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

DATE: FRIDAY, October 22, 1993                   TAG: 9310220191
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

U.S. WEIGHS ITS INTERESTS IN HAITI

The question took on added urgency as Congress tussled with President Clinton over who has the ultimate authority to deploy troops to the Caribbean nation.

Unlike the humanitarian exercise in distant Somalia, there is virtually a national consensus that the way Haiti's volatile political drama unfolds could have a direct impact on U.S. interests and lives. The question, however, is whether U.S. lives are worth risking to protect those interests.

"Haiti is not Somalia," said Sen. Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat whose constituents admittedly have a particularly acute interest in how the rest of the nation reacts to the Haitian crisis.

"As much as we grieve" for Somalia, Graham told lawmakers this week, "the consequences of a collapse [there] are relatively limited on the United States. The consequences of what has already happened in Haiti, and what could happen, if there was a further deterioration of conditions, will be direct and immediate on the United States of America."

Moreover, Clinton's recent effort to enumerate those U.S. interests recalled arguments that led to U.S. military intervention in the Caribbean Basin twice in the past decade. Defining the stakes, the president recycled essential parts of the rationale for the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983, and of Panama in 1989:

American lives could be at risk. About 1,000 U.S. citizens and 9,000 residents with dual U.S.-Haitian citizenship live in Haiti. In addition, 140 U.S. employees are running the U.S. Embassy and "a handful" of U.S. tourists are in the country, Clinton said.

Few arguments for continued involvement resonate as strongly among the American people as this one, whether the expressed threat is to medical students in Grenada, or to GIs stationed in Panama. Even Senate amendments to restrict the president's ability to send troops to Haiti left allowances for emergency action to protect U.S. lives.

Haiti's military rulers, no doubt conscious that the Grenada invasion was framed as a rescue mission - over protests by some of the very Americans being "saved" - have repeatedly asserted that Americans are not at risk in Haiti.

The United States has an interest in promoting democracy in the Western Hemisphere, "especially in a place where such a large number of Haitians have clearly expressed their preference for president," Clinton said.

Moral obligations aside, others argue the expansion of U.S. markets in the region - the fastest-growing market for U.S. exports in the world - depends on a modicum of internal stability often associated with democratic rule.

Haiti's current crisis could renew a massive exodus of Florida-bound boat people, which could overwhelm the state's social service programs and introduce to struggling U.S. communities a series of problems associated with an influx of poor refugees.

"We have a clear interest in working toward a government in Haiti that enables its citizens to live there in security, so they do not have to flee in large numbers and at great risk to themselves to our shores and to other nations," Clinton said last week.

Some analysts say the refugee issue is the engine driving current U.S. policy. Nearly 40,000 Haitians have attempted to flee the current regime, many at peril to their lives. The Clinton administration has sought to keep Haitians at home by brightening the chances for Aristide's return.

Sen. Connie Mack, R-Fla., and several other lawmakers introduce an additional interest, which has gone unmentioned by Clinton: international narcotics traffickers have increasingly made Haiti a transit point for shipments from Colombia to the United States, according to U.S. anti-drug officials.

"There are legitimate U.S. national interests in Haiti," acknowledged Rep. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., chairman of the Western Hemisphere subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "But I doubt they rise to the point of warranting a large-scale U.S. intervention, or risking the loss of American lives."