THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 3, 1994 TAG: 9407030219
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, CUBA LENGTH: Long : 159 lines
A generation of Haitian-Americans might look back on this place someday with the nostalgia millions of European-Americans feel at the mention of Ellis Island, N.Y., where their ancestors entered the United States.
But don't bet on it.
It's hard to feel the spirit of the Statue of Liberty when your introduction to America is a desert-tan city of tents, ringed by barbed wire and simmering under the Caribbean sun on an abandoned airport runway.
It's harder still when the Americans seem not quite sure what to do with you.
Almost 2,000 Haitians were at Guantanamo on Friday, waiting for immigration interviews that will give them a chance at freedom. And at a rate of 1,000 or more a day, others were coming in faster than were the tents, food, clothes and toiletries needed to accommodate them.
Only 500 new arrivals could be taken in on Friday, said U.S. Army Col. Mike Pearson, head of the military task force struggling to manage this flood of refugees from Haiti's outlaw dictatorship. Roughly that many more would sleep on the decks of Coast Guard cutters before an expected arrival of extra supplies and equipment would let the Americans bring them ashore.
The camps that Pearson's squads of Marines and Navy Seabees are building on bluffs overlooking the bay will increase their capacity to 12,500 migrants by next weekend, he said. That's all the water desalination plant for this 45-square-mile military base in southeast Cuba can handle.
The government of the Turks and Caicos Islands, northeast of Cuba, has agreed to let the United States build a camp on Grand Turk for another 2,000 migrants. It is to open by mid-July.
The Coast Guard has rescued more than 5,000 Haitians since mid-June, when the Clinton administration announced it would consider giving asylum to those fleeing the island. The human tide has overwhelmed the Comfort, a hospital ship sent to Jamaica to accept and process the refugees, so Clinton on Tuesday ordered the reconstruction of camps at Guantanamo that first were set up in 1991.
Then-President Bush closed the camps and ordered that Haitians be returned summarily in 1992 after many of the 13,000 at Guantanamo rioted to protest their confinement.
Graffiti still visible on a concrete-block shelter at one old camp - ``This place is for animals. Not for Haitians'' - recalls those days. Pearson's most critical task is to make sure they are not repeated.
Determined ``to make this as good as I can,'' he has ordered strips of indoor-outdoor carpeting for the tents and camouflage netting to cover the barbed wire. His troops are organizing ``camps within the camps,'' to separate single men, single women and families at night, and they will build a soccer field to help the refugees occupy their days.
Reporters who were permitted to talk Friday to some of the Haitians heard harrowing tales of escapes and persecution on Haiti - and no complaints about life at Guan-tan-amo.
Gathered around picnic tables at an open-air shelter, many of the Haitians wore the same ragged clothing they'd brought from Haiti. Others sported new yellow or blue T-shirts and sandals given out by their U.S. hosts. Except for the children who ran about and waved to attract the attention of television cameras, most seemed quietly bewildered.
``Here we are more or less free,'' said Asmine Pierre, a 25-year-old clerk who fled with her husband after he was arrested for supporting the government of exiled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Pierre said she would return to Haiti voluntarily if Aristide were restored to power. But other Haitians said they would never go home unless forced to return.
``Many problem in Haiti now,'' said Mitial Louis, a 26-year-old cement worker who was among the handful of migrants who could speak some English. ``They kill my daddy. They kill my brother,'' he added, describing why he left the island nation.
Louis said his father was an Aristide supporter. Police ``kicked me and beat me'' during a two-week jail stay not long before he joined friends and strangers on a sailboat ride to meet the Coast Guard waiting off the Haitian coast.
Louis said he has relatives in Miami and hopes he'll be permitted to join them. He was among 215 Haitians at Guantanamo on Friday who were cleared to immigrate during stops aboard the Comfort.
Like most of those now being rescued, Louis was at sea only a few days before the Coast Guard came upon him. Cmdr. Richard Kelly of Portsmouth, skipper of the cutter Tampa, said most of the Haitians now being found are in reasonable shape; some carry small bottles of water and bags of fruit or vegetables along with their clothes.
``They're looking for us,'' said another cutter captain, Cmdr. Mike Pierce of St. Petersburg, Fla. He and Kelly said the rickety Haitian boats sail straight for patrolling cutters, then wait patiently for the Americans to help them aboard. ``We just have to direct traffic in many cases,'' Pierce said.
``After having been on the small craft for several days, they're exhausted,'' Kelly said. They sleep on the cutters' helicopter decks, sheltered from the sun and summer thunderstorms by huge tarpaulins.
Kelly's Portsmouth-based crew has been at sea since late May and has been working nearly around-the-clock since June 24, just after the Comfort began accepting refugees. The Tampa picked up 456 Haitians on Thursday alone, so many that Kelly had to summon a nearby Navy guided-missile frigate, the Clark, to share the load.
Some of the migrants were bailing out their boats to stay afloat when they were found, Kelly said. He saw daylight through the hull of one that rolled over as the Haitians climbed out.
Kelly's crew is near the end of what would be the normal length of a cutter's deployment. But, he said, ``We can keep it up as long as we have to.''
Pearson has similar confidence in his 1,700 troops, but he suggested the success of their mission depends on the ability of immigration officials to process migrants quickly.
``If we're going to make this work in a humanitarian way, we've got to move people through,'' he said.
Several dozen refugee adjudicators from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service were to arrive at Guantanamo on Saturday to screen the migrants; only those judged to have a ``well-founded fear'' of political persecution will be permitted to come to the United States and then only when groups or individuals agree to sponsor them.
About 30 percent of those screened since Clinton announced the new policy have been cleared to immigrate. Those who fail are returned to Haiti by the Coast Guard.
Pearson said he wants to limit the migrant stays at Guantanamo to three weeks. When the camps closed in 1992, some Haitians had been there as long as 22 months.
One Navy wife living at the base then, whose husband now is stationed in Norfolk, recalled last week how the smell of feces wafted over the base as some Haitians bypassed portable toilets and relieved themselves in open fields or on the runway.
The woman, who asked that her name not be used, said the Haitians' need for supplies outstripped the capacity of the base commissary and exchange. And their presence meant residents couldn't use a beach and recreational field that are among the few amenities available at the remote outpost.
``It took a long time last time to learn you have to get extra stuff'' to accommodate the migrants, acknowledged Senior Chief Jan Benedict, a Navy public affairs officer who is a veteran of those days and who remains at Guantanamo. ``There was some resentment'' of the Haitians by Americans at the base then, Benedict said, but the military is better prepared for the influx of migrants this time.
``I don't think it has impacted on anyone,'' said Coleen Pegram, a petty officer first class. The Haitians are not being housed near Navy and Marine families stationed at the base, she said. ``Most of us don't even see 'em.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Haitian refugees at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base await immigration
interviews that will give them a chance at asylum.
Photo
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Haitians are arriving faster than needed supplies at the recently
reopened refugee camp at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. By next
weekend, the camp's capacity will be increased to 12,500 immigrants.
About 2,000 Haitians were there Friday. To avoid protests that
marked the camp's first tenure, in 1991, indoor-outdoor carpeting
will be installed in the tents and camouflage netting placed over
barbed wire.
Map
KEYWORDS: HAITI REFUGEES by CNB