THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 23, 1994 TAG: 9407230217
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines
The rubber-soled shower shoes stick to the hot tarmac that forms the floor of their tent city.
The soccer balls have all popped on the razor-sharp wire that rims their camps.
Yet, the 16,354 Haitian refugees here complain very little.
They would like some more oil in their food and some extra salt, said Army 2nd Lt. Gary Matthews, who helps manage the 3,100 migrants assigned to Camp 3, one of seven camps that overlook the entrance to Guantanamo Bay Naval Station.
``They say the food is too dry,'' Matthews said as he walked among the curious men, women and children, all of whom have found their way to this temporary safe haven aboard boats that were stopped at sea by the Navy and Coast Guard.
``They say I would be their hero if I could get them more salt,'' Matthews said.
It appears incredible that this many people have food at all. Their numbers have grown nearly tenfold in the past three weeks. There were only 2,500 migrants in the camps July 1.
Navy Seabees working around the clock have erected 1,800 family-sized tents, containing 30,000 cots. More than 17,000 meals are prepared here each day. Drinking water, made possible by a desalinization plant that supplies this entire base, is piped into the compounds as well.
``We all did it together,'' said a Navy petty officer, complimenting those in the Army and Air Force who also were charged to expand the camp after an unexpected onslaught of refugees poured out of Haiti during the July Fourth weekend.
The migrants go through an elaborate system of processing, beginning with their photographs, fingerprints and questions about their family history.
In front of a series of cameras, someone has drawn a child's face with the caption, ``Souri,'' or ``smile.''
``We know they are scared. We try to put them at ease,'' said a Haitian woman, one of several whom the Haitian government - the same army-led government the United States has threatened to force out - has allowed to come to the refugee camp to help. They are paid by their government, with only one admonition.
``We don't talk politics,'' the woman said, refusing to give her name or allow herself to be photographed.
The photo sessions are followed by counseling to determine whether the migrants have left the country for economic or political reasons. Those in the latter group could win a trip to America.
So far, only 413 have been.
For nearly all the rest, their days are spent here, on top of an abandoned 5,000-foot-long asphalt and concrete runway, where their only relief from the heat comes from a stiff sea breeze.
Children play baseball with a withered bat and a ball that's missing its cover. One little girl held a new coloring book from Disney's ``Beauty and the Beast.''
Men amble around the camp. There is nothing for them to do.
The women wash clothes and hang them atop tent poles and along barbed wire to dry.
``They are proud, and you will see them washing every chance they get,'' said Army Col. Michael A. Pearson, who is responsible for the refugee camps.
``And they can sing,'' said Air Force Capt. David Maack, a Protestant chaplain from Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, who volunteered for temporary duty here.
``They have a strong religious background and we are having two to three services a day. Everybody comes. That's more than I can say about the folks back home.''
They also have stories to tell about how they got here to Guantanamo, a Navy outpost on the southeastern coast of communist Cuba that is home to some 5,000 U.S. service members and their families.
``They tell us about the families that have been killed and those who have been beaten and those who have disappeared and those who were raped,'' said Antonio Fortin of Chile, who works with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. ``We try to help them through that.''
Again, there is one subject the officials do not discuss.
``We avoid questions about an invasion,'' he said. ``We don't ask them about politics.''
Thirteen-year-old Soneljean Batiz knows nothing of politics. But he knows of death and torture.
Like a growing number of youngsters arriving at the camp, Batiz has no mother or father. His father died last year but he doesn't know how.
``Mama was shot,'' he said through an interpreter. His cousin's father also was killed. That is why other relatives put him in a boat and sent him on a hazardous and uncertain trip toward freedom.
``Today I am happy to be here,'' Batiz said. ``No, no, I never go back.''
KEYWORDS: HAITI by CNB