Editorials
COMMONWEAL Democracy interdicted The policy that has led to thousands of Haitian refugees being returned to their homeland by U.S. Coast Guard ships is a moral and political outrage. The Bush...
...With time, that resolve has dwindled on both the political and the humanitarian fronts...
...Congress protesting Andrews's meddling and his "openly hostile attitude" to reaching a settlement...
...Appeal to federal district courts brought by human rights groups forced a temporary stay to this policy of interdiction...
...began returning fleeing refugees...
...This on-again, off-again policy, dictated by American business interests, is a prescription for failure...
...they inquired...
...this usurper government continues to torture and murder those who oppose it...
...military personnel, would impose even greater sufferings on Haiti's poor...
...It only needs his directive to be activated...
...What, then, is to be done...
...Bishop Willy Romulus of Jeremie, head of the Haitian bishops' Justice and Peace Commission, was no less candid: "The OAS has come to Haiti several times since the crisis began to seek a solution," he wrote, "but it seems that of the thirty-four nations which form this organization, only one is in charge...
...government to begin transporting the refugees home again...
...Why is he taking actions in complete disregard to [ our] 1987 Constitution, particularly Article 137, regarding the choice of prime minister by president of the republic...
...If he will not act, Congress should enact specific legislation to deal with the situation to force his hand...
...Ambassador Alvin P. Andrews, Jr., has been vigorous in trying to impose a U.S.-dictated settlement, one that, at its best, would return Aristide as a figurehead saddled with a prime minister not of his own choosing or views...
...The junta has threatened to cut off the return of refugees if the U.S...
...Still, by exempting humanitarian assistance and then directing it to the poor...
...COMMONWEAL Democracy interdicted The policy that has led to thousands of Haitian refugees being returned to their homeland by U.S...
...As the attempted coup in Venezuela indicates, every time a democratic government is threatened in the hemisphere, shock waves pass through the region...
...In early February, under pressure from a lobby led by former Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, the Bush administration weakened the embargo, saying that it had put too many Americans out of work...
...Furthermore, to give sanctuary makes a clear statement to Haiti's colonels that their coup will not be accommodated...
...Mayor Xavier Suarez of Miami, himself a refugee from Cuba, has made the point with ample clarity: "How could I not be in (the refugees' I favor if I was accepted here thirtyone years ago and the whole world extended a hand to me and my family...
...Twenty-one senators and deputies of the Haitian Parliament have written to their counterparts in the U.S...
...Immediately following the September Commonweal 28 February 1992: 3 coup, the U.S...
...In January the Supreme Court allowed the U.S...
...The lingering crisis in Haiti and its neglect by Washington invite adventurers elsewhere...
...To convince Port-au-Prince that Aristide must be reinstated, the OAS economic embargo has to be strengthened, not gutted...
...And, he continued, "the representative [Ambassador Andrews] of that powerful country dictates his every whim...
...the UN reports that a number of those repatriated were specially targeted by the army and the police...
...It makes government easier...
...The law providing President George Bush with such authority is already on the books...
...Rather than abandoning the embargo, it must be more precisely targeted...
...A stringent embargo, enforced by U.S...
...by cutting off military supplies and smugglers' routes...
...Since the coup, U.S...
...All we lack is the will...
...imposes stricter sanctions...
...As OAS Secretary General Joao Baena Soares remarked following the administration's action, "This is not going to help...
...They can only be discouraged by our current example...
...The United States has declared the government of Haiti a band of outlaws, yet we send the asylumseekers home to their fate with little more than a bag of clothes and wave of the hand...
...Washington must send a different message: Democracy now...
...The Bush administration and the Supreme Court have denied the refugees succor and temporary asylum...
...Of course, not every Haitian who sets out for Miami is a bona tide political refugee...
...Amnesty International reports that 1,500 people have perished in Haiti since the September ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide...
...There is among most Americans, however, a sense of amazement, almost of disbelief, over what is happening...
...Since military intervention, even of a collective kind, is at present an unlikely option, proper sanctions and increased diplomatic pressure remain the surest way of returning Haiti's popularly elected government...
...The State Department seems to have thrown in the towel on Aristide, a man they disliked from the first but were forced to work with after his overwhelming victory in Haiti's first democratic election...
...Of course, not all the policies of Aristide were models of the democratic process...
...We are moving in the wrong direction...
...Here we should be reminded of Graham Greene's warning that "it has always been in the interest of the state...to restrict human sympathy...
...the Bush administration's response has proven to be fainthearted, inadequate, and misdirected...
...Of course, the facts are complex...
...The Haitians deserve temporary refugee status until the legitimate government of Haiti has been reinstated in accord with UN and OAS resolutions...
...and by freezing the assets of the elite who are convinced they can wait out the embargo, the prospect of Aristide's return would be improved...
...4: 28 February1 992 Commonweal...
...It is clear where the shoe pinches...
...In September the U.S...
...But these facts remain: the Aristide government was violently overthrown by the Haitian military, which resisted his reforms at every turn...
...strongly condemned the coup and gave firm support to the Organization of American States and its call for an embargo of Haiti...
...The Miami Herald reported in November that 433 boats had been intercepted and over 23,000 Haitians repatriated since the coup...
...We are forcing these people back to a land ruled by thugs who wait for us to turn our backs...
...Facilities to house the refugees are available, not only at the Guantanamo base but in Florida, a majority of whose citizens favor welcoming the Haitians...
...Admittedly, this will not be an easy course...
...Then there are the humanitarian issues...
...Other governments in the hemisphere, albeit on a much smaller scale, have shown a willingness to take the Haitian refugees and have done so...
Vol. 119 • February 1992 • No. 4
