THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 9, 1994 TAG: 9407090186
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines
It has become the busiest time in two centuries of Coast Guard history.
During a 24-hour period Thursday, Coast Guard ships, aided by the Navy, plucked 1,859 Haitians from 36 overloaded and unseaworthy vessels.
Nearly 1,000 of the migrants were rescued by three Coast Guard cutters based in Portsmouth. The Northland picked up 242 people from three boats; the Harriet Lane, 477 from four boats; and the Tampa, 214 from seven boats.
In all, the sea services have rescued 20,698 Haitians this year, 12,345 of them this month alone and 9,697 during the past four days. As busy as Thursday was, the record for a single day was set July 4, when 3,247 were rescued, Coast Guard officials said Friday.
Their efforts have been ``extraordinary,'' Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Robert E. Kramek said Friday after visiting crews who are carrying out the Coast Guard operation in the Caribbean.
``The men and women of Operation Able Manner have had little rest, no time for port calls or holiday routine,'' he said. ``But, without complaint, they continue, as theirpredecessors have done for nearly 204 years.''
At least eight Coast Guard cutters and two Navy ships were involved in Thursday's rescues off the coast of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital, and elsewhere along the Windward Passage on the west coast of the island nation.
Kramek, in a message to all Coast Guard units, cited many individual acts of heroism.
The cutter Hamilton, which rescued 458 Haitians from a 55-foot sailboat, recovered one teenage boy who displayed no vital signs. He was later resuscitated.
When the Harriet Lane discovered a 34-foot sailboat with 134 people aboard, it had only two inches of freeboard remaining above the water. All aboard, including 28 children, were saved.
The same day, a Haitian sailboat sank alongside the cutter Escape, dumping 28 people into the water. All, including an infant, were saved.
The exodus from the impoverished country has swelled since June 15, when the United States announced it would begin processing asylum claims on a U.S. ship, the Baltimore-based hospital ship Comfort, currently at anchor in Kingston, Jamaica.
However, this week the administration revised its policy, saying migrants now will be screened for temporary protection status but will not be allowed to apply for asylum in the United States.
The pace of rescues at sea is rivaled only by Coast Guard operations in response to the exodus from Cuba that began in 1959 and reached its peak with the Camarioca boat lift from 1965 to 1971 and the Mariel boat lift, which lasted through 1980.
U.S. officials had hoped 10,000 Haitian migrants could be temporarily resettled in Panama. But those plans fell through Thursday when Panama's president rejected the plan.
Administration officials, meanwhile, announced that the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, would be expanded from its capacity of 12,500 refugees to 20,000 to handle the added people. As of Thursday, more than 10,500 boat people already were waiting there for processing. Refugees also are being processed off Jamaica and the British Turks and Caicos Islands.
The Pentagon, meanwhile, maintained contingency plans for an invasion of Haiti if international sanctions fail to evict the military leaders who overthrew elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in September 1991. Two thousand Marines from Camp Lejeune, N.C., housed aboard four Norfolk-based ships, left Thursday to stand by for the possible evacuation of some 3,000 to 4,000 Americans in Haiti. ILLUSTRATION: SHIP PROFILE
Three Portsmouth-based Coast Guard cutters that were involved in
a record day for rescues - the Northland, the Harriet Lane and the
Tampa - are all medium-endurance cutters. Here is a profile of the
ship class:
Length: 270 feet
Crew: 109
Propulsion: Two diesel engines
Speed: 19.5 knots
Weapons: One 62-caliber anti-aircraft gun
Four .50-caliber machine guns
Mission: Law enforcement, defense operations, search and rescue.
Number in the fleet: 33
Source: Naval Institute Guide to Ships and Aircraft of the U.S.
Fleet
KEYWORDS: HAITI by CNB