[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 28 (Wednesday, March 13, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H899-H905]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    ASPECTS OF THE WAR ON TERRORISM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ferguson). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about a very important 
aspect of the kind of war against terrorism which I think the United 
States should wage. I would like to talk about a dimension of that war 
which is very seldom discussed. We are in the process now of preparing 
for our budget. The vote on the budget may come as early as next week. 
In that budget, the largest increase is $48 billion for the military 
and for homeland security, items which are designated as part of the 
war against terrorism. I want to talk about that in terms of its being 
utilized in a new way, of being expanded so that it has a greater 
impact against terrorism than the present administration foresees.
  The emphasis of the present administration is too much on the 
military and too little on foreign aid and other kinds of necessities 
that are needed, both at home and abroad.
  I think the discussion before on Social Security is relevant here, 
also, but today, earlier, we took some steps which I think weaken our 
war on terrorism. A bill was passed which erodes the ability of the 
American citizens to bring class action suits. For some time, since the 
Contract With America and the majority was taken over by the Republican 
Party, we have had an effort to erode the rights of citizens in our 
civil courts.
  Certainly the effort to end class action suits as we know them has 
been going on for some time. That bill was passed today, by a narrow 
majority, but it was passed; and it is one more example of how we are 
restricting and oppressing, with a light hand, and swindling our own 
population. Every time we do that, every time an act takes something 
away from the American people, the citizens, who must be at the heart 
of fighting the war on terrorism, we are weakening our war against 
terrorism.
  One thing this war needs is every American enthusiastically involved. 
Every American must understand that the war is going to be a long war 
and the war is a war for people's minds across the globe. It is a war 
to show our compassion. It is a war to help educate the rest of the 
world. There are a number of items, of components in this war against 
terrorism which require massive help by our entire population.

                              {time}  2015

  When we make our own population a little less comfortable or 
disgruntled, we move in ways which are going to restrict the rights and 
freedoms of our own population; we are weakening our effort in the war 
against terrorism.
  When we refuse to appropriate adequate funds for education, we are 
greatly weakening the ability to fight a war against terrorism. And 
over what? In the most elemental concrete way, the ability of our 
military to fight a war with high-tech weapons, very complex weapons, 
is dependent to some degree on the quality of the education of the 
personnel involved.
  I am not a military expert; but the large number of accidents that 
have occurred, the large amount of human error and the number of 
casualties that were the result not of hostile fire but of our own 
mistakes, indicate that the quality of personnel could be greatly 
improved.
  I am mindful of the time when, just a few years ago, we launched a 
new super aircraft carrier, the largest and most complex machine on the 
water, about 3 years ago was launched by the Navy, and they said that 
they were short 300 personnel. They could not fill 300 positions on 
that aircraft carrier because they could not find within the Navy the 
enlisted men who could do the things that were necessary, could operate 
the complex high-tech equipment. It was just one example of how 
education directly relates to our ability to fight a war. In this 
example it is obviously quite concrete and related to the military.
  On a larger scale, we need all the people we can to help educate the 
populations of certain nations, to help educate the leaders, to be able 
to spread the constitutional civilization that we enjoy, how you 
operate under a constitution, to be able to spread the economic system 
that we enjoy, the legal system that goes along with economic system. 
Capitalism cannot exist without a legal framework. There are a number 
of things that are not so simple that the rest of the world needs to 
learn, and one of the ways we are going to be able to win the war 
against terrorism is to have more and more people, ordinary people in 
the nations of the world, understand these complex processes.
  So educated people in America will help not only increase our own 
level of prosperity, the ability of our own Nation to function, but 
also we are going to be needed to help spread democracy across the 
world and help democracy take a firm hold, to help improve the economic 
systems take hold.

[[Page H900]]

  The nation building that is going to have to take place in 
Afghanistan is just one example of a large number of people of all 
walks of life, technicians, mechanics, scholars. All kinds of people 
are going to be needed to help rebuild the nation of Afghanistan. We 
are not going to do it all. The United Nations is responsible for the 
nation building in Afghanistan, and that is the way it should be; but 
we must make a great contribution.
  The larger war is one that we must understand how serious it is, the 
projection of a larger threat. It is not the kind of threat that we 
have faced before with the Soviet Union, the possibility of nuclear 
annihilation overnight, the possibility of them having more nuclear 
warheads than we had, the Soviet Union having better rockets than we 
had and the necessity to keep monitoring what the Evil Empire was 
doing. The Evil Empire, on the other hand, was monitoring us 
constantly.
  We are in a different kind of situation, and the threats we face now 
are not as easy to describe or to imagine as they were before. But one 
thing that September 11 taught us is that we are vulnerable.
  There is this great Nation, we are not an empire, call us the 
American colossus, with all of its strength in so many ways, which is 
very vulnerable, like any other civilized society is vulnerable. We did 
not know that on September 11 to the degree we know it now.
  We are very vulnerable, because if you hit one nerve center, and in 
the case of September 11 they hit the financial center of New York, a 
communications center, two buildings. Large numbers of people died, but 
a lot of other repercussions took place as a result. It was a domino 
impact. A domino impact helped to make the recession worse, not only in 
New York City and New York State, but it had an impact right across the 
Nation.
  We were vulnerable in that a relatively small group of people 
somewhere in the world, and they were based in Afghanistan, we have 
assumed, I think correctly, a small group of people struck down all the 
airplanes of the skies of the great United States of America. They were 
empty for a few days as a result of the actions of these few people.
  So we are vulnerable, because the Internet connections and the 
television broadcast connections at the World Trade Center meant a lot 
of people found themselves without television service, and 
communications in New York is very much still affected by the fact 
there were telephone switching stations and complicated operations 
located near the World Trade Center.
  So in a number of ways a very complex, modernized society is 
vulnerable. Now terrorists know it as well as everybody else; and we 
have to recognize that, sooner or later, the possibility of these 
things happening again is there. We will have other kinds of attacks.
  We seem to be quite vulnerable here on Capitol Hill, when one letter 
going through the post office and then to Senator Daschle's office led 
to an anthrax scare. Appropriately, that shut down the whole Senate 
building. One-third of the Senate offices were shut down; employees 
were terrorized to some degree. Two postmen lost their lives as a 
result of the anthrax just passing through the post office machines, 
and all of us saw our mail brought to a halt. We did not receive mail 
for a couple of months. Our mail has to go through an irradiation 
process now.
  A lot of complex things happened as a result of the relatively small 
anthrax attack. We are grateful for the fact that whoever perpetrated 
that attack did not send 10 or 20 envelopes through the mail at the 
same time.
  So we are vulnerable now. We know we are vulnerable to an anthrax 
attack; and just as anthrax was sent through, you could have other 
kinds of biological attacks, very potent diseases. The smallpox virus, 
all kinds of things could be done in similar ways, through the mail and 
various ways dropped in areas where you have a dense population in our 
big cities. There are a number of ways that we can discern that we 
could be attacked by faceless, nameless, nationless people. We know 
that now, and so do a lot of other people out there know it.
  How do we make ourselves safer? I do not have all the answers, nobody 
has all the answers; but we are evolving answers. One answer is to 
reduce the number of people in the world who would cooperate with 
terrorists, reduce the number of people in the world who would become 
terrorists, reduce the number of people in the world who would aid and 
abet terrorists. That is one way to begin to make a safer world.
  In doing that, we have to have a foreign policy and domestic policy 
which put people first. I am not speaking as a pacifist. I am a 
follower of Martin Luther King, I believe in non-violence, but I also 
recognize that we have to, in some cases, go to war. The only way to 
stop certain kinds of threats is with violence matching violence, and 
that is what our military is all about.
  I said the last time I was here in a small poem that I wrote that 
wars never leave us thrilled, but there are some maniacs who demand to 
be killed. Wars never leave us thrilled, but there are some maniacs who 
demand to be killed, and we would indeed be quite stupid not to 
recognize that after a long history of dealing with these maniacs.
  Adolph Hitler was a maniac that could not be stopped any other way 
except with violence against violence. We had to have a military force 
to match his overwhelming military force. We thought after Hitler you 
would have a decrease in those kinds of maniacs. He was thoroughly 
punished as a result, and the nation that followed him was punished as 
a result of his activities. That did not stop Pol Pot from arising. 
That did not stop Slobodan Milosevic from trying his hand.
  On and on it goes. These maniacs will come. Saddam Hussein is another 
one of those maniacal creatures that exist. We cannot put our heads in 
the sand and pretend that they are ever going to be able to be stopped 
if you only have a nonviolent approach to them.
  However, there are also the nameless, faceless groups out there that 
have not even formed yet, that can be dissuaded, stopped, if we remove 
the fertile ground for terrorism that exists among those groups.
  I am a child of World War II. I was just a grade school student 
during World War II, and we lived with the possibility that the Nazis 
would prevail. In school we were told they wanted to take over the 
world. In black schools they were told they hate black people, and one 
thing worse than the Ku Klux Klan is the Nazi SS storm troopers. The 
terror of the Nazis we lived with until they were defeated.

  Then we lived with the terror of the Cold War, the Russians are 
coming, the Evil Empire. At school we used to have drills and have to 
go under the desks because the Russians now had the atomic bomb and we 
might have nuclear war. So we lived through that. Even up to the time 
of my children in school, they still had drills and were very much 
conscious of the need to be afraid of an attack by the Soviet Union. 
All of that was horrible; and all of that, of course, left quite an 
impression on a lot of us.
  But none of it was as horrible as 9-11. Even the attack on Pearl 
Harbor, we lived with the knowledge that the Japanese were very sneaky 
and they might attack, coming over California and into the heartland of 
America. That was another one of the nightmares that young people used 
to have. But the attack on Pearl Harbor, of course, brought the war 
home closer than any other war we had ever realized from a foreign 
nation; but at Pearl Harbor, at that time Hawaii was not even part of 
the United States, so it was a little more distant, and, of course, 
most Americans who lost their lives at Pearl Harbor were at least 
military people.
  It was not until 9-11, nothing compares, nothing we experienced in 
World War I or World War II, the Cold War, the Korean War, nothing 
compares to the attack on America that took place on September 11. It 
brought home the fact that we are in a different kind of world.
  The Evil Empire, as the Soviet Union was described, and I am sure 
they had descriptions for us that were similar, no longer exists. 
Russia and America now have generals and officers stationed in the 
missile sites, and we closely monitor each other and the number of 
nuclear weapons we promised to reduce. Certainly the rockets and their 
trajectories have been altered, and there are agreements that

[[Page H901]]

make us all feel secure that the Soviet Union and the United States 
will never go to war. We are the only nations with the capability of 
delivering long-term nuclear weapons.
  We are not happy and secure about the Chinese or North Koreans, but 
even then there is a nation to negotiate with; and America has 
negotiated with the North Koreans. Despite the fact that the President 
called them part of an ``evil axis,'' we are still in negotiation with 
North Korea. It is a nation.
  China, our relationship with China, there is a multiplicity of 
contacts and relationships. Capitalism has invaded China; and China has 
invaded our consumer markets, for good or ill. We are not that afraid 
that China is ever going to pull a sneak attack on us.
  But those unknown, unnamed forces out there, in small groups, al 
Qaeda and Osama bin Laden is just one that we have profiled, a high 
profile, we understand. Who knows how many other there might be out 
there. But certainly al Qaeda gives us a good example of the kind of 
danger we face from stealth, stealth attacks, stealth violence, S-T-E-
A-L-T-H. The world ``stealth'' is what every civilization has to fear 
from now on.
  We have come to the point where weaponry is so complex and so 
powerful that small amounts of explosives and small bombs or small 
packages of lethal viruses or small packages of powder, like anthrax, 
can do tremendous, tremendous harm. We are threatened by stealth from 
possible terrorists in the future.

                              {time}  2030

  So they are and could be as numerous as the stars. We cannot ever be 
able to stamp out all of those possibilities out there.
  The one way to guarantee that they are kept at a minimum and the one 
way to guarantee that they have an atmosphere and a milieu and an 
environment to operate which is hostile to them and protective of us is 
to try to make a world which includes justice, peace and compassion; a 
world where all the babies receive enough to eat; a world where young 
people are allowed and encouraged and supported to get an education 
which will allow them to look beyond hate.
  A great deal has been said about the madrassahs in Pakistan. The 
madrassahs are schools in Pakistan which have come into great 
prominence and merited a great deal of attention and discussion because 
Pakistan as a nation abandoned its public school system. A very limited 
amount of money is appropriated in the Pakistan budget. This year they 
have done much better. Before 9-11, very limited amounts were being 
appropriated for education, huge amounts for the military, and other 
expenses; and parents seeing their children abandoned were happy, quite 
pleased that they could send their children to religious schools which 
not only gave them an education, it taught them to read and write, but 
also provided some hot meals each day for them.
  So large numbers of children, especially males, were spent to the 
madrassahs and the madrassahs, we know now, taught them to read and to 
write, but only a limited amount of reading and writing, not a broad 
education about the whole world, a limited amount, and taught them to 
focus on hatred for the West and hatred for certain religions and 
taught them to dedicate their lives to the eradication of what they 
call the Evil Empire, the decadent West and Christianity and a number 
of other kinds of things they were taught to hate. So many of them went 
off to the camps in Afghanistan to become a part of the Taliban and a 
part of the army of the Stealth Army of Osama bin Laden. So we have 
that example that we are watching. It is a case history.
  Pakistan is an interesting case history for the United States, 
because Pakistan as a nation has always been an ally of the United 
States. From its inception, it has been a friendly relationship. The 
United States has rattled its sabers and flexed its muscles a few times 
to protect Pakistan from India, and in wars that India could have won 
easily if they had continued. I can remember the United States making 
veiled threats and telling them they needed to back down, and that has 
happened. On the other hand, Pakistan was a loyal ally during the Cold 
War. While India was far closer to the Soviet Union, Pakistan was very 
close to this Nation.
  Of course, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the key to the 
defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by American-led Stealth 
forces supporting the Afghan people was Pakistan. Pakistan was the 
avenue through which the United States funneled its aid, its weapons, 
its military power. And it defeated the great Soviet Union as a result. 
Pakistan, in alliance with the United States.
  But each time we have an engagement with Pakistan, each time Pakistan 
serves as our ally, we have not rewarded Pakistan. We did not reward 
them for the great service they did as a result of the Soviet defeat in 
Afghanistan. We did not reward them for all of the years that they 
served as our loyal ally during the Cold War. Pakistan was sort of left 
to drift when we got through with using them. So we missed a golden 
opportunity. A nation of more than 160 million people is no small 
nation. Compared to India with 900 million, 160 million may seem small, 
but among the nations of the Earth, Pakistan ranks among the top 10 in 
population.
  Having deserted, left Pakistan alone, not rewarded Pakistan in any 
way, the establishment of a closer alliance with military aid, no 
Marshall Plan for Pakistan, no Marshall Plan, no continuing 
relationship, aid was very meager, and then when Pakistan, as they have 
had unstable governments, each time there was a coup, we punished them 
by taking away something. They had given us the money to buy planes, we 
kept the money and did not give them planes. We had a meager amount of 
aid going to them, and we cut all of that off through A.I.D. Nothing 
happened as a result of punishing them for their own instability in 
their own government. For various reasons, Pakistan could be very 
disgruntled. However, Pakistan has risen to the occasion and was one of 
the first nations to respond to President Bush's call for allies in the 
war against terrorism.
  Considering the fact that Pakistan has a huge border with 
Afghanistan, Pakistani response, the Pakistani support for the war on 
terrorism was crucial. We could not have reached the point that we have 
reached now in terms of pretty much containing the violent situation, 
the capacity of the Taliban to wreak violence on its population or 
anybody outside without Pakistan. We could not have reached the point 
where Osama bin Laden is on the run somewhere or hiding somewhere or 
maybe dead; we could not say that we have dealt a critical blow to 
terrorism if it had not been for Pakistan. We owe Pakistan a great 
deal.

  I want to applaud our own administration. For once they have 
responded by rewarding the nation of Pakistan. There is a package that 
is part of President Bush's war against terrorism of $500 million or 
$600 million in aid, and some of that aid is earmarked for education. 
It is earmarked for education. More than $100 million is earmarked to 
be spent only on education. There are other moves that have been made 
to aid education in Pakistan at the same time we are giving other kinds 
of aid.
  So Pakistan is an ally that we are taking care of.
  The rest of my speech I want to dedicate to the proposition that 
there are allies in the western hemisphere that we continue to ignore 
and take for granted at our peril. In a world where we face terrorism 
threats, where we face threats from unknown groups, some of them not 
even established yet, but we know the conditions that give birth to 
these kinds of terrorist groups, in that kind of world, we are at risk 
in our own hemisphere. We are ignoring the Caribbean Islands. We are 
ignoring the threat from the South American countries. We are ignoring 
the role that Haiti could play in a positive way or in a negative way. 
We are ignoring the fact that these nations in this hemisphere, close 
to us, have one great advantage and they can impact in a more 
meaningful way on our lives because they are so close, just because 
they are so close.
  We are ignoring the fact that for years now, we have been fighting 
what we call a drug war, and the drug war has involved our deploying 
operatives to all of these nations of one kind or another related to 
the war against

[[Page H902]]

drugs. Not just the island nations, but the nations joined to us at the 
southern tip of Mexico. Mexico and the island nations of the West 
Indies and Haiti, all have had serious problems with respect to either 
the growth and processing of drugs or the transshipment of drugs. If we 
ignore the fact that these nations already have a problem and that that 
problem may lead to a situation where the governments are forced to 
succumb to drug lords; there are some things worse in the world than 
the Taliban. The Taliban at least had religious rationale. It may be a 
phony religious rationale, but it was a religious rationale. The drug 
lords do not attempt to pretend to be moral in any way.
  The primary problem between Haiti and the United States during the 
Clinton administration or during the last, for the last 20 years has 
been the fact that forces in Haiti, certain forces in Haiti were being 
financed by drug lord money. The problem of the President of Colombia 
is that Colombia is at the point where there is a danger that drug 
lords will take over the entire nation. Most Americans do not know that 
we spend more than $1 billion in this little country called Colombia in 
South America. This is $1 billion being spent in the war against drugs 
and we are continuing to invest. Unfortunately, it is a military war. 
We are giving aid to fight a guerilla army which is financed by drugs. 
We are giving aid to fight a population which has no other means. They 
see themselves as having no other means to survive, so they are part of 
the process of growing drugs and processing drugs.
  Colombia is just the beginning. Colombia is right next to Panama, and 
Panama now is an independent nation. The canal is owned, operated; it 
is part of Panama, not America any more, and they are right next to 
Colombia. Drug lords could take over Panama sometime in the future if 
we do not understand that that kind of war is as important as a war 
against terrorism. In fact, it is a kind of terrorism, and it certainly 
could become a part of an income-producing empire for terrorism in the 
future. We have not talked very much, we have not heard much about the 
role of drugs in Afghanistan and how the Taliban and all of the forces 
in Afghanistan have been involved in selling drugs. Heroin, the poppy 
from which heroin is made is the number one product of Afghanistan, and 
the control of the heroin trade by these factions, including the 
religious Taliban, was one way in which they financed their operations, 
selling drugs. So it is not farfetched to say that the drug war in this 
hemisphere will become a major problem in the war against terrorism in 
the future.

  We need to look at all of the nations in this hemisphere in terms of 
what is our relationship to them, why do we continue to take them for 
granted, why can we not have a Marshall Plan for the western hemisphere 
on a scale similar to the Marshall Plan which saved Europe after World 
War II? Why can we not have a Marshall Plan which develops an economy, 
helps to develop the economy of the Caribbean Islands? It would not 
cost very much. Why could not we have approached Colombia with aid for 
economic development and other kinds of things, rather than only aid 
for the military? I am sure if we spent $1 billion for economic 
development in Colombia, we would get a better return on our investment 
than we have gotten for the dollars that we spend on military aid in 
Colombia. They are fighting a guerilla group, a guerilla operation 
which could not exist if it did not have the support of a large 
percentage of the population. Why does it have the support of a large 
percent of the population? Because a large percent of the population 
make their living growing cocaine, the coca leaf, and that is where 
they have an affinity with the lawlessness of the drug lords.
  What would happen if in the future in this hemisphere we are 
surrounded by all of these nations and they are taken over by drug 
lords, they run the governments? That means that drug lords have a vote 
in the United Nations. There are a lot of small nations in the 
Caribbean Islands that are right now directly threatened by drug lords. 
There is one island where the chief law enforcement officer was 
murdered by a local drug lord. Everybody knows who killed that person. 
Everybody in the islands is afraid to participate in the process of 
apprehending and prosecuting the murderer. That is just a small island 
and one dilemma which foretells the future of a lot of others.
  There are some larger islands which have recently had violent 
outbreaks in certain parts of the island, and Jamaica is one, where the 
battles were fought in Kingston, where the police were outgunned by 
modern weapons that the criminals had. How do criminals in a small 
island get such modern weapons and are able to outgun the local police? 
Through the financing of the drug trade. There are some islands where 
drug lords are known and despised by the population; but if a drug lord 
gives a birthday party, your top officials of government go to the 
birthday party. You are eroding slowly the respect for the civilian 
governments, you are eroding the authority of governments, and you are 
saying to the population, that process is saying to the population that 
drug lords are all powerful.

                              {time}  2045

  It is like in our neighborhoods in New York and some other big cities 
where powerful people demand a lot of money and forces, and young 
people begin to look up to them because they have money, they drive the 
big cars, and they have the best wardrobes, et cetera.
  In the island nations, we have the same development of powerful 
forces that may get out of hand. If we really want to fight terrorism, 
and we have $48 billion in the present budget, I am not way out in left 
field, I want to stay on the subject, if we have $48 billion in the 
budget to fight terrorism and for homeland security, then a portion of 
that money ought to go to looking at this hemisphere and what we can do 
in this hemisphere at a much lower cost now than we would have to pay 
in the future if we had to fight empires of drug lords with votes in 
the United Nations and all kinds of influence in the future.
  I want to use Haiti as a case history, because I am quite disturbed, 
and we have good reason to be disturbed, by the present policies of the 
United States Government toward Haiti.
  Haiti has a long history of being a loyal ally of the United States, 
just like Pakistan, way back when, when Haiti was the second nation in 
this hemisphere to gain its freedom. The United States became an 
independent country in 1776. Haiti came second in this hemisphere as an 
independent nation.
  When the British tried to undo the Revolutionary War and to subdue 
the infant nation of America in the War of 1812, Haitian soldiers 
fought on the side of American soldiers. Haitian soldiers were sent or 
came to this nation.
  Throughout the history of Haiti and the relationship between Haiti 
and the United States, the Haitian people have never raised their hands 
against the United States. They have never been disloyal. Yes, we have 
done some terrible things to the Haitians. We occupied their country 
for more than 30 years. But the Haitians have never done anything to 
subvert the United States. Neither Hitler nor Castro nor Osama bin 
Laden has been able to drive a wedge between the Haitians and the 
people of the United States.
  That ought to stand for something. We ought to be interested in 
rewarding Haiti. Haiti would be a good example to hold up to the rest 
of the countries in this hemisphere as to what it means to be a friend 
and ally of the United States. Let us take care of our friends at home, 
as well as seek to make new friends across the world.
  Vice President Cheney is on a tour throughout the world to build up 
alliances, to get alliances for the American-led war against terrorism. 
That is probably altogether fitting and proper. He should do that. But 
in the meantime, the nations in this hemisphere are being treated very 
badly, and I begin with Haiti.
  Haiti is at the point right now where it may cease to exist as a 
nation. Haiti may implode or explode and just fall apart completely 
because of the hostile policies of the United States. The key to the 
death of Haiti would be the policies of this nation. Haiti does not 
deserve to die. The second oldest independent nation in this 
hemisphere, the nation of Haiti has been driven to the brink of chaos 
and dissolution by a hostile U.S. foreign policy.

[[Page H903]]

  Seven years ago, the U.S. reneged on a $200 million development fund 
promised to Haiti. Now the U.S. is presently blocking humanitarian aid 
in order to bolster the position of a destructive opposition in Haiti. 
For petty political reasons, Haiti is being strangled to death, but 
Haiti does not deserve to die. Haiti is being cruelly smothered by a 
small group of petty, but powerful, decision-makers here in Washington.

  Long before the recent Haitian election controversy, and there is now 
a controversy in Haiti about the last election of people, and we are 
using the fact that that election was not a perfect election as an 
excuse to hold up aid to Haiti and to block aid to Haiti from other 
sources. That election in Haiti probably was far more reasonably 
executed and implemented than the election in Florida. But we are using 
that as a way to deny aid to the present administration.
  But long before that, long before the Haitian election controversy, 
for personal, ignoble, and irrational reasons, a noose was tied around 
the neck of President General Bertrand Aristide's first administration.
  As the democratically elected president was returned, with the 
support of the U.S. military, President Clinton and the international 
community promised Haiti an economic aid package vital to the survival 
of the country. The start-up and kingpin donation was to be $200 
million from the U.S. That was going to be the start-up, and the other 
nations, using that or recognizing that $200 million, would create an 
infrastructure, an administrative infrastructure, which would allow 
Haiti to make use of additional aid.
  They promised to give additional aid. Other nations, Canada, France, 
Japan, they promised to follow the lead of the U.S. with a sum total of 
more than $1 billion. In other words, let me make it clear, if the 
United States had followed through on its promise to give $200 million, 
the rest of the nations of the world would have chipped in and the 
amount of aid that Haiti would have gotten 7 years ago was $1 billion 
or more.
  But the U.S. did not follow through on its promise. There were 
certain powerful people in Washington who said that Haiti would never 
get a dime from the United States because they personally would see to 
it that it did not happen. There are a few people in Washington who are 
just that powerful.
  Unfortunately, certain power brokers within our midst counted 
themselves as close friends of the old oppressive ruling class in 
Haiti, and they thus became sworn enemies of President Aristide. The 
president of Haiti who was elected with an overwhelming democratic vote 
of the people was targeted by the U.S. right wing for punishment.
  What was the U.S. right wing? Certain people in high positions in the 
Congress of the United States were part of it; certain people in the 
CIA were part of it. They had all surfaced during the years that 
Aristide was in exile and had spoken against Aristide in various ways. 
We know who they were; we know who they are.
  Despite the fact that Aristide's administration was in no way 
corrupt, and Aristide obeyed his own nation's constitution and he 
stepped down at the end of the 5-year term, the U.S. allowed a ruthless 
and shortsighted few to condemn Haiti to death by neglect, death by 
abandonment, death by the denial of vital aid for survival.
  Let me repeat: Aristide's administration was in no way corrupt. We 
could find no fault with Aristide. Aristide returned after being in 
exile for 3 years. He was elected, and the army staged a coup, and they 
forced him out of the country. He was in this country for 3 years. He 
went back. He had only 2 more years to serve in his term. He had a 
right to make a claim that he had been exiled and was not able to 
fulfill the wishes of his people, and he had a right to say, ``I should 
be allowed to stay 5 years.'' But no, he accepted the constitution and 
wanted to promote the authority of the constitution, and he stepped 
down after serving for 2 years, 3 years in exile and 2 years after he 
went back. We asked him to do that. The United States Government wanted 
that to be done.

  He did everything we asked; but nevertheless, a ruthless and 
shortsighted few decided to condemn Haiti to death by neglect, death by 
abandonment, death by the denial of vital aid for survival.
  We descendants of Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Martin Luther 
King should no longer tolerate the lynching of a nation before the eyes 
of all who can see in this hemisphere and the rest of the world. That 
is what is happening: We are lynching the nation of Haiti. We are 
strangling a nation to death. We are assassinating a nation. That is 
the charge I make, and I think that the facts will bear it out. The 
policies of the United States Government at this point are destroying 
the nation of Haiti.
  Haiti does not deserve to die. As I said before, in the War of 1812, 
after the vengeful British had burned the White House and were 
threatening to recolonize the fledgling American Republic, Haiti sent 
troops to aid in the defense of our new nation. Since that time, 
Haiti's hand has never been raised against this land. Neither Hitler 
nor Castro nor Osama bin Laden could break the bond that exists between 
the U.S. and the people of Haiti. Haiti does not deserve to die at the 
hand of the United States foreign policy.
  Mr. Speaker, today I am inviting all of my colleagues to unite with 
the Congressional Black Caucus to rescue a Haiti that is being unjustly 
subjected to cruel and inhuman torture. Haiti is being unjustly 
subjected to cruel and inhuman torture. The denial of humanitarian aid 
to Haiti right now is being used as a political sledgehammer. We are 
coupling humanitarian aid, aid that is designed to help people, aid, 
most of which would not go to the government, it would go through 
nongovernmental organizations, we are denying that aid as a way to 
force Haiti to do some things we want done which would benefit the 
opposition in Haiti, the opposition that has been favored by the right-
wing forces in the United States since the very beginning of Aristide's 
term.
  I am asking my colleagues in the House to join us in an appeal, 
asking both Houses of Congress to join us in an appeal to the rest of 
our colleagues to try to save Haiti. Join us in the appeal for a 
special initiative by President Bush and Secretary Powell. We want to 
ask them to review and reconsider the Haiti policies that they are 
presently promulgating.
  The President showed great animosity towards Haiti, even during the 
campaign for his election. Haiti was singled out in two of the debates 
as being the kind of place that President Bush felt we should not have 
given aid and help, so we know that there are problems in this 
administration.
  Secretary Powell recently went to a CARICOM conference. CARICOM is an 
organization of the island nations of the Caribbean. He went to a 
conference and talked about punishing Haiti further by denying or 
continuing to deny aid. This administration should immediately deliver, 
this administration should immediately deliver to Haiti, first of all 
the $200 million that were promised in 1994, or promised several years 
ago. After that, it should follow up with the humanitarian aid that is 
being denied right now.
  I would like to say to my colleagues that if our own Nation will not 
yield, if our own Nation insists on pursuing this course of destruction 
of Haiti, yes, it is an assassination course, we are assassinating a 
nation, I can think of no terms that would be too harsh for what we are 
doing, if we continue to pursue this assassination course, then I would 
like our colleagues to consider joining us, the Congressional Black 
Caucus, in an appeal to the United Nations. Why not ask the United 
Nations to try to bring some sense back to the situation?
  A very small group of very powerful people in Washington is using 
power to destroy a nation of between 7 million and 8 million people. 
Something should be done. I would like to ask our colleagues to join 
the Congressional Black Caucus in an appeal for help. If the United 
Nations will not do it or is slow, an appeal for help from some of the 
other more moral nations of the world. Why can we not appeal for help 
to Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark? Somewhere, someone on this 
globe should be able to understand the situation and come to the aid of 
Haiti.
  I recall that Norway, a very unlikely place for the solution to be 
worked out in the Middle East, but Norway took the leadership in 
developing a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians.

[[Page H904]]

                              {time}  2100

  The peace process that was started and later brought to fruition by 
President Clinton, which led to Arafat and Rabin shaking hands in the 
White House garden, was started by Norwegians. So maybe we can appeal 
to the Norwegians or the Swedish or the Netherlands or Denmark or some 
other nation, some other decent, civilized nation, Germany, to help, 
because our Nation is locked in a position which is inhuman and 
disgraceful and murderous for a whole group of people.
  Perhaps we should follow the moral example of Australia. Australia 
sent their soldiers to stop the bloodshed in East Timor. At the request 
of the United Nations, Australia sent their soldiers to stop the 
bloodshed in East Timor, and the Australians did not leave and say we 
are not going to engage in Nation building the way certain people 
insisted we leave Haiti: The United States should not stay in Haiti; we 
should not have to help to build a Nation; we restored the President, 
let us get out. No, the Australians stayed under the supervision of the 
U.N., and they have helped to build a nation in East Timor.
  East Timor is today being celebrated as a new democratic Nation. 
Pretty soon East Timor will take their place in the United Nations as 
an independent nation. It could not have happened without those 
outsiders, those white Australian troops, going to the aid of a nation 
in distress and committing themselves under the supervision of the 
United Nations to a moral and very civilized venture to save human 
beings, to restore a government of the people, and to help to build a 
government of the people in that far-flung corner of the world.
  It is a decision of the Congressional Black Caucus that we send out 
pleas throughout the whole globe in search for some nation that will 
help us to aid Haiti, if our own government will not. We are going to 
appeal first to those Members of the Congress. We are going to appeal 
to President Bush. We are going to appeal to all the forces in this 
Nation to take a hard look at what we are doing and to back away from a 
foreign policy.
  If that does not happen, we intend to go to the United Nations and to 
the civilized nations of the world. Haiti does not deserve to die. If 
we fervently seek it, then somewhere in the civilized world there must 
be enough compassion and mercy to save the long-suffering people of 
Haiti. Haiti does not deserve to be strangled at the hand of our 
government. Haiti does not deserve to die.
  This is a very strong language. I have lived with the problems of 
Haiti for a long time. My district has the second largest concentration 
of Haitian Americans in America. Miami has the largest concentration. 
The congressional district of the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Meek) 
has the largest concentration of Haitian American; I have the second 
largest. Together, we in the Congressional Black Caucus have sought to 
try to establish a new relationship between the United States and Haiti 
since the days when Haiti had democratic elections and President John 
Bertrand Aristide was elected by something like 80 percent of the 
voters.
  Because he did not follow its precepts and was not a puppet of the 
oppressive ruling class, ruled for a long time, the Army staged a coup 
and Aristide barely escaped with his life. He spent 3 years in this 
Nation, in Washington here, while we tried to get a negotiated return 
of Aristide to his rightful place in Haiti. However, because the people 
in power, the army leaders who staged a coup, were so well financed by 
drug lords that they did not have to worry about economic sanctions, 
that they did not have to worry about their own income, they would not 
budge. They would not yield.
  There were several negotiations with them which almost came to the 
point of reaching some agreement, but it turned out they were just 
leading us on and had no intention whatsoever of ever letting Aristide 
back in the country. All the way, they had their lines into the drug 
lords. Haiti was a major transshipment point for drugs.
  Raoul Cedras, the commander of the Army, his second in command 
Biamby, Michel Francois, they were all on the payroll, well financed by 
drug lords. Michel Francois was later indicted by the United States for 
his role in drug transshipment.
  So the long history between the United States and Haiti has not been 
a good one from the time that the occupying forces left Haiti. First of 
all, we occupied Haiti for 32 years, which is most unfortunate. I will 
not go into the circumstances that led to that, but after we left 
Haiti, we left in charge and had bonds between a ruling class that had 
the benefits of an army which was trained by the United States. The 
Haitian army and the ruling class that had been very oppressive for the 
rest of the Haitian people ruled for a long time.
  Francois Devalier was elected as president. He made a bond with the 
ruling class and the Haitian army and created his own army called the 
Ton Ton Macoutes, which was a civilian militia, death squads that were 
feared by the people, and the combined balance of the Haitian army and 
the Ton Ton Macoutes kept Haiti in a state of terror for more than 40 
years.
  Finally, they got a decent election under pressure from the United 
Nations and the United States. They had a fair election and President 
Aristide was elected, and of course, I have told my colleagues before, 
the army immediately overthrew the elected president, forced him into 
exile. He barely escaped with his life.
  President Clinton, responding to the repeated request of the 
Congressional Black Caucus trying to shape a decent Haitian policy, 
after many, many attempts to negotiate with the leaders of Haiti, 
decided to restore John Bertrand Aristide to power in Haiti through the 
use of military intervention. Our troops went into Haiti, and as I told 
the President, he does not have to worry about the people fighting the 
United States troops. The people will welcome the United States troops 
with open arms. They will cheer the troops as they come in.
  Exactly what I predicted and told the President would happen, 
happened. The Haitian army was made up of 4,000 folks who were thugs 
and cowards, and they ran to hide when the army came in, and the people 
cheered the United States forces. Aristide was restored to power, and 
the leaders of the Haitian army were sent into exile.
  Military leaders like Cedras and Biamby were exiled to Panama on 
October 13, 1994. The U.S. provided an airliner which shipped them out 
of the country. Michel Francois had escaped. We believe he went to the 
Dominican Republic, but he was later convicted in exile of drug 
transshipment and of murder. However, I have a brief chronology here 
which I will quickly go through as a backup for what I have said before 
of our relationship with Haiti.
  On 15 October Aristide returned to Haiti, and Aristide, at the part 
of the United States Government, called for reconciliation and an end 
to violence. He did not call for retribution. He did not call for 
trials to punish the traitors. He followed the example of Nelson 
Mandela and the leadership of South Africa, and he sought 
reconciliation with the opposition forces.
  On 11 October, Aristide moved to reduce the army. Already most of 
them fled, but he reduced the army to 1,500 troops from a strength of 
7,000, and he offered the soldiers of that army that had deposed him 
jobs within the community and preference for new positions in the 
government.
  On November 4, Aristide appointed a new prime minister in accordance 
with their constitution and the parliament approved that new prime 
minister.
  On December 17, Aristide, by presidential decree, established a 
commission on justice and truth to investigate crimes committed by 
military regime. The commission on justice and truth is the exact same 
name that was used by Nelson Mandela and the people of South Africa and 
Bishop Tutu as they sought to unravel the relationship between the 
oppressive whites of South Africa and the new black-dominated 
government without bloodshed, with a minimum of bloodshed.
  February 9 of 1995, the multinational force of the United Nations 
collected 20,345 weapons, including 5,853 grenades and 1,736 machine 
guns from the remnants of the Ton Ton Macoutes and the Haitian army.
  January 30, 1995, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution which 
extended the United Nations mission in Haiti until July 31, 1995.

[[Page H905]]

  March 31, 1995, President Clinton made a trip to Haiti, the first 
President to set foot on Haiti since Roosevelt; and President Clinton 
went to oversee the transition ceremony which reduced and established 
the pattern for the pullout of all the United States forces and handed 
over the multinational transition of Haiti Government to the 
multinational forces of the United Nations.
  On April 28, Aristide did the most important thing of his career. He 
dissolved the Haitian army. If he had not dissolved the Haitian army at 
that point, we would not be standing here, about the point that he was 
not reelected after he gave up his presidency; and he is now the 
president of Haiti, but he is hated by right-wing forces in this 
nation, and we determined that he will not let Haiti die.

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