Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 11, 1994 TAG: 9406170127
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Canada and the Netherlands immediately followed suit, announcing an end to commercial air service to Haiti on their national carriers by the U.S. deadline of June 25. But France, which had endorsed the flight ban, took no action to ground its weekly Air France flight from Port-au-Prince to Paris.
The international action was expected to deal a profound blow to the wealthy civilian backers of Haiti's military government, who have managed to weather previous economic sanctions by relocating their money and buying supplies in the United States and abroad.
But its impact will extend far beyond Haiti's elite, severely complicating travel for Haitian Americans, humanitarian aid workers and human rights monitors to and from the country. The step will also curb fund transfers from the United States- a cash infusion estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars- by limiting family households to transfers of $50 a month.
Clinton announced the move just three weeks after the United Nations Security Council imposed a world embargo on trade with Haiti and banned all nonscheduled flights between Haiti and other countries. It comes just days before the United States resumes the volatile process of providing asylum hearings for Haitian boat people at sea.
With a U.S.-led naval blockade already policing Haitian waters and new efforts by the Dominican Republic to end smuggling across its land border with Haiti, the ban on commercial flights threatens to seal Haiti's status as an international pariah.
"The message is simple," Clinton declared Friday. "Democracy must be restored; the coup must not endure."
Clinton, who has refused to rule out the possibility of U.S. military action to reinstate ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, said Friday that the goal of restoring civilian, democratic rule in Haiti was in the United States' national interest.
"In the past month we have taken steps to advance the interests of the Haitian people and the United States," Clinton said. "Our national interests, to help democracy thrive in this hemisphere and to protect the lives of thousands of Americans who live and work in Haiti, requires us to strengthen these efforts.''
U.S. officials said they did not anticipate any retribution by the Haitian government against an estimated 10,000 American citizens or the several thousand other foreign nationals living in Haiti. But the action was certain to heighten tensions in the country by closing an escape valve for foreigners and affluent Haitians alike.
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