[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 126 (Tuesday, August 1, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H8070]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                         WHAT IS NEXT IN HAITI?

  The 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, I think it is very important on a day when we 
are going to devote in this chamber very serious deliberative debate on 
the subject of whether we are going to get involved and to what degree 
in a hostile situation in a place called Bosnia, that it is important 
that we also review where we have troops now that are somewhat in 
harm's way and doing American business overseas in another area where 
we have a major investment that has been very, very troublesome, 
although not as attention-getting because the atrocities are nowhere 
near as bad as the genocide we are seeing in Bosnia, the former 
Yugoslavia.
  The place I speak of is Haiti, of course. I was there for the 25th of 
June elections and for the International Republican Institute as the 
chairman of the Election Observation Team, and I was personally much 
maligned for the way that we operated down there, and the IRI was much 
criticized for the report we issued as a result of those elections.
  Curiously enough now, all the observers who have watched those 
elections and judged what is going on in Haiti have come over to the 
report that we issued and basically been much harsher and critical 
about the process in Haiti than even the IRI report. I guess it is 
difficult to be out in front of the pack sometimes, but what is 
important now is to find out where we are going next.
  The commentary in the Washington Post yesterday, which I will quite 
because it is notable that the Washington Post has come around to this 
point of view, says, quote, ``Early hopes, including our own, that 
Haiti was getting up momentum and building an electoral system turn out 
to have been wrong.'' That is a very strong admission from the 
Washington Post, which generally is very favorable to the Clinton 
administration's policy games.
  It follows a little bit after the OAS commentary that came last week 
that said that it would be hard to call what happened in Haiti full, 
fair, free election. Larry Pasullo, who used to work for the Clinton 
administration as their top expert on Haiti, who was fired because they 
did not like the message he was bringing back, has made comment 
recently after looking at what happened in Haiti that there has been no 
real change there. We still have one-man rule. It is just a different 
man, and we are not sure we have democracy blooming at all.
  Dr. Pastor of the Carter Institute, who has recently come back, I 
think put the final nail in the coffin. Quoting from the New York Times 
of last week, the Carter Center, normally a strong supporter of 
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti, said today that last month's 
elections in Haiti were riddled with fraud and that the Clinton 
administration should not back a series of reruns and runoffs that many 
Haitian political parties are threatening to boycott.
  So it seems that just about everybody who gave it a fair assessment 
understands there is a mess.
  Now, we have sent a very high-level delegation down to Haiti. It is 
curious they would be going to Haiti rather than Bosnia, where the 
trouble seems to be a little more intense. But, nevertheless, we have 
sent the first team apparently down to Haiti to negotiate.
  Again, what has happened is that observers are saying we are acting 
with a very heavy hand. This is supposed to be a democratic nation 
emerging in democracy, making its own decisions with all the 
institutions of democracy, including a fair, free, political program 
and election process.
  Even the Washington Post has come up, and I will quote again 
yesterday's editorial, ``Hence, the dispatch of a high-level American 
team the other day to move Haitian electoral reform along.'' It is an 
intrusive way to do delicate business, but the alternative is worse. To 
say that it is intrusive to go down there and tell the Haitians how to 
run their own country is a bit of an understatement, even for the 
Washington Post.
  What has happened in Haiti is that, finally, they have fired the 
incompetent who was running the electoral council down there, and the 
opposition parties have all called for the removal of the total 
election council and replaced them with nonpartisan people.
  Unfortunately, President Aristide has not listened to the other 
political parties in the country. He has only listened to his own 
party, and he has replaced the president of the election council with 
one of his party partisans, who has no credibility with the others, 
and, consequently, nothing has happened except
 we have changed seats one more time.

  We have now still got all of the people except the Aristide people 
calling for a totally new electoral council and totally new elections. 
That is not a step forward by any means.
  On other fronts down in Haiti where we have invested over $2 billion, 
$2 billion of American taxpayers' money in the last year or so, we have 
found that things are not going well either.
  We had a delegation of business people who came to my office and the 
office of many others last week, and they said that, basically, there 
is nothing conducive to economic development going on. All of the money 
we are sending is just being squandered away one way or another. It is 
not going to meaningful programs.
  We are still pouring money in, but the good things that need to 
happen, the reform of the judiciary system, the encouragement for 
business, the regulations that allow for stability and certainty in the 
banking sectors, those types of things are not happening at all. So, 
consequently, the score card is not good, and it is a dim situation.
  This is not an ``I told you so.'' But it is a good question for the 
administration. Where are we going and what is next in Haiti?

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