[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 57 (Tuesday, March 28, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H3810-H3811]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                   UNITED STATES OCCUPATION OF HAITI

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 1995, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Goss] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, today is day 191 of the United States 
occupation of Haiti. The United States occupation of Haiti is scheduled 
to end in 3 days. The invasion will be over.
  What will we be leaving behind in Haiti besides one billion United 
States taxpayers' dollars? Are we leaving a stable and secure 
government? I think not. Unfortunately, the evidence is in, and we are 
leaving a mess. We are leaving 2,500 of our troops there to do some 
peacekeeping with some other troops from some other countries in a 
situation that is far from optimistic.
  There is a requirement that Congress has put on the White House for 
regular reporting about what is going on, and I asked for that report 
as we neared the end of this occupation time.
  The White House tells us that things are fine in Haiti. Quoting from 
a letter from President Clinton to the Speaker, dated the 21st of 
March, it says: ``Overall, Haiti has remained calm and relatively 
incident-free since the deployment of United States and MF forces. The 
level of political violence has decreased substantially since the 
departure of the de facto government,'' et cetera, et cetera.
  I think it is time that the folks in the White House started reading 
the newspaper. Things are not quite that way.
  I go back to a New York Times article that came out just as recently 
as this Sunday, and I say, quoting, ``Only a week before the 
responsibility for maintaining security here is to shift from the 
United States to the United Nations, the Haitian government is 
struggling to contain a sudden surge in crime and street violence. 
Frustration over the crime wave, which has included slaying of 
political figures as well as robberies and break-ins, has led to a 
series of vigilante attacks against suspected lawbreakers,'' et cetera, 
et cetera.
  Reading on from the same New York Times article last week, that was a 
week ago, after a series of daring daylight holdups and car thefts, the 
capital was hit by spasms of vigilante violence. Over 2 days, 21 
suspected thieves were beaten, stoned or hacked to death by enraged 
groups, mainly residents of working class neighborhoods.
  This seems to belie the statement that calm has returned to Haiti. 
This seems to belie the statement that we now have a secure and stable 
environment, as the United Nations asserts. I guess it is all right for 
them to assert it since we are maintaining the maximum exposure, we as 
the Americans, and our forces down there.
  I think that the media is breaking down the misrepresentations that 
are coming out of the administration on why we are in Haiti and what we 
are about there. What is important for Haiti is that we do establish 
democracy and we try to help it in an intelligent way.
  The implications for our upcoming elections, given this wave of 
violence and the breakdown that is going on there, are not good. 
Candidates have been killed.
  We have got elections for parliament in June. We need a parliament in 
Haiti. We do not have one; and, in fact, we have a de facto 
dictatorship. We have no justice system and no parliament, so we have a 
de facto dictatorship.
  And where people are being discouraged, they are not only being 
discouraged, they are being assassinated if they run for office. That 
is pretty strong discouragement.
  The implications for business, we have had 20,000 of our combat 
troops down there. If we cannot get prosperity, security, and create an 
investment climate with that kind of stability, what is going to happen 
when those troops leave in 3 days?
  So, clearly, we are not doing well in the area of encouraging 
investor, and unfortunately the facts show that very well also.
  The implications for security are not so good, either. President 
Aristide, quoting him from another newspaper report, said, ``Mr. 
Aristide was particularly critical of the remaining Haitian police and 
judicial authorities, whom he described as, `cowardly and derelict in 
their duties'.''
  When the President of your country gets up there and says you cannot 
count on your police, that does not contribute to calm. When he goes 
further than that and says, ``Look, folks, you better be prepared to 
take care of yourselves and the workers down in the slum part of Port-
au-Prince, down in Cite Soleil, are encouraged to go out and take care 
of themselves, that
 means they are down there sharpening their machetes.''

  And indeed we do have exactly that report, that the people in Cite 
Soleil are back, going back to protect their homes, are sharpening up 
their machetes and are preparing for even more violence. This is not a 
stable and secure environment by any stretch of the imagination.
  We do not have a parliament. We are pulling out American troops. We 
do not have a government that has got any confidence in its police 
force for stability. The justice system is breaking down.
  They found that when they went to one prison out of something like 
527 inmates only 15 of them had actually been convicted. So they turned 
loose 200 people who are actually people who should have been brought 
to justice but the system had broken down. And then 
[[Page H3811]] the decent folk in Haiti were enraged that they were 
turning criminals loose on the streets. That is another system that has 
broken down.
  It is critical in a democracy to have the three branches of 
government working, and in Haiti not any of the branches of Government 
are working. Rather than delude ourselves and declare victory, let us 
look at the real situation and get a foreign policy that is 
comprehensive, works and does build democracy in Haiti and stop kidding 
ourselves with these false reports from the White House.

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