COAST GUARD SHIPS TO BARRICADE HAITI

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, January 16, 1993                   TAG: 9301160140
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MIAMI                                LENGTH: Medium
COAST GUARD SHIPS TO BARRICADE HAITI
The United States ordered an unprecedented naval barricade Friday around Haiti to block a feared exodus of refugees, saying it was necessary to prevent a "massive loss of life at sea."
Twenty-two Coast Guard and Navy ships, along with a dozen aircraft, will ring the Haitian coast outside its 12-mile territorial limit and patrol the 600-mile escape route to Florida, said Adm. J. William Kime, the Coast Guard commandant.
Kime said he launched Operation Able Manner after consulting the Bush and incoming Clinton administrations.
"We hope our efforts . . . will greatly deter the numbers who will venture out in what is inherently a very unsafe effort," Kime said.
State Department historian William Slaney said the scope of the mission is unheard of, adding, "I don't know of any precedent for the United States somehow trying to turn aside so many people on the high seas."
Coast Guard intelligence has spotted 200 boats under construction in Haiti, and more than 1,400 already in the water could be used in a massive boatlift, Kime said.
About 900 Haitians have been stopped this year, and Kime said a worst-case scenario would be 100,000 to 200,000 refugees sailing toward Florida.
Recent broadcasts by ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and President-elect Clinton asking Haitians to stay home and help democratize the country should keep many potential immigrants at home, he said.
The U.S. ships will stop the type of rickety, overcrowded sailboats and small freighters that have carried thousands of Haitians to Florida - or sometimes to their deaths, he said, citing the recent reported sinking of a freighter off Cuba with 400 people aboard.
Normal shipping will be allowed through.
"This is not a blockade," Kime said. "The concern we have is for the potential massive loss of life at sea."
Haitian refugee advocates quickly condemned the plan, saying 3,000 of those forcibly returned so far have been executed by the military government. They noted no immigration officials will be on the U.S. boats to consider political asylum claims.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB