------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Nov. 14, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
U.S. SANCTIONS TO BLAME: HAITIANS FLEE GROWING POVERTY By G. Dunkel On Oct. 29 more than 200 Haitians and three Dominicans leaped off a boat that had been chased aground in Miami Bay by the U.S. Coast Guard. They tried to escape before the cops and immigration agents arrived. Live television footage shot from a helicopter showed people desperately jumping overboard. A woman lowered a young girl in a pink dress to a man waiting in chest-high water. People piled onto a pickup truck. The cops loaded those they caught onto windowless buses. Shortly after the news hit the airwaves, Haitians--many carrying placards from the SEIU labor union--and civil rights activists converged on the scene to observe and to demand an end to the racist immigration policy enforced against Haitians. They also wanted to be sure that the Haitians were being treated humanely. Of all the immigrants who seek asylum in the United States, only Haitians are denied the right to parole, that is, release to the community before their immigration hearing. Cubans are subject to a "wet-foot, dry-foot policy," which means that if they are intercepted at sea, they are repatriated. If they reach shore, they invariably get well- financed political asylum. What usually happens to Haitians is that they are held in jail for months before a hearing, at which time their asylum claim is denied. Then they are held for more months until they are finally sent back. Veye Yo, a militant group in Miami's Haitian community, reports that on Oct. 25, 44 men and eight women had been returned to Haiti, some after being held in detention here for more than a year. 'PEOPLE HAVE NO CHOICE' Lavarice Gaudin, a leader of Veye Yo, told the progressive newspaper Haïti-Progrès: "Due to the Bush administration's blockage of all loans and aid to Haiti, the economic situation of the country is very, very bad. This is why people are fleeing. People have no choice. Tomorrow there might be another boat." U.S. Rep. Carrie Meek, who represents Little Haiti--the area of Miami where the Haitian community is concentrated-- interrupted a rally that Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was holding to demand he call his brother, the president, and get the Haitians released. Gov. Bush refused, trying to waffle his way through the disruption. Later Meek and some local leaders announced a plan to make a direct appeal to President George W. Bush for their release and to call for a march on Washington. Advocates for the Haitians have accused the U.S. government of trying to deflect national attention away from the treatment of these refugees fleeing poverty and political turmoil. The nationally televised images of the Oct. 29 event stoked another wave of protests and meetings to address a government immigration policy implemented in December that officially mandates the indefinite detention of Haitian refugees. U.S. federal authorities announced that they are charging six of the refugees taken into custody on Oct. 29 with human smuggling. In Chouchou Bay, a fishing village where the boat was launched, residents told U.S. reporters that the trip was a cooperative effort--some people supplied material, others their tools or their labor to build the boat. In Acul du Nord, the nearby town that supplied most of the passengers, Phito Florestal told an Associated Press reporter, "Most people don't make enough to survive. ... Some days you eat, some days you don't." There is 90 percent unemployment in Acul. When people do get work, they generally make less than one dollar a day. Per capita income in Haiti is $250 a year and four-fifths of the rural population have incomes below Haiti's poverty level, which means that they must survive through subsistence farming. Some groups in Haiti are struggling to change this dire situation. The Nation Popular Party (PPN), the union Batay Ouvriyè (Workers' Struggle) and the Peasant Movement of Vodrey held a march of 3,000 people on Oct. 17 in Cap Haitien, Haiti's second-largest city. The date commemorates the assassination of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the leader who declared Haiti independent in 1804. Marchers denounced the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide for selling off a significant strip of land along the Dominican border to a U.S.-controlled company and for agreeing to let foreign diplomats supervise Haiti's political process. The protesters also denounced Haiti's official opposition for being willing to do more for the U.S. than Aristide's government. Ben Dupuy, the secretary general of the PPN, concluded at the rally that "the National Popular Party is working to build a real alternative for real change." - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
