THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 22, 1994 TAG: 9407220562
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANCIE LATOUR, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 112 lines
Two months ago, Paul Jean-Louis worried he would never again see his wife Therese Litane. She was taken from their home by Haitian police who had come looking for him.
Today, Jean-Louis and his family are setting up house in an Ocean View apartment, getting used to light that turns on with a switch and water that runs from faucets.
``I hope my life here can be better, and my family can have more security,'' Jean-Louis said after he arrived at Norfolk International Airport Thursday afternoon, ending a three-year struggle to escape persecution in his homeland.
Unlike the waves of boat people who have flooded Coast Guard ships and Navy camps, Jean-Louis, his wife and five children left Haiti with the help of the United States. The U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince granted them political asylum.
Under the glare of camera lights and neon-green banners reading ``Welcome to Norfolk,'' Jean-Louis, 45, said he was relieved to leave behind the routine home invasions and imprisonments his family suffered at the hand of ruthless police.
``I tried to struggle at first, to tough it out,'' said Jean-Louis, who had been living in hiding since the 1991 coup that overthrew elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. ``But in April, I realized I had to leave.''
A leader of a pro-Aristide peasant movement in the southern coastal city of Les Cayes, Jean-Louis said he was targeted by police because of his political beliefs.
His sunken cheeks and red eyes tell the story of a harsh journey to safety. The journey included three rejections of his asylum request by the U.S. Embassy.
The family was frightened by the daily routine of police ``emptying bodies into the streets with bullets'' and lumps of body parts floating in rivers, said Therese Jean-Louis, 39.
But the children's future drove them to action.
``We told them we had to leave our house because we were afraid for our kids,'' she said.
It was not until Therese Jean-Louis was imprisoned for the third time that the embassy took action.
Four officers came looking for her husband after midnight. When they didn't find him, they took her, leaving the couple's daughter and four sons alone in the house.
``I was there for 22 days,'' Therese Jean-Louis said. She rattled off the kinds of abuse and torture she suffered as if it were a given for a Haitian prisoner.
``My parents had to pay $300 before the police would even show them that I was still alive,'' she said.
Then in her third month of pregnancy, she stayed in prisons for another 18 days before her parents were able to get her out by paying police still more money.
Even with the payoff, her husband said, the release was a miracle. ``If anyone leaves a prison in Haiti, that's only the grace of God that it happened.''
Repeated acts of brutality by military police pushed the Jean-Louis family to the top of the list of those seeking political asylum in the United States.
On Wednesday, the family flew from Port-au-Prince to the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, then on to Miami. They were brought to Hampton Roads by the U.S. Catholic Conference, one of 11 agencies nationwide that relocate refugees, and by the Refugee Immigration Service in Norfolk.
The five children who made the trip are ages 4-16. The couple left two other children behind with relatives because of problems with their birth certificates.
Therese Jean-Louis can hardly believe the three bedrooms and back yard of her new apartment are real.
From a chair near the kitchen table, she unpacked rice, pasta, pudding and macaroni and cheese from one of 13 bags stuffed with groceries.
Across the room, her five children collapsed over each other on one of two living room sofas, clutching new toys - soccer balls, Nerf footballs, basketballs and a black Barbie doll from Virginia Beach's St. Nicholas Parish.
``We can't help the people in Haiti, so we want to do whatever we can from here,'' said Sylvia Notel, a church member who waved a Haitian flag as she greeted the family at Norfolk International.
The church will help the refugee service in acclimating the family to Hampton Roads. Volunteers will help them learn English, find work, open a bank account and apply for Medicaid.
Independence is their goal.
``What they need is dignity and companionship, not parenting,'' said Skip Horton of the refugee service.
``It is wrong to adopt these people,'' Horton said. ``They're obviously survivors . . . .''
Jean-Louis and his family are the first Haitians the service has relocated in Hampton Roads. The names of others coming to the area fills two pages.
Fresh from the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, the Jean-Louises may need time to adjust.
For Pierre-Maxime, 16, the lesson began with the airport escalator. But while he stumbled a few times over the moving stairway, he never lost his grip on 4-year-old brother, Cherlot. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
JOSEPH JOHN KOTLOWSKI/Staff
Paul Jean-Louis, left, who arrived at Norfolk International Airport
from Haiti on Thursday, and his family: Cherlot, Pierre Maxime, Rose
Nancy, Therese Litane, and Daniel. Not pictured is Paul Maxon.
Daniel Jean-Louis looks over the spacious bathroom in his family's
Ocean View apartment. His brother Paul Maxon is reflected in the
mirror.
KEYWORDS: HAITI REFUGEES by CNB