[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 106 (Tuesday, June 27, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H6314-H6315]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ELECTIONS IN HAITI

  Mr. SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Goss] is recognized during 
morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, speaking of the budget as the previous 
colleagues have from this point of view, I think it is important to 
note that today the Members of this body will be discussing the 
appropriation for our foreign operations assistance, and that, of 
course, is part of our budget process, how much money are we going to 
parcel out for the different things we undertake as the United States 
of America through the governance in Washington.
  Today I am here to talk a little bit about a specific budget item and 
a little bit about a situation where American taxpayers' dollars go in 
very substantial amounts, because I think there is some interest in it. 
I think there should be some interest in it.
  I am reporting about the situation in Haiti today, discussing a 
little bit the question about foreign aid for Haiti, how much is right 
and how should we handle it.
  As we go through the foreign operations appropriations bill, I will 
be submitting an amendment that will deal directly with the subject, so 
in a way I am going to use these few moments just to say that I have 
come back from the elections in Haiti, and I think that there is a very 
important message in those elections, and I also feel that there is 
much work ahead and much accountability ahead.
  Let me be specific. The headline this morning in one of the 
Washington papers was, ``A step for Democracy?'' After reviewing 
showing pictures and reviewing the reports that are coming from Haiti, 
I would conclude, having been there for 4 days and gotten around part 
of the country and been in charge 

[[Page H 6315]]
of a team that had observers spread countrywide, that it was a very 
small step, a very halting step, a very hesitant step for democracy, 
but it was a step. It was a very expensive step for the American 
taxpayers also.
  It turned out that by our standard, you would probably not recognize 
it as much of an election. It was a very compressed election time, 
virtually no campaign, which I think many Americans would probably 
applaud, but unfortunately that meant for Haitians they did not know 
what the issues were or what was going on, and in that country, 
generally, you vote for an individual out of a loyalty or a personal 
conviction, and the issues seem to take a subordinate role.
  There were an extraordinary amount of unaddressed administrative 
problems, and when I say unaddressed, that is the critical word because 
the people in charge of the election apparently got the complaints but 
never gave any answers out. It created a tremendous amount of 
frustration that led to a lack of transparency. The people did not know 
what was going on. The people making decisions were not sharing why 
they were making those decisions, and that, in turn, eroded 
credibility. Credibility is vital for full, free elections.
  It turned out not only was there no campaign to speak out, there was 
no training in advance of poll workers, no preparation of the people. 
As a result, there was no great enthusiasm to go out and vote and, in 
fact, the turnout was disappointingly light. It turned out when you 
went to vote, if you were a
 Haitian, there were missing candidates. The candidate you wanted to 
vote for was not on the ballot or the polling workers were not at the 
polling station to help you vote or to open the polling station, 
because they had not been paid, or there were no materials to vote. You 
might have gotten to the right place and your candidate was on the 
ballot, but there was no other material to deal with, say, no ballot 
boxes. We found these kinds of problems widespread everywhere.

  The end result is people were dissatisfied. There was frustration, 
and as we have all seen in the pictures from the television and 
newspapers, widespread disturbances, nothing like the violence in past 
elections in Haiti. We are all glad abut that. but, still, some very 
serious incidents did take place in the country, when you are burning 
down voting stations and stoning candidates, as did happen in some 
places, and we do not know all of these details yet.
  We have got a problem. The mood was clearly more relaxed than in the 
last election in 1990, when I was also there as an observer, but there 
is still concern about personal security, and the light turnout was in 
part described by some Haitians due to the fact they did not have 
enough security at the polls. They wanted to see somebody out there who 
could protect them if they want to vote, because they could remember 
what happened if they went to vote in the past and they did not have 
that security. Bad things happened.
  Another good part of the news, of the good news, is that the 
political parties are beginning to work better in Haiti. The one thing 
that did work in these elections was the poll watchers were there and 
doing their job on behalf of the parties, and I am happy to say that 
after the election voting process is pretty much over, that the parties 
are the ones who are getting involved in making the complaints and 
making things happen in Haiti, and that is the way it should be. The 
parties were doing a better job than the government did of running, by 
and large.
  What is ahead? We have got about a quarter billion dollars in aid 
going to Haiti. That means a lot of accountability. I think most 
Americans want to know what has been spent there, for what purposes, 
what specifically, how much more are we going to spend.
  We have the Presidential elections coming in December 1995, and that 
is the big one. That is the one that matters. I think we had better be 
better prepared than we were for these parliamentary elections.


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