[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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