[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 176 (Tuesday, December 18, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H10176-H10177]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 HAITI

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express some very serious 
concerns about events that happened yesterday not in Afghanistan, where 
we are fixated by the CNN optic of what is going on there in Tora Bora 
and elsewhere, but about events in a friendly neighboring nearby 
country, democratic country, Haiti.
  News reports indicate that a group of individuals attacked the 
Haitian National Police in the early morning hours. The government of 
Haiti official report claims that this was some type of attempted coup 
against President Aristide. There is no particular evidence to support 
this claim, however.
  We are certain of some of the aftermath by some of the initial 
reports we are receiving from the area. President Aristide has 
unleashed mobs of his political cronies against U.S. and French 
official installations and against the homes and offices of numerous 
political opposition leaders. In fact, those homes and offices were, in 
several instances, burned to the ground.
  Also, the mobs were directed against various independent radio 
stations, which were forcibly shut down. And there were apparently 
orchestrated riots staged in cities and towns all across Haiti. Most 
tragically, these mobs burned to death, in a very brutal way, a number 
of innocent people.
  Given President Aristide's lack of commitment to democratic norms we 
have been watching through the years, I believe he owes the 
international community today, and now a detailed explanation of 
exactly what did happen yesterday in Haiti. I call on the United States 
Government, the friends of Haiti, and the Organization of the American 
States to seek thorough, complete and verifiable information on the 
following issues, at a minimum:
  First, whether yesterday's attack on the national palace was 
deliberately staged by the Aristide government, as many think; 
secondly, that given the officially sanctioned attacks on the U.S. 
Consulate, these are our people, our property in Haiti, and the French 
embassy's Cultural Institute, whether Haiti intends to abide by its 
prior commitments to protect diplomatic personnel and facilities. This 
is at a minimum. And, third, given Haiti's legal agreement to various 
U.N. and OAS human rights treaties, whether the Aristide government 
will cease its attack on Haiti's independent media and democratic 
political parties and their leaders.
  Unfortunately, we have been asking for this for a number of years now 
and we have not been seeing much cooperation from the Aristide 
government. In fact, I think most observers would fairly say there has 
been a very noticeable and significant retreat from democracy in that 
country, tragically.
  One of the immediate consequences for my State of Florida and for the 
United States is a problem we have been talking about with regard to 
immigration troubles and terrorism, and that is our porous borders. We 
are now confronted with people fleeing Haiti, as has been their want in 
the past, refugees exposing themselves to the treachery of the Florida 
straits at this time of year, coming over in unsafe boating conditions, 
and trying to reach the safety of the shores of the United States of 
America.
  It is a tough proposition for us on how to treat these people 
humanely and not encourage more people from coming. I think most 
Members will recall we have had floods of people in the past, so many 
that we have had to create camps in Guantanamo before, and I am afraid 
we are on the verge of another immigrant problem of that magnitude.
  I think that it is very important that we look at Haiti very directly 
as part of a failed legacy of the Clinton foreign policy program. I am 
sorry to say that. There are many of us at the time that said that the 
policy was misguided; that it would not work; that the kinds of 
sanctions the Clinton administration put against Haiti would backfire, 
and, indeed, they did. Haiti has not had much leadership, and what it 
has had seems to have been away from democracy. I think it is a 
spectacular failure of foreign policy.
  I think that the misery level in Haiti is spectacular also, 
regrettably. And I think that the brutality we saw yesterday, again in 
the mob violence, was brutality that is spectacular and inhuman and 
very, very regrettable.

                              {time}  1245

  I think we have a spectacle on our hands that needs to be explained 
in

[[Page H10177]]

what did happen yesterday, and in the events surrounding the further 
repression of democracy and the apparent actions that the Aristide 
Government is claiming that it now must take from yesterday's events in 
order to stamp out the last few remnants of decency and democracy and 
civilization of that wonderful country. It is time for accountability, 
and I think the world needs to know that.

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