for the 
     give and take of politics.'' The litany of anti-democratic 
     actions he took to place in power members of his Lavalas 
     movement--the loosely organized following he had developed as 
     a parish priest--is long and has been well-documented.\2\ He 
     named Supreme Court justices, including the Chief Justice, 
     without seeking the approval of the democratically elected 
     Senate. He also replaced democratically elected mayors in key 
     Haitian cities with Lavalas members. By the time of the coup 
     on September 30, 1991, the New York Times' correspondent in 
     Haiti observed that ``Lavalas [was] perceived as both 
     gatekeeper and ideological rudder of the administration, 
     guiding everything from personnel decisions to the 
     Government's increasingly disputatious relations in 
     Parliament.''\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Footnotes at end of article.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Americans have a right to know more about the man for whom 
     young Americans may soon have to die. What follows is a 
     collection of statements that Aristide has made over the 
     course of his professional life. They come from sermons, 
     presidential speeches, and his two published autobiographies. 
     As they will show, the true measure of Aristide is written in 
     his own words.


        In his own words: the musings of jean-bertrand aristide

       Aristide on Democracy: ``Revolution, not elections!''--1990 
     Campaign Slogan Cited in The Washington Post December 14, 
     1990, p. A1.\4\
       Aristide's Anti-Americanism: ``* * * [T]he U.S. Government 
     has no right to stick its nose into Haitian elections * * 
     *.''
       ``* * * [T]he U.S. Government is responsible for the 
     criminal acts of the * * * National Government Council--
     because the U.S. Government tolerates it, giving it money and 
     weapons * * *.''
       ``* * * [Y]our [the U.S.] government is responsible for 
     this discouragingly miserable, holy mess and the 
     inappropriate, schizophrenic policy from which we have never 
     been able to free ourselves * * *.''
       ``* * * [T]he [U.S.] government is blameworthy because it 
     supports an Army which inspires fear and terror and which 
     murders people both at night and in broad daylight * * *.''
       ``* * * if your government is the cause of our death, the 
     generations which will blossom on our corpses will not 
     tolerate the U.S. imperialists' coming to sunbathe in the 
     Haitian sun in order to corrupt us * * *.''--Open Letter to 
     Peter Whaley, Second Secretary, U.S. Embassy, October 17, 
     1987, Cited in Foreign Broadcast Information Service-LAT-87-
     203, October 21, 1987, pp. 2-3.\5\
       ``Now, what are the Americans' aims regarding Haiti? * * * 
     America for Americans; the Caribbean, the Antilles for 
     Americans too. They want to continue the exploitation through 
     the assembly industry * * *.''
       ``A government installed without American help might have 
     the force of the people and could thus possibly resist 
     possible future U.S. pressures. Thus, a government that does 
     not have the people's support must be installed. There you 
     have it. They [Americans] can thus obtain slaves who work in 
     their factories for a mere song. They [Americans] also have 
     Haiti as an example of people who are * * * incapable of 
     leading themselves. One catches a glimpse of a superiority 
     complex in this North American policy * * *.''
       ``They [the Americans] want to hold our guts always in 
     their hands. Thus, we will be economically, politically, and 
     culturally dependent. For our part, we reject this * * *.''
       ``Thus, after Nicaragua, they [the Americans] want to put 
     an end to Cuba's policy. Thus their policy in the mid-term 
     [is to] utterly spoil Castro's policy * * *.''--Interview 
     with Nancy Roc Radio Metropole, Port-au-Prince, April 3, 1990 
     Cited in FBIS-LAT-90-066, April 5, 1990, p. 21.\6\
       ``Haiti had to prove it was `moving toward democracy.' Only 
     if we elected a government would the cold country to the 
     north [the U.S.], and its allies--other former colonizers--
     send us more money and food. Of course, that money and that 
     food corrupt our society: The money helps to maintain an 
     armed force against the people; the food helps to ruin our 
     national economy; and both money and food keep Haiti in a 
     situation of dependence on the former colonizers.''--In the 
     Parish of the Poor: Writings From Haiti, 1990, p. 47.
       ``The evildoers have always used the Army against the 
     people, as did the cold country to the north [the U.S.] when 
     it occupied Haiti from 1915-1934. They set up the Haitian 
     Army, they trained it to work against the people. I say this 
     in order to force Haitian soldiers of my time to face up to 
     this truth; I say this so that in the midst of the Army 
     itself, the men will recognize that they, the sons of the 
     people, are being positioned against themselves, who are the 
     issue of the people's womb.''--Ibid., p. 59.
       ``Let the truth of the Lord be a purgative that cleans out 
     all the old ways of the bourgeoisie, all the old ways of the 
     Army that flatters and does the bidding of the Americans. We 
     are tired of hearing the bourgeois leaders whispering in our 
     ears with their little voices saying, `Come on with us, come 
     on,' trying to make us their accomplices. This old corrupt 
     class is bathed in corruption. It has endured for two 
     centuries and should not last any longer. Enough.''--Ibid., 
     p. 88.
       ``The U.S. government, along with its lackeys among the 
     Haitian elite, has already begun to conspire to infiltrate 
     Macoutes into the Army, to buy off soldiers, to sow 
     corruption, to plant divisions, and to multiply spies.''--
     Ibid, p. 97.\7\
       ``* * * [T]he Americans claimed that an outbreak of swine 
     fever required the slaughtering of all the pigs in Haiti. 
     This was not true, but those animals played a major role in 
     the rural economy. An alimentary equilibrium that was already 
     precarious was thereby destroyed, and a peasantry was 
     assassinated without appeal * * *.''
       ``The elimination of the pigs amounted * * * to burning the 
     savings book. Its purpose was to draw into the cities the 
     abundant and cheap labor force necessary for the [American] 
     assembly plants.''--Jean-Bertrand Aristide: An Autobiography, 
     1992, pp. 76-77.
       ``Uncle Sam wanted elections that looked like elections--
     like Canada Dry: the smell, the taste, but not the reality. 
     Namphy did better--or worse--than Reagan demanded * * *. They 
     wanted a responsible democracy led by people whom they could 
     control * * *.''--Ibid., p 87.\8\
       Aristide on Justice: ``Look at their machetes. The blades 
     are rusted, the handles dirty. The peasants let the knives 
     hang at their sides except then they are working in the 
     field. But don't be fooled. A machete is useful in almost any 
     situation. Those rusty blades are long and sharp. They remind 
     me of Bolivar's sword.''--In the Parish of the Poor, p. 
     15.\9\
       Editor's Note: In the following passages, Aristide was 
     speaking to supporters a week after a political opponent was 
     sentenced to life in prison because of an attempted coup. 
     ``Pere lebrun'' [Father Lebrun] is the name of a popular 
     Haitian tire dealer. The reference is a euphemism for the 
     practice of ``necklacing,'' a widespread method of political 
     assassination in Haiti. The victim is bound, his arms hacked 
     off, a gasoline-filled tire placed around his neck and 
     ignited.
       ``When the people heard: life in prison, the people forgot 
     their little gas and little pere lebrun. Was pere lebrun used 
     on that day? [The audience yells no.] If it had not gone 
     well, would the people have used pere lebrun? [The audience 
     yells yes.] Therefore, when through education one learns how 
     to write pere lebrun and think pere lebrun, one does not use 
     it when it is unnecessary. One learns how not to use it; 
     where not to use it.''--Address to Youth Rally, Radio 
     Metropole, Port-au-Prince, August 5, 1991, Cited in FBIS-LAT-
     91-153, August 8, 1991, p. 5.
       ``The people had their little matches in their hands. They 
     had gas nearby. Did they use it? [The audience yells no.] 
     That means that the people respect [The audience yells the 
     Constitution] Does the Constitution tell the people to forget 
     little pere lebrun? [The audience yells no] * * * The people 
     are the law, meaning what they do is constitutional.''--Ibid.
       Editor's Note: The following statement came from Aristide's 
     speech to Lavalas supporters at the National Palace after 
     returning from a visit to the United States. Coup rumors were 
     widespread. The references to ``a nice tool; a nice 
     instrument'' were interpreted at the time as another 
     reference to ``pere lebrun,'' or assassination by necklacing. 
     The coup which deposed Aristide took place three days later.
       ``I ask you to take this chance, because you will not have 
     two or three more chances, only one. Otherwise, it will not 
     be good for you [the bourgeoisie] * * *'' [applause].
       ``If I speak to you this way, it does not mean that I am 
     unaware of my power to unleash public vindication * * *.''
       ``If you catch someone who does not deserve to be where he 
     is, do not fail to give him what he deserves. [The crowd 
     cheers.] Do not fail to give him what he deserves * * *.'' 
     [He repeats phrase 2 more times.]
       ``What a nice tool! [Necklacing] What a nice instrument! 
     [Loud cheers from crowd.] What a nice device! [The crowd 
     cheers.] It is a pretty one. It is elegant, attractive, 
     splendorous, graceful, and dazzling. It smells good. Wherever 
     you go, you feel like smelling it. [The crowd cheers.] It is 
     provided for by the Constitution, which bans macoutes from 
     the political scene * * *.''
       ``Whatever happens to them is their problem * * * we will 
     receive due respect--the type of respect I share with you--
     and fulfill common aspiration for justice. Words will thus 
     cease to be just words and will instead be translated into 
     action.''--Address at National Palace, Radio Nationale, Port-
     au-Prince, September 27, 1991, Cited in FBIS-LAT-91-194, 
     October 7, 1991, pp. 17-19.
       Aristide on the Catholic Church and its Teachings: ``We are 
     reflecting on Jesus' situation * * *. He said: those who have 
     food, take it. Those who have money, take it. Those who have 
     no weapon must sell their garments and buy one. What does 
     this mean to you, my friends * * *?''
       ``Further on they say to Jesus: Behold here two swords. 
     That is like saying: Behold here two weapons * * * That is 
     verse 38. If they handed Jesus two weapons saying: Here are 
     two weapons--in your opinion, did he throw the weapons away 
     or did he take them? * * * He took them. He took them * * 
     *.''
       ``Therefore, you yourselves who are in the church, for 
     example, you yourselves inside Haiti * * * Would it be a 
     crime for us to have weapons at home * * *.--Lecture in Cap-
     Haitien, Port-au-Prince Domestic Service, August 17, 1987, 
     Cited in FBIS-LAT, August 19, 1987, p. B4.\10\
       ``Ah, my little lamp. Its light of solidarity illuminates 
     the darkest corners of all difficult questions. Just a man 
     doing a job. Now I can see him more clearly. What is the 
     paradigm for the pope in the secular world today? I ask 
     myself. Why, it's all too clear. Of course. All the shadows 
     around him, the smoke and mirrors, fall away. Who is this 
     man? He is the chief executive officer of a multinational 
     corporation * * *.''
       ``His job is to ensure efficiency, continuity, and profit, 
     while maintaining the status quo within the company * * *. 
     United Fruit never had this weapon, nor did Gulf + Western or 
     the National City Bank. That weapon is belief, the long-
     established belief of the people--the final consumer--the 
     word of the Church. The man in Rome and his colleagues are 
     able to wrap company policy up in the proud yellow and white 
     of the Church. They can pronounce and prettify efficiency 
     actions using the beautiful words of the Bible. They can 
     dress up their officers and parade them around the Church as 
     men of God.''--In the Parish of the Poor, pp. 20-21.
       ``The Catholic church cooperated totally with slavery and 
     exploitation * * * The priests were the real colonialists. 
     Their guilt and complicity extends into the twentieth century 
     * * * The church suffers because of its past.''--An 
     Autobiography, pp. 180-181.
       ``* * * [T]he Vatican should stand in the front rank among 
     those countries that have made every effort to retard our 
     return to democratic processes.''--Ibid., p. 181.
       ``[The Haitian presidency] really is like a priesthood. 
     Like the pastor, I accompany the sheep. I share the people's 
     sufferings. Their claims are mine.''--Ibid., p. 183.
       Aristide on Economics: ``Socialism in Haiti is not a new 
     thing: its practice is rooted in the period of our first 
     independence.''--An Autobiography, p. 135.
       ``Europe owes us a debt * * * Sugar, coffee, and indigo 
     enriched the merchants of Nantes or Rouen while the black 
     people lived like beasts of burden * * * Once we had acquired 
     our independence, we not only had to dress our wounds, but we 
     were required to pay the old country, which simultaneously 
     quarantined and exploited us. The colonial powers, including 
     the United States, must make amends for the wrong inflicted 
     on the on the colony or protectorate in those days. The debt 
     experts, when they speak of our liabilities, need to add up 
     the second column of their own accountability.''--Ibid., p. 
     143.
       ``Economic efficiency is not compatible with justice, 
     except at the price of a permanent struggle against all the 
     seeds of corruption.''
       ``The few large enterprises in the country were often found 
     to be suffering from waste and mismanagement, and from a poor 
     use of their resources; the most profitable had often been 
     the prey or milk cows of social parasites who had little 
     interest in development or reinvestment. Our move to put them 
     in order did not always make the government highly popular. 
     Stringency is sometimes a long term investment from those who 
     want to escape from beggary: simplicity or clarity of 
     administration are also good for public enterprises that are 
     too often putrefying as a result of speculation or the 
     squandering of their resources.''--Ibid., p. 149.
       ``The ecological tragedy in Haiti is the consequence of 
     anarchy, of laissez-faire.''--Ibid., p. 151.
       ``Economic liberalism, which democrats and technocrats have 
     made a panacea, I find intolerable.''--Ibid., p. 178.
       ``Wealth, financial superiority, and arrogance all end in 
     making one certain that one possesses the truth, and they 
     generally predispose people to use repression or to 
     compromise with dictatorial regimes. The wealthy have often 
     become what they are by virtue of exploiting others * * *.''
       ``Above all, the international rules are made to prevent 
     those who are under the table from some day taking their 
     place at the common feast. They can be made to wait for 
     centuries. They need to shake the table, even to overturn it 
     with all the risks that action implies.''--Ibid., p. 179.
       Aristide on Karl Marx, Che Guevara, and Christopher 
     Columbus: ``I did not invent class struggle, no more than 
     Karl Marx did * * *. But who can avoid encountering class 
     struggle in the heart of Port-au-Prince?''--An Autobiography, 
     p. 106.
       ``* * * I welcome those ideas that rest on the values of 
     beauty, dignity, respect, and love. Che Guevara, a bourgeois, 
     a doctor, an internationalist, certainly incorporated some of 
     those values, as did Allende. They were sincere men, like so 
     many others; they made mistakes, just as I will do. Why 
     should I deny it? I feel more affection and sympathy for them 
     than I do for many others.''--Ibid., p. 126\11\
       ``I see a big white man, a colonial; the man who, by 
     `discovering' America, stole it from those who were living 
     there and exploited it * * * What comes to mind when I think 
     of Christopher Columbus is the mutilation of many peoples and 
     the beginning of a long chain of injustices * * *.''
       ``But Christopher Columbus was only the first. The 
     conquistadors * * * of the American occupiers at the 
     beginning of the twentieth [century] yielded nothing at all 
     to him in the realm of contempt and brutality * * * The year 
     1992 marks five hundred years of robbery and five hundred 
     years of resistance''--Ibid., p. 180.
       ``There is no question that there are common denominators 
     between us and the makers of the French Revolution: 1789 is 
     an essential reference point, as is 1793. The memory of the 
     heroes of the rights of humanity should always be in our 
     minds, as their texts are in our hands. Robespierre himself 
     denounced the `patripockets.' From Saint Just to Abbe 
     Gregoire, how much I owe to the makers of the French 
     Revolution! Most of them had a global vision of human 
     liberation.''--Ibid., p. 184\12\


                               footnotes

     \1\Aristide quotes from his dismissal order in his book, 
     Jean-Bertrand Aristide: An Autobiography (Maryknoll, N.Y.: 
     Orbis Books, 1992), p. 105.
     \2\The best pieces in English are Raymond Alcide Joseph, 
     ``Father Aristide and Other Myths,'' Forbes MediaCritic, 
     Spring 1994, and Christopher Caldwell, ``Aristide 
     Development,'' The American Spectator, July 1994. Unless 
     otherwise indicated, incidents occurring during Aristide's 
     brief tenure have been drawn from these two sources.
     \3\Howard W. French, ``Ex-Backers of Ousted Haitian Say He 
     Alienated His Allies,'' The New York Times, October 22, 1991, 
     p. A11.
     \4\The interview in which this comment is mentioned was 
     conducted just four days before the Haitian presidential 
     elections.
     \5\Aristide was blaming the U.S. for its support of the 
     provisional government (National Government Council) in the 
     aftermath of Jean-Claude (``Baby Doc'') Duvalier's departure 
     from Haiti. This period was marked by exceptional turmoil, 
     with one military leader after another assuming duties as the 
     Haitian Head of State. Duvalier had fled after the Reagan 
     Administration pressured him to leave and allow for a 
     democratic transition. Haiti, along with the Philippines and 
     Chile, was a target of President Reagan's second-term policy 
     of withdrawing U.S. support for dictators of the right.
     \6\At the time of this interview, Aristide was not a 
     political candidate. Nicaragua had just held free and fair 
     elections in which the Castro-supported Sandinista government 
     was soundly defeated by Violeta Chamorro, a clear victory for 
     U.S. policy in Central America. Elections in Haiti, strongly 
     supported by the Bush Administration, were to be held at the 
     end of the same year.
     \7\``Macoutes'' refers to the Ton-Ton Macoutes, the private 
     security force established by long-time Haitian dictator 
     Francois (``Papa Doc'') Duvalier. Aristide's book ``In the 
     Parish of the Poor'' is based in large part on sermons he 
     gave while still a parish priest at St. Jean Bosco in the La 
     Saline slum of Port-au-Prince.
     \8\General Henri Namphy was head of the provisional 
     government after the Reagan Administration convinced ``Baby 
     Doc'' Duvalier to leave Haiti in 1986. Aristide's 
     autobiography was written after the September 1991 coup 
     against him. In it, he provides examples such as the swine 
     fever epidemic to prove that the U.S. had a mercantilistic 
     relationship with Haiti, by which it required urban, light 
     manufacturing rather than agricultural production. This is 
     evidently an oblique reference to Reagan's ``Caribbean Basin 
     Initiative,'' which offered incentives for U.S. business to 
     establish production facilities in poor countries of the 
     region.
     \9\Aristide is writing about the Haitian peasants, whom he 
     consistently held were being exploited by ``imperialist'' 
     businesses from the U.S. and elsewhere. He is referring to 
     their dormant defiance and alluding to the means they have to 
     take control of their own futures, as had the Latin American 
     revolutionary Simon Bolivar.
     \10\These statements are excerpted from a lecture to the 
     faithful by Aristide in Cap-Haitien. He is purportedly 
     quoting from St. Luke's Gospel, Chapter 22, Verses 35-38. The 
     actual citation, from the Saint Joseph Edition of the New 
     American Bible, reads: ``When I sent you on a mission without 
     purse or traveling bag or sandals, were you in need of 
     anything? ``Not a thing,'' they replied. He said to them: 
     ``Now, however, the man who has a purse must carry it; the 
     same with the traveling bag. And the man without a sword must 
     sell his coat and buy one. It is written in Scripture, `He 
     was counted among the wicked,' and this, I tell you, must 
     come to be fulfilled in me. All that has to do with me 
     approaches its climax.'' They said, ``Lord, here are two 
     swords!'' He answers, ``Enough.''
     \11\Ernesto ``Che'' Guevara was Fidel Castro's closest 
     confidant during the Cuban Revolution. His book ``Guerrilla 
     Warfare'' became a primer for Latin American communist 
     guerrilla movements in the 1960s and 1970s. He became a 
     martyr for Latin American communism when he was killed by the 
     Bolivian military while trying to incite a revolution in that 
     country in 1967. Salvador Allende was the Marxist president 
     of Chile who was killed in a military coup in 1973.
     \12\Robespierre and St. Just were responsible for the worst 
     abuses of the ``Great Terror'' of the French Revolution. 
     Hundreds of people, including the French King and Queen, were 
     guillotined at the order of Robespierre. He, too, was 
     guillotined in the backlash that followed.

             [From the Heritage Foundation, Sept. 20, 1994]


                          Executive Memorandum

         Now Comes the Hard Part: The U.S. Occupation of Haiti

                        (By Lawrence T. DiRite)

       Everyone can draw a sigh of relief now that U.S. forces 
     will not be invading Haiti. The loss of American lives that 
     would have resulted from an invasion has been avoided. 
     Nonetheless, for the first time in 80 years, large numbers of 
     American troops are landing in Haiti. Within several weeks, 
     as many as 15,000 U.S. forces are expected to be dispatched 
     to that poor, chaotic nation. Thus, while an invasion of 
     Haiti has been avoided, an occupation has not.
       And this is precisely Bill Clinton's--and America's--new 
     problem. The actual invasion of Haiti to reinstall Father 
     Jan-Bertrand Aristide to power was never the main reason for 
     opposition to Clinton's Haiti policy. Secretary of Defense 
     William Perry recently acknowledged that even an invasion 
     that encountered resistance would have taken no more than ``a 
     few hours.'' Rather, people were against the invasion because 
     of what would come afterward--a U.S. occupation of Haiti that 
     they felt was unwise and unnecessary. Therefore, the original 
     cause of opposition to Clinton's policy remains. With U.S. 
     troops heading for Haiti, the easy part is over. Now the 
     difficult task of pacifying and ``restoring'' democracy 
     begins.
       Public Wary About Clinton Policy. Having assumed 
     responsibility for Haiti's future, the Clinton administration 
     still has not convinced the American people that intervention 
     in Haiti was necessary. Even after a speech to the nation on 
     September 15, in which the President outlined his reasons for 
     military action, more than 60 percent of Americans polled 
     were against the use of U.S. force. In fact, as the hour of 
     invasion drew closer, the more opposition to an invasion 
     mounted. New reports reveal that Clinton was desperate for 
     Jimmy Carter's peace mission to succeed. In the hours before 
     the invasion was to begin, the President apparently began to 
     realize that military action would be a big political 
     mistake.
       But the President may face an even bigger political 
     headache in the future: managing the occupation of an 
     extremely poor and divided Third World country. Clinton has 
     yet to outline a convincing ``exit strategy'' for the U.S. --
     to define clearly the conditions that must be met in order to 
     get the troops back home. Despite the President's assurances 
     that U.S. troops will return soon, the Clinton Administration 
     is underestimating the troubles U.S. forces will face in 
     Haiti. Bringing Aristide back to Port-au-Prince will be easy. 
     Keeping him there in power will not be.
       Many Unanswered Questions. The precise terms of the 
     agreement the Untied States and the Haitian military junta 
     are unclear. According to the deal brokered by Jimmy Carter, 
     by October 15, unless the Haitian parliament has acted sooner 
     to offer them political reprieve, the junta must relinquish 
     power to the elected government of Aristide. This poses a 
     number of intriguing questions, including:
       (1) To whom will the military and police forces owe their 
     allegiance once their leaders have abdicated? Many of them 
     were opponents of Aristide and his supporters. American 
     peacekeepers may be left to contend with general lawlessness 
     among thousands of armed forces whose leaders no longer 
     control them. The U.S. troops will have to disarm these 
     troops if they are to avoid becoming targets themselves. But 
     the policy of disarming belligerents in Somalia failed, at 
     the cost of more than three dozen American lives.
       (2) What if General Raoul Cedras or other members of the 
     junta refuse to leave Haiti they step down from power? In the 
     press conference after the deal was announced, Secretary of 
     State Warren Christopher said that ``there will be no 
     incentive for [the generals] to stay in Haiti'' after October 
     15. But nothing in the agreement prevents them from staying 
     in Haiti. Moreover, Cedras and his allies represent the most 
     well-organized and determined opposition to Aristide. If 
     Cedras stays and decides to run for parliament this year or 
     for president next year, U.S. forces may find themselves 
     caught between two diametrically opposed political factions. 
     It is not inconceivable that Aristide, emboldened by the U.S. 
     presence, might incite his followers to the same type of mob 
     tactics he used as president to intimidate political 
     opponents. In August 1991, he encouraged his supporters to 
     surround the parliament building to prevent members from 
     voting a motion of no-confidence against his government.
       (3) How long before Aristide turns on his American mentors? 
     The Clinton Administration has been able to extract promises 
     of good behavior from Aristide as long as he has been living 
     comfortably in Washington, D.C. Once he is back in Port-au-
     Prince, however, he could revert to the anti-Americanism that 
     had been the hallmark of his political career. For example, 
     in an April 1990 radio interview regarding U.S. support for 
     the upcoming Haitian elections, Aristide claimed that ``they 
     [the Americans] want to hold our guts always in their hands. 
     Thus, we will be economically, politically, and culturally 
     dependent. For our part, we reject this . . .'' If Aristide 
     becomes unhappy with the United States--if aid is not enough 
     or if he thinks the U.S. is equivocating in its support for 
     him personally--this anti-Americanism is bound to resurface.
       (4) What happens if Aristide decides not to step down a the 
     end of his presidential term? In his September 15 address to 
     the nation, President Clinton declared that ``Aristide has 
     pledged to step down when his term ends . . . [in 1996].'' 
     But that is a rather dramatic concession that may come as a 
     surprise to Aristide's supporters in Haiti. Until now, 
     Aristide has held firm to the belief that the period of his 
     exile does not count as part of his five-year term in office. 
     Will the U.S. blockade Haiti and impose economic sanctions if 
     Aristide remains in office past 1996, in violation of the 
     1987 Haitian constitution?
       (5) What happens when ``democracy'' fails to take root with 
     Aristide's return? With the occupation of Haiti, the U.S. 
     assumes responsibility for building ``democracy'' in a 
     country where three-quarters of its presidents in nearly two 
     centuries of independence have not completed their terms. The 
     U.S. will soon be sending judicial, law enforcement, 
     military, economic, and political advisers to help establish 
     civil order there. Despite Clinton's claims to the contrary 
     in his September 15 speech, this is nation-building pure and 
     simple; it is a policy that failed miserably in Somalia last 
     year with the unnecessary loss of some 40 American lives.
       America's new venture into liberal colonialism has begun. 
     The U.S. is about to occupy a country to install in power a 
     left-wing priest who made a career out of denouncing America 
     and everything it stands for. Meanwhile, a few hundred miles 
     closer to U.S. shores, another Caribbean dictator abuses 
     human rights, and rules undemocratically. Yet Fidel Castro is 
     spared the fate of the Haitian generals. The reasons for this 
     double standards are as mysterious as the reasons for 
     occupying Haiti in the first place.
                                  ____


         [From Port-au-Prince Radio Nationale, Sept. 27, 1991]

               Aristide Address 27 Sep After Visit to UN

       [Address by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide at the 
     National Palace in Port-au-Prince on 27 September, on his 
     return from the United Nations--live or recorded]
       [Excerpts] [passage omitted including indistinct portions] 
     to repent and say: I acknowledge that I made this money 
     through malpractice and, from now on, watching the national 
     pride dancing like a flag, I will cooperate by using the 
     money [word indistinct] to create work opportunities, and to 
     invest in economic activity so more people can get jobs.
       If you [referring to bourgeoisie] do not do so, I feel 
     sorry for you. Really I do. [laughter from crowd] It will not 
     be my fault because this money you have is not really yours. 
     You acquired it through criminal activity. You made it by 
     plundering, by embezzling. You got it through the negative 
     choices you made. You made it under oppressive regimes. You 
     acquired it under a corrupt system. You made this money 
     through means that you know were wrong. Today, seven months 
     after 7 February, on a day ending in seven, I give you one 
     last chance. I ask you to take this chance, because you will 
     not have two or three more chances, only one. Otherwise, it 
     will not be good for you. [applause]
       If I speak to you this way, it is because I gave you a 
     seven-month deadline for making amends. The seven-month 
     deadline expires today. [applause] If I speak to you this 
     way, it does not mean that I am unaware of my power to 
     unleash public vindication, in the name of justice, against 
     all these thieves, in an attempt to recover from them what is 
     not theirs. A word to the wise is enough. You understand me 
     because you and I speak Creole. [applause]
       The saying goes: God's justice is slow. It appears that 
     justice is going too slow. It is, however, a reasonable 
     justice because seven months--during which people have been 
     hungry and unemployed, while you had the power to reduce 
     unemployment and hunger--have passed. As I told you, the 
     deadline expires today. The ball is in your court. The 7 
     February ball is at your feet. If you want to shoot, go 
     ahead. [applause]
       Did all of the bourgeoisie make their money through ill 
     practices? [crowd shouts ``no''] [repeats sentence twice] 
     Congratulations, intelligent people! [repeats sentence three 
     times] [applause] We call the bourgeoisie who made their 
     money through foul practices, and who refuse to invest in the 
     country, false patriots [patripoch]. We call the bourgeoisie 
     who earned their money through honest work, and who are 
     cooperative, patriots. [applause] Congratulations to the 
     patriotic bourgeoisie. Congratulations to the bourgeois 
     patriots. They are few. Unfortunately, they are not the 
     majority. Nevertheless they do exist. [passage omitted]
       I want to use this very occasion to also address political 
     parties. I want to hail and encourage them to walk on in 
     unity--unity among them and with the entire population--to 
     consolidate themselves so that, in accordance with the 
     Constitution, we will build together a strong opposition on 
     the basis of the law. We will thus foster democracy, unity in 
     political pluralism, unity in political diversity.
       Therefore, political leaders, I am passing to you the ball 
     of understanding with great love as usual. If you do not 
     catch the ball, dribble, and score goals, do not later accuse 
     me because you will have failed to live up to expectations in 
     order to gain in popularity that you [word indistinct]. 
     [crowd cheers] I wish you all good luck, good luck to all the 
     [words indistinct] parties.
       I hope that deputies and senators will continue to work 
     together with the people in order to personally feel the joy 
     of working to satisfy the aspirations of the masses, because 
     we prefer to fail with the masses than succeed without them, 
     but with the masses, we cannot fail. [crowd cheers] I am 
     encouraging all the ministers; [crowd cheers] I know, I 
     know, all right! For those of you who are outside the 
     palace, the brother here said that the deputies cannot do 
     me any harm. I told them I know that. [loud cheers from 
     crowd]
       I am encouraging every minister to continue with the purge 
     that we have already started. I am also encouraging each 
     state employee [words indistinct] because you are the ones 
     pressing on the economic pedal now, so that the economic car 
     can run twice as fast. I am encouraging each state employee--
     please, I encourage you to realize that, as a state employee, 
     you must work twice as much so that the job can be done well 
     and fast. You will thus increase, if not double, the output 
     of public administration. We will all benefit from the 
     increased effort that you all make. I encourage you to do so 
     in the provinces and in the capital, wherever state employees 
     work. If you feel that your work goes slowly, speed it up. 
     You do not need anyone to supervise you. Be you own 
     superviser. This is because contrary to the past, when people 
     used to say that embezzling state money is not stealing, 
     today we know very well that diverting state money is 
     stealing, and thieves do not deserve to stay in public 
     administration. [crowd cheers] [passage indistinct]
       You must greet visitors in the same warm way that Haitians 
     are greeted--with the type of welcome we received abroad. 
     Greet people with a small in state offices. Give people the 
     information that they need with a welcoming smile of 
     understanding. You too, address the state employee with great 
     courtesy so that we will make double economic effort. 
     [passage omitted]
       However if I catch a thief, a robber, a swindler, or an 
     embezzler, if I catch a fake lavalas, if I catch a fake . . . 
     [changes thought] If you catch someone who does not deserve 
     to be where he is, do not fail to give him what he deserves. 
     [crowd cheers] Do not fail to give him what he deserves! Do 
     not fail to give him what he deserves! Do not fail to give 
     him what he deserves!
       Your tool is in your hands. Your instrument is in your 
     hands. Your Constitution is in your hand. Do not fail to give 
     him what he deserves. [loud cheers from crowd] That device is 
     in your hands. Your trowel is in your hands. The bugle is in 
     your hands. The Constitution is in your hands. Do not fail to 
     give him what he deserves.
       Article 291 of the Constitution, which is symbolized by the 
     center of my head where there is no more hair, provides that 
     macoutes are excluded from the political game. Macoutes are 
     excluded from the political game. Macoutes are excluded from 
     the political game. Do not fail to give them what they 
     deserves. Do not fail to give them what they deserve. You 
     spent three sleepless nights in front of the National 
     Penitentiary. If one escapes, do not fail to give him what he 
     deserves. [loud cheers crowd]
       You are watching all macoute activities throughout the 
     country. we are watching and praying. we are watching and 
     praying. If we catch one, do not fail to give him what he 
     deserves. What a nice tool! What a nice instrument! [loud 
     cheers from crowd] What a nice device! [crowd cheers] It is a 
     pretty one. It is elegant, attractive, splendorous, graceful, 
     and dazzling. It smells good. Wherever you go, you feel like 
     smelling it. [crowd cheer] It is provided for by the 
     Constitution, which bans macoutes from the political scene.
       Whatever happens to them is their problem. They should not 
     look for it. [crowd cheers] As such, under the same flag of 
     pride, dignity, and solidarity, and hand in hand, we will 
     encourage one another, so that starting today, we will all 
     receive due respect--the type of respect I share with you--
     and fulfill common aspiration for justice. Words will thus 
     cease to be just words and will instead be translated into 
     action.
       Action on the economic front required me to get the ball 
     and pass it over to you. You should dribble and kick hard at 
     the ball once you are in front of the goal, and make sure to 
     score a goal because if the people do not see the ball in the 
     nest, as I told you, it would not be my fault if you are 
     given what you deserve, as provided for in the Constitution. 
     Alone we are weak, together we are strong, tightly united we 
     are an avalanche. Are you feeling proud? Are you feeling 
     proud? Go home now as your hearts are full of happiness, 
     energy, and joy and show that you are working for the 
     progress of the country, and to make elegant, graceful, and 
     dazzling, show that you want to restore it former image. 
     [loud cheers from crowd]
  Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
American Samoa [Mr. Faleomavaega].
  Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey 
[Mr. Torricelli] as the author of this resolution, and our Chairman of 
the House Committee on Foreign Affair, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. 
Hamilton] who is the chief cosponsor of this legislation.
  Mr. Chairman, the lives and welfare of some 20,000 of our men and 
women in the armed services are at stake. I have no doubt that 
President Clinton and his top military advisers, and even the Members 
of this body, are very concerned as the situation is volatile and 
things can turn for the worse or even better at any given day.
  Mr. Chairman, the President has made a very important decision to 
commit our military forces for the purpose of stabilizing the 
Government of Haiti and to return President Aristide as the duly 
elected leader of that country. But this does not mean that the 
President has the absolute authority to commit our forces anytime he 
feels like it.
  Under the Constitution, Mr. Chairman, the Congress must also do its 
part as a co-partner in this matter now before us. The resolution, I 
believe, before us should address the concerns of the Congress relative 
to the President's actions on Haiti. I believe, Mr. Chairman, that 
although the resolution does not address every issue, or every problem, 
or any solution that could be conceivably thought of, I do believe the 
resolution at least gives notice to the President that he cannot 
unilaterally put our military forces in harm's way without close 
consultations with the Congress.
  Mr. Chairman, I will not repeat the arguments for or against the 
President's Haiti policy and I believe Members of both sides of the 
aisle have been quite eloquent in advocating their points of view on 
this matter. I will say, Mr. Chairman, in my humble opinion that 
without question President Clinton's current policy on Haiti, its 
success or failure, rests entirely now upon the lives of our soldiers 
and sailors who are currently in Haiti as a consequence of his policy 
in that country.
  I believe the resolution of the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. 
Torricelli] is a reasonable solution to the current crisis in Haiti, 
and let us never forget the lessons that we have learned from Vietnam 
and Somalia. Let us support House Resolution 416.
  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 10 minutes to our final speaker, 
the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Mica].
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman and my colleagues, I take to the floor again 
to speak on the issue of our failed policy in Haiti. Having been 
involved in Haiti prior to the fall of the Aristide government in an 
economic development project, I am familiar with some of the problems 
of that nation, and I think it is important tonight that we reflect on 
the history of the Clinton policy which, in fact, is a history of 
failure.
  Mr. Chairman, it was a mistake when President-elect Clinton promised 
to reverse the Bush Haitian immigration policy.
  It was a mistake when my State of Florida was left with 12,000 
Haitians after 40,000 left that impoverished nation as a result of the 
change in the Clinton policy.
  It was a mistake when President Clinton failed to hear the pleas of 
myself and 41 other House Members who asked him to appeal a court 
decision that would allow HIV-infected Haitians into the United States, 
and most of those people ended up in my State of Florida.
  It was a mistake to ignore the Governors Island accord and 
international agreements.
  It was a mistake to sail into Port-au-Prince harbor and then cut and 
run.
  Mr. Chairman, it was a mistake to impose economic sanctions on a 
country with 53 cents per day per capita income.
  Again it was a mistake, Mr. Chairman, to impose an economic embargo 
on the most impoverished nation in the Western Hemisphere, a policy 
that would kill thousands of Haitian babies, elderly and infirm.
  Mr. Chairman, it was a mistake to destroy 60,000 manufacturing jobs 
in Haiti that fed nearly a third of the island's population.
  Again, Mr. Chairman, it was a mistake to send our forces into Haiti 
and not consult with the United Nations and not consult with the United 
States Congress.
  It was a mistake to have our troops stand by just recently while the 
balance of Haitian business was destroyed and decimated.
  It is a mistake to think that by confiscating weapons and driving the 
military underground that all will be well in Haiti's future.
  Mr. Chairman, it is a mistake to think that after October 15, when we 
have that great glorious parade when Aristide returns, all will be well 
in Haiti.
  Mr. Chairman, it is a mistake that the U.S. taxpayers pay twice. They 
pay once for the United Nations peacekeeping force, and now we will end 
up paying billions to continue another mistake.
  Mr. Chairman, it is a mistake not to have learned from the lessons of 
Somalia.
  Mr. Chairman, I say to my colleagues, you know there is a movie 
called ``The Groundhog Day.'' I don't know if you have ever seen that 
movie, my colleagues, but it's an interesting movie, and I recommend it 
to each of you. The movie ``The Groundhog Day'' is a movie about an 
individual who keeps repeating over and over the same day.
  Now I have only been in this Congress for about 20 months, but 
sometimes I feel like I am part of that movie, ``The Groundhog Day.'' 
The character there keeps repeating that day over and over, and that is 
what we are doing here, and that is what we did with Somalia.
  I ask my colleagues, don't we remember the cost in American lives? 
Don't we remember the cost in dollars?
  Mr. Chairman, when we cannot afford to provide economic assistance to 
our citizens, to our veterans, to our cities, we are spending hundreds 
of millions, billions, of dollars, and we have not learned this lesson. 
We are participating in another Groundhog Day. We are repeating that 
day over and over again.
  As my colleagues know, what is sad is we will leave Haiti, and I can 
predict it, and it will be part of this Congressional Record without 
changing the deep social and civil differences that lie embedded in 
that country. I have seen this firsthand. It is a country in which 
there is a very small, rich population, and they have a very large poor 
population.

                              {time}  1140

  We can send all the troops and we can spend all of our money; we can 
go again and destroy that country and pound it further into the ground; 
and then we can spend more American taxpayer dollars to try to raise it 
up.
  Mr. Chairman, we will not solve that country's problems. We did not 
solve them in Somalia. We just left there, and we left the country in 
chaos.
  So we do not have a defined mission. So we can set March 1, and March 
1, my colleagues, I am afraid will be too late. We can set March 1, 
1995, or 1996. It still may be too late. We are now being asked here in 
this Congress to legislate and authorize another mistake.
  Mr. Chairman, again, I feel like I am part of that movie, ``Groundhog 
Day,'' where we do not learn, where we keep repeating the same day over 
and over, where we keep making the same mistake, where we keep dragging 
the American taxpayer to pay for each and every one of these mistakes.
  Somehow I wish, Mr. Chairman, that we would learn from the lessons of 
the past. Somehow I would hope that this body would learn that we 
cannot solve all the problems of the world, nor can the American 
taxpayer finance all of these mistakes.
  So with these words, Mr. Chairman, for the Record, and I am sure 
these halls have heard all the different words and sermons, I caution 
my colleagues to think twice before they vote for this resolution, 
before they continue this legacy of mistakes, before they make another 
mistake.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Chairman, how much time remains?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman] has 
49 minutes remaining, and the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. 
Torricelli] has 1 hour and 10 minutes remaining.
  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Chairman, I have no further requests for time, and I 
reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I might 
consume.
  Mr. Chairman, President Clinton sent 20,000 American soldiers to 
defend Haitian democracy. Tonight I rise in the interest of another 
democracy, that of the United States.
  In any Democratic society, no one man can be vested with the power to 
send thousands of men and women in risk of their own lives, in pursuit 
of a policy that potentially consumes not simply millions, but indeed 
hundreds of millions of dollars. By definition in any Democratic 
society, that power must be shared and balanced with other Democratic 
institutions. In the constitutional framework that is the United States 
of America, this institution, the U.S. Congress, is designed to provide 
that balance.
  This Nation has painfully learned on other occasions the cost of 
entering into foreign commitments, sending our sons and daughters to 
fight, when the Nation is divided and this Congress is not consulted in 
the exercise of our powers. Indeed, it is the principal lesson of this 
generation, from the painful experiences of Vietnam, that if in our 
constitutional framework there is one principal imperfection, it has 
been the Founding Fathers inability, indeed, their failure, to more 
precisely define the respective roles of the institutions of 
government.
  House Resolution 416, which I offer with the gentleman from Indiana 
[Mr. Hamilton] is an attempt in this instance to avoid the division and 
provide the balance that was not provided for by exercising good 
judgment by the administration in seeking the consent of this Congress, 
and perhaps with not too sufficient clarity previously provided for in 
the law.
  We do so because it is not simply good law, not simply consistent 
with the intentions of the framers of our Constitution, no matter how 
vaguely that intention may have been expressed, but because it is also 
good policy.
  No foreign foe, no less the Haitian military, should ever believe 
that this country is divided. No one should ever face our forces in 
combat believing a President stands alone. This resolution is an 
opportunity to demonstrate not division or lack of resolve, but simply 
to provide President Clinton with a degree of support for our forces 
that he, unfortunately, did not seek, and therefore did not receive.
  It is an opportunity to speak with a loud voice, in providing a 
Congressional vote for unity of purpose. It is particularly critical, 
however, not simply because of Haiti, but because Haiti is not the 
last, and, indeed, may be the first of a long series of post-cold-war 
involvements, in which the United States will be called upon to defend 
democracy, advance our interests, further the resolutions of the United 
Nations, and serve other peacekeeping purposes and vital interests.
  A model therefore must be established, and that model cannot be 
consistent with the best interests of this country and the operation of 
our Democratic system, a formula by which the President of the United 
States simply orders the expenditure of such enormous sums of money and 
places the lives of so many people in jeopardy in pursuit of his own 
policy, without the collective actions of the U.S. Government.
  I seek to define these missions not because I want the United States 
to play less of a role in the world, but because I want us to play more 
of a role in the world, with credibility, with force, but recognizing 
that the United States can provide no example of democracy, ironically, 
indeed, tragically, cannot give meaning to the Democratic institutions 
of other nations, if we defy the Democratic meaning of our own 
Constitution and ignore our own Democratic institutions.
  This resolution is an opportunity to avoid what is certainly before 
us, an opportunity of division, and replace it with a common voice. The 
Armed Forces of the United States today, indeed the President himself, 
have in the last days provided an example of effective intervention 
militarily. But I think we all recognize that there are difficult days 
ahead, days that will test unity of purpose, days that may well divide 
the American people. Without this resolution, we will be on this floor 
again and again. The Haitian military will doubt our intentions or our 
resolve. With it, we will appear as united in difficult days as we are 
in those days when the mission is succeeding.
  The framework that is provided therefore in House Resolution 416 
attempts to do each of these things.

                              {time}  2350

  First, it defines our mission precisely, that American forces that 
are in Haiti to assist the transition to the legitimately elected 
government, to provide for the distribution of humanitarian assistance 
and security for those purposes. By providing this definition, we avoid 
the difficulty of an ever-expanding obligation, where each day or each 
week, with each new crisis taking on new obligations that have not been 
made clear to the American people, their elected representatives or 
even our forces in the field.
  Second, the length of this commitment, exclusively under American 
auspices and leadership, is defined by a limit of time. By March 1, the 
President of the United States must either come to this Congress and 
seek an extension of authorization or he must remove U.S. forces and 
transfer our obligations to a U.N. command. He must provide reports on 
four different occasions explaining the financial costs, precise 
obligations and what our forces are undertaking in their objectives.
  Every Member of this institution, after February 1, having received 
these reports, will have the opportunity to come to this floor on an 
expedited basis and, by resolution, seek the removal of American forces 
if they deem it to be the interest of this country.
  But in fairness to the President, this opportunity is not accorded to 
Members until February 1 and withdrawal is not ordered until March 1, 
because to do so at an earlier date has been suggested by a resolution 
offered by the minority. Neither gives our military forces a reasonable 
amount of time to complete their mission or this Congress an 
opportunity to produce such a resolution. Congress simply will not be 
in session in November or December or much of January.
  But after February 1, the Committee on Foreign Affairs will be 
organized. The Congress will be in session. And we can produce such a 
resolution of withdrawal if we deem it to be in our interest.
  Finally, the resolution provides that at all times, until the U.N. 
command assumes responsibility, our forces will be under the exclusive 
command of a commander in the U.S. Armed Forces.
  I recognize, Mr. Chairman, that many Members of this institution, 
indeed many of the American people, do not believe in our mission in 
Haiti. They are sensitive to the support of democracy, sympathetic to 
the plight of the Haitian people, and angered by the actions of the 
Haitian military. I share each and every one of those sentiments. But 
there are doubts in this institution whether the vital interests of the 
United States were so threatened in such a manner that it was necessary 
or wise to engage the Armed Forces of the United States at the risk of 
the lives of young men and women who have gone into the service of our 
country for the defense of this Nation to pursue these objectives.
  While I am sympathetic with some of those beliefs, I also believe it 
is necessary, whether we supported those objectives, interpreted events 
in this fashion or not, that we deal responsibly with the reality that 
20,000 young Americans are in Haiti. The mission has been undertaken. 
We are not being asked whether it should be pursued but now, simply, 
how it should be achieved successfully, given the reality of their 
deployment.
  Resolution 416 is an attempt to deal with that reality for those who 
believe that the mission was necessary, for those who question it, but 
nevertheless want it to succeed and who believe now a premature 
withdrawal before the U.S. military is given that chance is to simply 
compromise any opportunity to do justice to their mission or fairness 
to our forces.
  Others are arguing that the resolution is ill-advised because it 
might compromise the safety of our forces to set a date of withdrawal. 
I would argue strenuously, on the contrary. Each and every day that 
American forces remain in Haiti without any deadline for their removal, 
any date of departure, is an invitation for terrorists and assassins, 
for the brutal thugs in the Haitian military and their accomplices to 
attempt to take the lives of our young soldiers, to break the will of 
our people and to seek a date of withdrawal.
  I believe that if our opponents recognize that our presence in Haiti 
is to restore the Aristide government, to provide for its security and 
then, on a date certain, to transfer authority to the United Nations, 
they recognize that there is no advantage in bringing harm to our 
forces, because it will not change the reality of our presence or 
adjust the date or our departure.
  I want, finally, Mr. Chairman, to express again the admiration that I 
know every Member of this institution feels, whether they would have 
initially supported this mission or not, whether they want to set a 
deadline for departure or not, the admiration that is felt for every 
man and woman and every branch of our Armed Forces, for the 
extraordinary skill and courage that is being exemplified by each and 
every member of our Armed Forces.
  Never in my memory have they performed more professionally, more 
selflessly, when called upon by the President of the United States.
  Tomorrow this institution, while expressing that admiration, will 
have before it three alternatives. The gentleman from Indiana [Mr. 
Hamilton] and I have provided Resolution 416, adopted by the House 
Committee on Foreign Affairs, to provide for the March 1 withdrawal 
providing for a post-February 1st vote to force withdrawal by the 
House, if it deems it so necessary, limiting the mission.
  An alternate resolution will be provided by the minority, defined by 
the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman] for at some point after 
January 3d, without having provided any authorization for the mission 
prospectively or retroactively, a resolution will come in order for 
immediate withdrawal. And a final resolution offered by the gentleman 
from Florida [Mr. Hastings] and the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. 
Murtha] to provide for an authorization without a specific date of 
withdrawal.

                              {time}  2400

  Those three alternatives provide this Congress with a real choice, 
and the chance for a meaningful debate.
  Mr. Chairman, my own position is clear. However, beyond the crisis in 
Haiti, in each of these resolutions, I trust when the debate ends we 
will have established one point, a point we believed was clear after 
Vietnam, certainly after Lebanon, without question after Panama and 
Grenada, and we had reason to believe after the Persian Gulf and 
Somalia; that in this democratic society, this Nation will not take 
lives, will not engage in foreign commitments, and will not wage war 
while operating within the confines of our own Constitution with 
respect for the judgments of our own people and the operations of our 
own institutions of government.
  Mr. Chairman, democracy is a fragile instrument. The United States of 
America has been blessed with this form of government for 200 years, 
but at its inception, we were advised that the greatest threat to our 
freedoms existed in no foreign nation, in no despot or king or invading 
army, but by the very excesses of executive power.
  Mr. Chairman, through these two centuries we have been blessed by men 
in the Presidency who have respected democracy and did not exceed their 
authority, but with each and every precedent we establish for the 
concentration of executive power in the Presidency, the decline of 
balance of powers in this institution, we risk not simply the freedom 
of those we would violate abroad, but more critically, our own.
  Mr. Chairman, when we debate tomorrow, I trust that it is the 
operation of his Government, the balance of these powers, that Members 
will bear in mind as we debate House Resolution 416.
  Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleagues for a meaningful debate this 
evening and look forward to reviewing it tomorrow.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. 
Barlow].
  (Mr. BARLOW asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)


             tribute to romano l. mazzoli on his retirement

  Mr. BARLOW. Mr. Chairman, I ask for your own indulgence to speak out 
of order as I pay respects to you, sir.
  Mr. Chairman, as a new Member from Kentucky in his first term in 
Congress, I, along with others in the delegation and others here in 
Congress, want to pay our respects to you for your many years of 
service as you come to your retirement from our institution here.
  You were elected in 1970, and let me say that when I arrived here in 
January a year ago, Mr. Chairman, you reached out with friendship and 
with understanding at the process that I and every other freshman at 
that point was entering into as we come into the hall of reason which 
our forefathers consecrated for us as a Nation.
  Mr. Chairman, it is an amazing and wonderful institution that has 
been created. Every day that I serve here and serve with men of years 
of service such as you, men who show humility and dedication and 
strength of purpose and principle, I am constantly coming up against 
those principles that have served us as a nation so well down through 
the years.
  When we have votes, I come home to my district, as I do every 
weekend, and talk with my constituents back in the distract. Sometimes 
I am asked ``Why are the votes so close, the numbers very evenly 
divided?'' I often say that that is because, very purposefully, we have 
loaded them with very heavy, weighty issues, and the weightiness of 
those issues and the fact that we come up on that vote, and it so 
evenly divided, and yet, after that, when passions have cooled, we find 
that we are a stronger Nation, having stood the test of the heat of 
that moment.
  You yourself, sir, in the years of your service, have brought your 
constituents and brought the House to the same type of weighted, 
heavily weighted, decisions of principle, and have come through 
elections by small margins.
  Mr. Chairman, I would submit that that is not a sign of weakness, 
that is a sign of pushing yourself and your constituents and the State 
of Kentucky to very powerful limits of expansion, of moral purpose, of 
principle, and as we come out of those votes, we are stronger for it.
  I pay my respects to you, Mr. Chairman, and the record of those votes 
will stand proudly the test of time as people look back.
  Mr. Chairman, we are also in an institution where no one person is 
enabled to rise with ego, to dominate, to domineer. We have a 
wonderfully crafted set of rules which very wisely snares egos and 
winds them down, and wrings them out, so that reason can come to the 
surface.
  You, in your years as chairman of the Subcommittee on International 
Law, Immigration, and Refugees of the Committee on the Judiciary, have 
labored hard to bring very difficult work to the force, to bring it in 
a progressive way forward. No matter how long any of us work and labor 
in this institution, we are always laying foundations for the future.
  Mr. Chairman, you have laid very powerful foundations in the 
immigration law that you have brought forth in the 1980's and over the 
years of oversight for this whole area. It is an area that is going to 
be challenged in many powerful ways in coming years, because we as a 
nation are admired for our government, for the freedom, for our free 
enterprise.
  We have triumphed over terror and institutions of terror in the 
world, governing structures which were very oppressive. Quite 
understandably, people will be wanting to come to the United States. As 
a measured process that you have established, we look forward to 
perfecting that so that our own institutions will prosper.
  Mr. Chairman, my mother, her father was from Louisville, KY, and 40-
some-odd years ago when I was very much a youngster I remember an old 
78 record I played in my grandfather's living room. I do not know if 
you ever heard it. I am not going to sing the song, but I will recite 
it as I can from memory.
  That is ``Eight more miles to Louisville, the hometown of my heart. 
Eight more miles on this old road, I never more shall part. I knew some 
day that I would come back, I knew it from the start. Eight more miles 
to Louisville, the hometown of my heart.''
  Thank you, sir.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Chair would take his prerogative to express thanks 
to the gentleman, and to all who have joined in that.
  Mr. BROWDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor my colleague Ron 
Mazzoli of Kentucky who will be leaving this body at the conclusion of 
the 103d Congress.
  As a freshman member of Congress late in 1989, I faced the daunting 
prospect of having the major military installation in my district 
closed by a unilateral decision of the Department of Defense. Now, base 
closure is a fearsome challenge for any Member of Congress, but 
especially so for a Member only 9 months into his first term who 
succeeded a 21-year veteran who was a legendary senior member of the 
Armed Services Committee.
  Base closure threw Ron Mazzoli and I into the same pot of trouble in 
1990, and we quickly recognized that the 1990 closure list 
disproportionately targeted bases in Democratic districts and appeared 
to have no basis in military value.
  Though not a member of the Armed Services Committee, Ron Mazzoli had 
a direct impact on the resulting legislation which established the Base 
Closure Commission and the current base-closure process because of his 
personal and professional support of me and my efforts on the 
Committee. Ron was one of the founding members of the Fairness Network 
which we established in the House originally to ensure that the defense 
establishment was not withholding funds from targeted bases while they 
are being evaluated for closure or realignment.
  In his quite, unassuming and statesmanlike manner, Ron Mazzoli has 
had a profound impact on this House and on this Member in particular. 
His mentoring of my early efforts to slay the base-closure dragon have 
left me personally grateful of the contribution he has made to my 
career as the Representative to Congress from the State of Alabama and 
grateful as a citizen of this Nation for his contributions to what has 
become an effective, fair method for reducing military infrastructure.
  While the military bases that Ron and I represent have both emerged 
winners from the first three rounds of base closures, the House and our 
country will be the losers when he leaves this body in January for a 
much-deserved respite form the day-to-day political struggle. Mr. 
Speaker, I know you join me in thanking Ron Mazzoli for his service to 
America and in wishing him only the best in his future endeavors.
  Mr. BRYANT. Mr. Speaker, while it is with much regret that we are 
here today saying farewell to one of our host distinguished colleagues, 
Congressman Romano Mazzoli, I am pleased to be able to participate in 
recognizing him during this special tribute.
  I am fortunate enough to be able to say that as a member of the 
International Law, Immigration, and Refugees Subcommittee, the 
subcommittee that Congressman Mazzoli has so ably chaired for a number 
of years, I have worked with him on many issues.
  Without pause, I can say that Congressman Mazzoli has been a fair and 
fervent advocate in balancing the United States' interest to strengthen 
enforcement and illegal immigration, while at the same time recognizing 
the need to promote lawful immigration in furtherance of the United 
States interests as a heterogeneous and diverse society.
  Congressman Mazzoli has made many contributions to our society as a 
Member of Congress, and I am sure that I can speak for all of us in 
saying that his tenacity and responsiveness will be sorely missed, not 
only by his friends here in the U.S. Congress, but also by his 
constituents.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to join with my 
colleagues in recognizing the outstanding service to Congress and our 
Nation of my friend and colleague, Romano (Ron) Mazzoli.
  For the last 24 years, Ron has distinguished himself as the 
representative of Kentucky's 3d District, which includes the city of 
Louisville and its suburbs. Without a doubt Ron is one of the hardest 
working Members of this body; furthermore Ron is a man of honesty and 
integrity. Millions of Americans who watch C-SPAN know Ron as the fair 
and impartial member who often moderates contentious House debates from 
the Speaker's chair. However, to all of us in the House, we know how 
deep Ron's legacy runs.
  Ron was one of the authors of perhaps the most sweeping immigration 
reform legislation of our time, the Simpson-Mazzoli Immigration bill, 
which passed the House in 1986. I remember how hard Ron worked over 
several years to shepherd this important landmark legislation through 
Congress, and know his perseverance is a major reason why this bill has 
been made into law. Ron has also been a major force in the drive to 
reform campaign finance laws, and Ron certainly backs up his talk with 
action--during campaigns he would accept campaign contributions of no 
more than $100. His forceful presence on both these issues will be 
sorely missed.
  Another thing that will be missed not only by his colleagues in the 
House but also the people of Kentucky's 3d District is Ron's 
independence and dedication to his constituents. One of the reasons Ron 
is one of the most respected Members of Congress is his ability to make 
difficult choices to help his constituents. He will not shy away from 
controversy even if what Ron thinks is the right thing to do is not the 
most popular. In this age of ``sound-bite'' politics and constant 
opinion polls, this is a refreshing characteristic. This devotion and 
sincerity has earned my respect and admiration for Ron, and I know my 
opinion is shared by many colleagues as well as individuals in Kentucky 
and around the Nation. Ron's leadership and honesty will be missed, and 
I am pleased to join today in wishing Ron, his wife Helen, and his 
family all the best as he begins his retirement.
  Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Chairman, I would like to join, too, in congratulating you at the 
conclusion of a remarkable career in this institution. You have served 
the people of Kentucky and the people of the United States with 
extraordinary distinction.
  while the people of Kentucky had their own reason to be proud, the 
people of Louisville had a particular reason to be proud, so do some of 
us who have come to know you as a member of the Italian-American caucus 
in this institution. We have our own reasons to be very proud of you.
  You will be greatly missed, and I want to identify myself with the 
remarks of the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Barlow].
  I would also like, in the conclusion of this debate, to thank the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman] and the gentleman from New York 
[Mr. Owens] for beginning this discussion. We look forward to 
continuing tomorrow.

                              {time}  0010

  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Chairman, before we conclude, I too would like to 
associate myself with the gentleman's remarks, to commend you for your 
outstanding service in the House. We will sorely miss you and miss your 
expertise in so many areas. We congratulate you for a job well done.
  The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman very much.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Chairman, I also would like to associate myself with 
the remarks of the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Barlow]. When the 
gentleman from Kentucky presides, we always have a very firm hand but a 
very fair hand. That is a demonstration to those of us who have not 
served with you on a committee of what a great contribution you have 
made to this body. We are going to certainly miss you.
  Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join my colleagues in 
recognition of Congressman Ron Mazzoli.
  It has been a high privilege knowing Ron Mazzoli since he first 
joined the House in 1971. He has been a good friend and colleague, and 
I will certainly miss him.
  I have had the good fortune over the years of working with Ron on 
numerous issues and projects that affect the greater Louisville area. 
Ron, of course, represents the city of Louisville and Jefferson County, 
KY; I represent the Indiana counties across the Ohio River. Ron has 
been instrumental in promoting stronger ties between our States and 
communities and in working jointly to spur economic growth in the 
region. His retirement will be a loss not only to the people of his 
district and State, but to the Kentuckiana region in general.
  I also want to recognize Ron's contributions to this institution. 
Congress is not held in particularly high public esteem these days. 
Some of the criticisms are fair, some are unfair. It is especially 
unfortunate that in the rush to judge the institution, there is a 
tendency to overlook the outstanding efforts of individual members.
  Ron Mazzoli has been a pillar of integrity in Congress. He is 
conscientious and hard-working. He is dedicated to serving his 
constituents and the nation. He has taken a leading role on some of the 
most important issues facing this country, including immigration reform 
and campaign finance reform, and has worked tirelessly to pass 
legislation that makes a difference in the lives of Americans. Ron has 
been a model legislator, and should be saluted for his accomplishments.
  I want to extend my congratulations to Ron and commend him for his 
impressive record of service. His work in Congress is certainly a mark 
of distinction, and I want to join his friends and family in 
recognizing it. He has every right to look back on his service with a 
full measure of satisfaction.
  I join all of my colleagues in wishing Ron and Helen all the best. I 
know he will continue to apply the same dedication and energy to all 
his endeavors in the future.
  The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman very much. I appreciate that.
  Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.
  The motion was agreed to.
  Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. 
Barlow) having assumed the chair, Mr. Mazzoli, Chairman of the 
Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, reported that 
that Committee, having had under consideration the joint resolution 
(H.J. Res. 416) providing limited authorization for the participant of 
United States Armed Forces in the multinational force in Haiti and 
providing for the prompt withdrawal of United States Armed Force from 
Haiti, has come to no resolution thereon.

                          ____________________