
                         THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
                 Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 11, 1994                    TAG: 9406110309 
SECTION: FRONT                     PAGE: A5    EDITION: FINAL  
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 
DATELINE: 940611                                 LENGTH: PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI

NEW U.S. SANCTIONS AGAINST HAITI TARGET MONEY TRANSFERS, AIR TRAVEL

{LEAD} The 91-year-old retired judge held his head in his hands. He had been waiting in the stifling-hot bank for hours Friday, trying to get his monthly pension check of $27.

``I was in line. I cannot stand in line anymore,'' said Besson Bienaime, easing his slim frame onto a window ledge. ``Now it looks like I can't get any money.''

{REST} While the latest U.S. sanctions against Haiti are intended to target the nation's elite, it's the poorer Haitians like Bienaime who fear they'll be hit the hardest.

President Clinton announced Friday the United States would block Haiti from most transactions with U.S. banks. The new sanctions also include a ban on commercial air travel between the United States and Haiti, designed to ground wealthy Haitians who support the military junta.

An hour before the announcement in Washington, at least 400 government workers and retirees jammed Haiti's Central Bank, pushing and shoving to get to a window to cash their government checks.

For those who have no government checks, their biggest fear is of losing their only remaining lifeline - money sent from relatives in the United States.

Cash remittances have taken on an even greater importance since the United Nations broadened an embargo against Haiti on May 21, stopping cargo flights and charters that carried many packages of goods from relatives abroad.

``We would have starved without this money; everything costs so much now,'' said Claude Berice, who relies on relatives in Miami and New York to help feed his family. He spoke in line outside one remittance office in the capital.

The scene symbolized the collapse of the Haitian economy. Since the 1991 army coup, the gross domestic product has shrunk more than 30 percent and as many as 120,000 jobs have been lost. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees says 55,000 Haitians have sought to escape the economic devastation and political persecution by taking to the high seas.

Many wealthier Haitians and foreigners viewed the shutdown of commercial air service with dread, hustling to get family members out of the country before the June 25 cutoff.

``Closing the airports is going to be intense,'' said Haitian-American Richard Morse, owner of the weathered Oloffson Hotel. He is putting his daughter and son on a Miami-bound plane to live with relatives for the summer.

{KEYWORDS} HAITI by CNB