THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, March 19, 1996 TAG: 9603190269
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL SIZEMORE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI LENGTH: Long : 158 lines
With a big assist from the United States, the historic, peaceful transfer of power from a brutal military dictatorship to a popular democracy now appears complete in Haiti.
President Clinton declared the mission accomplished Monday in a ceremony at Fort Polk, La., in which he thanked the thousands of U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen who served in the effort.
But looming ahead lies a job that may prove more daunting than Haiti's political transformation: rebuilding this desperately poor nation's shattered institutions and infrastructure, essential if its struggling masses are to have any hope of a better life.
To help in that effort, a greatly diminished U.S. military presence - including two platoons of Marines from Norfolk - will remain in Haiti.
They call themselves FAST Company - short for Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team. Based at Camp Allen on Norfolk Naval Base, the Marines' job is to provide security for a battalion of Navy Seabees from Gulfport, Miss., who are doing public works projects in and around Port-au-Prince.
Part of a joint military task force that answers to the U.S. Atlantic Command in Norfolk, they are separate from the United Nations peacekeeping contingent, which is now winding down after being given a four-month extension from its original Feb. 29 end date.
The 5th FAST platoon, which had been in Haiti since November, returned to Norfolk on Sunday. It was relieved by the 3rd Platoon, which is expected to stay until June.
The U.S. presence will extend for at least another year beyond that as engineers and builders from all the military services rotate in to Haiti to work on schools, hospitals, roads and utilities that were neglected during years of military rule.
For Builder John Beatty, a Seabee from Gulfport-based Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 7, this deployment is a chance to carry out a job that, in an embarrassing U.S. foreign policy episode, was halted before it ever got underway.
His unit was aboard the Harlan County, a Norfolk-based tank landing ship that steamed into Port-au-Prince harbor in October 1993 to build a base camp for the U.N. peacekeeping mission. Under international pressure, the military strongmen who had overthrown President Jean-Bertrand Aristide had agreed to step down.
They reneged on their pledge. A hostile mob of armed paramilitary Haitians massed on the dock. The Harlan County, unprepared for armed confrontation, sailed away.
It was another year before the military leaders, under threat of an imminent U.S. invasion, finally agreed to step down.
Aristide was restored to power in October 1994 to serve out the remaining 16 months of his four-year term. A second peaceful transition occurred this year when Aristide turned over the office to his successor, Andre Preval.
This time around, Beatty and his fellow Seabees encountered a warmer welcome. As groups of curious, smiling children watch from the perimeter, the Seabees are renovating a dilapidated public school in a rural suburb of Port-au-Prince.
The school building is an empty, roofless shell of cracked, turquoise concrete block and battered brown woodwork. There is no electricity or running water.
The Seabees are repairing this building and planning to build an addition, which will include a lunchroom. They have erected tents where classes are being held during the construction, and in their off-duty hours they are building playground equipment and benches for the classrooms.
``We're glad for the chance to finish the job,'' Beatty said.
Builder 3rd Class John Osborne, the crew leader, said the Seabees find the work satisfying, even though they know the project barely scratches the surface of Haiti's immense needs.
``This school was in such bad shape, they had written it off,'' he said. ``They didn't even count it as an active school anymore.
``I'm pleased that we could do something to help these people, little as it is.''
Riding through the streets of Port-au-Prince is an adventure in Third World urban anarchy.
There are no rules of the road - no stoplights, no traffic cops. The rutted streets, full of bone-jarring potholes, teem with traffic of every stripe: pedestrians, cars, motorbikes, bicycles, hand-pulled carts, makeshift buses called ``tap-taps,'' and assorted livestock, including cattle, pigs, donkeys, goats and chickens. Open-air produce markets compete for curb space with endless piles of trash and abandoned vehicles.
Standing in sharp contrast is a half-mile stretch of smooth, four-lane concrete with sidewalks, median strip and storm sewers. The $1.1 million project, completed last month, was built by an Air Force ``Red Horse'' construction unit with help from the Seabees.
Cmdr. Martin Phillips, executive officer of the Seabees unit, was standing at an intersection along the new road Saturday when a ``tap-tap'' driver stopped his vehicle, pointed to the smooth pavement and yelled ``Bon!'' (``good'' in both French and Creole, its Haitian derivative.)
Like the school, Phillips is acutely aware that the new stretch of road is just one tiny step.
``There's a long, long way to go, but it's much better than it was,'' he said. ``They're working their way back.''
The change in administrations, while peaceful, has slowed the rebuilding effort, he said, because almost all government workers are political appointees.
``Back in the States we complain about the bureaucracy, but here in Haiti they need a bureaucracy,'' he said. ``There's oil and electric power available. International banking organizations have money ready to lend. But there's no person sitting at a desk typing out a letter of credit.''
The U.S. deployment in Haiti has been remarkably peaceful. There has been only one mission-related American death in 18 months. Almost all the violence encountered by the Marine guards is Haitian-on-Haitian, usually related to theft rooted in Haiti's desperate poverty.
``It's different from a combat zone,'' said Maj. Ray Griffith, commanding officer of the Norfolk-based FAST unit. ``You can't tell the bad guys from the good guys.''
Aristide demobilized the Haitian army, including the hated paramilitary groups that once terrorized the populace. There is a new national police force that has received some training under the U.N. mandate, but it is ``still on a pretty steep learning curve,'' Griffith said.
The U.S. Marines don't have any local police duties. Sometimes, however, the violence of Haitian society spills onto their doorstep.
Saturday afternoon, a 15-year-old Haitian boy staggered up to the gate of the U.S. encampment alongside the Port-au-Prince airport, bleeding from his head and eye. He had been slashed with a sharp object - probably a machete, a favorite weapon of Haitian street toughs.
About the same time, another boy, about 12, turned up at another gate with his arm bloodied. He told Marines that a gang of youths had attacked him when he refused to give up his shoeshine kit.
Marines administered first aid to both teenagers and took them to the Army field hospital on the U.S. compound, where they were treated - even though such care falls outside the U.S mission.
``We're here to support the peacekeeping troops, not Haitians,'' said Col. Harry Davis, commanding officer of the field hospital, which is based at Fort Bliss, Texas. ``The medical needs in Haiti are so great, we could never begin to meet them all.''
As the Marines of the 5th FAST platoon packed to come home over the weekend, Capt. Jason Bohm, their commanding officer, said his troops take pride in helping the Haitians help themselves.
At the same time, he said, the mission serves another purpose, one that the Marines relish: It gives them a real-world setting to use the skills they learned at Camp Allen.
``They've all been coming up and asking where we're going next,'' he said. ``They're hard chargers. When the trumpet sounds, they're ready to go.''
Lance Cpl. Philip Nicaud put it this way: ``Back home, that's just practicing. We want to get in the game.'' MEMO: FULL PAGE OF COVERAGE INSIDE/A12
ILLUSTRATION: Photos by VICKI CRONIS
THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Lance Cpl. Eric Babcock, part of the Fleet Antiterrorism Security
Team from Camp Allen on Norfolk Naval Base, watches one of the main
roads that leave Port-au-Prince. Babcock has been in Haiti for a
week.
VP Map
KEYWORDS: HAITI by CNB