The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; 7077; Haitians Why They Leave

lu lu lu lu lu lu lu lu lu lu lu lu lu lu lu lu lu lu lu funding for this program has been provided by the station and more than two hundred sixty other public television stations nationwide and by grants from exxon corporation and at and t and the bowl system companies in fourteen ninety two before columbus discovered america he discovered his tenure and called it a very great island but today for thousands of haitians that island isn't

poor and frightening place we can do this because that evening yesterday fifty for haitians landed in a boat and how long they'll florida just north of miami they were taken into custody by the immigration and naturalization service and confined with some eleven hundred other refugees mostly haitians in a detention camp fifty four were the first patients to reach the us by sea since the reagan administration implemented its new policy they're trying to stop the refugees at sea since sunday the three hundred seventy eight foot coast guard cutter hamilton has been patrolling the windward passage the sixty mile straight between haiti and cuba by agreement with the haitian government its mission is to intercept and turn back haitians heading for the us without visas

patients have been fleeing their island claiming to be refugees from political repression by the government of president for life john pardue valley a us government says they are economic refugees and do not qualify for political asylum tonight as the us begins trying to cut off the flow of patients at the source what it principally running away from political repression or starvation robinson's nineteen seventy two nations have been leaving our country a nation that is second behind the united states as the oldest republican the western hemisphere were less than twenty percent of those thirty six million population can read and write with a per capita income is around two hundred dollars a year some fifty thousand applied to the united states in the coast guard estimates the current arrival rate between one thousand and fifteen hundred mark their steady arrivals gotten scant public attention through the years except twice last year first nations reception year was contrasted dramatically with out of a hundred and fifty thousand cubans who

came in the freedom flotilla the cubans were welcomed as political refugees with no questions asked patients were treated as illegal immigrants because they were seen as economic run political refugees and robin said they still are the second on the nation's made news was last fall one one hundred and two other landed on the small bohemian island of iowa votes they refused to leave and were finally remove by force and my set about themselves until the reagan administration decision to stop them on the high seas robin first we talk to a haitian journalist who has investigated the reasons for the exodus of thousands of his countrymen is john dominate the former operator and owner of radio haiti an independent station which was ransacked and burned a year ago after a broadcast a series of stories on the boat people and the smugglers who carry them dominate went into hiding for fifty one days before fleeing the country himself last january mr dominique as a reporter as a journalist are the boat

people economic refugees or political refugees that's a good death an area tropic question i mean that the semantic difference making of a running away from political repression or they're running away because they can't find jobs in their children are going hungry certainly one the bookkeeper the hall in miami he's a poor people and news every day so they can say he's not become a refugee but it's a word tristan is poverty to listen why he asked to think about why it at ease and so desperate economy condition we actually get at doing to teach is seventy nine when at we want to distort

an important then sha bang on the northwest about that or so you believe is the places where the refugee from but not to retrieve that cities and assessments but also in the south because it's everywhere in haiti that was a situation where the president can be forced to give anyone to distort the sport he's of the age there are age and the situation would discover along with me in the offices of my registration was a very important situation connected with the stretcher off the lady with this picture of the aging deteriorate by the regime do the villagers because the regime good

one man with war powers in his hands or pa was unimportant to meet every place park economy is that the menu more money let money get your money and so the prison guard to clean the oz is based on land money sometimes six hundred percent e a you can imagine that means the mom lurks extortion or from western and if you don't pay it to wife mother you see stuff or you serve on the idea of the process is the land hello and that and you say that this is done by representatives of the duvalier regime and the court was on the troops the us an obama quote was official secret police off on the bottom of the society of the royal society he's won four or the palos arteries and even

the religious pollock sometimes he's or a swindle you getting it babies about this kid from is why is what is it according to your semantic the finish and the situation for our economy all what is between it was a record years before last it was an economic situation connected him in city so in other words you say you can't separate the two eyes and the bees in your view mr eitan saying these refugees would be as entitled to claim political asylum as economic aside don't jump into and tied to the plane was unusual because a reporter we report a lot of kids all around the country on the off the south east and west and we discover that stretch the basic structure of the country often the countryside which was

established by dr foss when a father know what happened to you and your radio station for reporting news this series it was nineteen fourteen during the nineteen seventy nine and that for those least you can you can write it was a rather of morgan moore dodgers are dangers i can tell you about that that was it two reports on young boys i don't want to give their names now because their injury and that they want enough that will endure for a fact for work for that reporting report incorrectly there were nasty and whatever your radio station runs i was wooed by the police the political police off

the government and personally my house as being visited by the police and by the chief the second season my yap green twenty six where i was then i went into hiding than not in an embassy my wife my daughter my son and you know and that was like you were correct a different perspective now from an academic who has been studying conditions in haiti for more than forty years is anthony mango a canadian by birth former director of the caribbean program at yale university now chairman of the sociology department at florida international university he's with us tonight at public television station wfae sue in tallahassee florida

mr wrangler what is your view of these patients arriving are they in your view primarily running away from an economic situation or from political repression let it quite agree with our mr dominic that they're very often it's hard to separate these two things but the question you have to ask if you really want to arrive at the solution and the solution to the haitian alma situation cannot be very much different from the solution of a much wider problem that includes mexicans west indians are colombians i'm not by the way is not just an american problem we're seeing a doll one wide but the question you have to ask is what if haiti was a pure democracy would the situation be dramatically different in terms all the peasantry and haiti's eighty percent present my answer to that is no we would not be because the situation in haiti has been deteriorating for two hundred

years in this sense but the pressure of mine on that land and haiti has an extremely well distributed land system sixty percent of this eighty percent rule coke all their own plot of land land is very significant to the present but that plan has been eroding patients use the wood for firewood or charcoal for billing bolts would believe their houses and the production of the plan has been decreasing dramatically virtually every project that i have studied whether it is in our record show or in fisheries shows very low returns the population is not growing very fast their population goals in haiti is only about one point eight one point nine which is north of the third world but nevertheless it is hitting between five and six million people now we study only the movement goes on part of what the movement into the minute the republic is a very significant and potentially in the future are politically a very important one else so would you say that

the economic motives for leaving is so strong that to let any political repression our view that is irrelevant what i meant to say is irrelevant are because it on vcr and it might be in a certain percentage of the cases but immediately we sell the percentage of the cases were legitimate political refugees and to whom one of paul's past to afford the rise of political refugees according to united nations and to do that were seen as this is a cemetery here with want the bills that percentage and rocco is still leaves the last mass that was so let me give an example of what my interpretation is why do they come in nineteen seventy two the south florida after all of that what is being there for a much longer period of time and you cannot explain the nineties and the two went by the presence of the way the situation was that they had been moving into the bahamas for a very long period time one bahamian economy was developing wants about him in economy went into decline which was in the early seventies especially in the free

border area they then moved all what the south florida they establish the community itself larger leadership table in your community where you have some three hundred thousand patients since a very well established community new york is much the preferred destination for patients was the community was established word went out because it tends to happen in live in communities that miami was a good place you have what though a sociologist fourth is called the social network people now have a place to come to rwanda the head i start that then generates the smuggling business which is an animal and a massive part of the movement and i'm outside of very exploited a lot of the movement years how bad are the economic conditions for the average patient who comes to the united states what what is he leaving well he lives a situation and roll haiti of course it varies in the solitary up at the man is still fertile and they're still production but empty out

that when even the central arizona has given by region in the central areas on the northwest areas also in the northeast and on the island and some of the other coastal areas the situation is really quite a desperate bed all indications are that nutrition and per capita consumption is going bald i have a lot of the fears in terms of fish consumption that there's this is not very productive and fish and the situation is quite desperate indeed nevertheless somehow they managed to scrape together the one thousand up to two thousand dollars for the trip to miami and as i think has generated a system of gangs terrorism in which doles is are paid by lance i paid by land by of course that's less nurturing it all they have and since most of them do have lamb lamb is what they put as mortgage so to speak as collateral now issues are extraordinarily hard work and people

are known for their honesty and consequently they stick your work very rapidly and that explains that the remittances fall haitians abroad to haiti are calculated to be in the area of a hundred million dollars a year right to work under him finally the official position of the united states government from gavin mcintyre the state department's office of caribbean affairs is a career foreign service officer and a four a professor of economics and political science but macintyre added that both slid past the coast guard last mile of fifty four nations org i don't think that it can be characterized as character recall that the year the coast guard ship only women stationed in this particular endeavor on sunday night probably took that vote a considerably longer period of time to get to florida and the indications are that may not even have come from haiti it may in fact comfortable thomas i was sitting and now they're the old guard cutter halibut is not intercepted initially no it has not but i think one point that needs to be made is that that this is in no sense a blockade of haiti nor is it intended to stop

every vessel deporting haiti it is an attempt of targeted on the traffickers mentioned by professor michio vaguest this unscrupulous trafficking in illegal migrants are where people are going to work at an actually recruit people at the price of their land and bring them to the united states promising them entry jobs etc it is targeted on those vessels many of which we we're the coast guard at least has a profile of ice familiar with and that that will be looking for an apparently those none of those vessels to date has been has been stopped and now all of this is being done with full agreement of the haitian government yes it is said there is a bilateral agreement with the government of haiti on this point that we give at in return for this agreement absolutely nothing i'm not specifically for this agreement there was no as you would say any quid pro quo it has recognized its responsibility to its own

citizens in this regard had to prevent their attempt to illegally migrate to the united states and has agreed to as it always has it has agreed to accept back thirty patients repatriated were illegally resident in the bahamas and when we have had patients living in united states who were to be repatriated ad is always agree to accept them back and this is a i think just a further evidence of its good faith in this regard you accept though mr mendoza says what the economic conditions are in haiti now i think is essentially accurate much money as the united states giving up i in this fiscal year we're providing somewhere in the vicinity of twenty nine million dollars of assistance that is under constant review as to how it is spent i would say that that was one point that i would make a very emphatically is that much of that aid and assistance to haiti is that it's not only food aid but is being focused in precisely those areas from which the majority of migrants

seem to come it in the northeast in a northwestern areas and it is it in the aig has said he is attending and has attempted to help provide that aid through private voluntary organizations and through projects that are labor intensive and provide employment to work two nations of the war well it is working in so far is as the situation allows it is it in this provision as reporter pointed out it sits in a very difficult situation it is a situation that is an economic situation that has been deterioration for many many years at the force did get heavily eroded i think even massive amounts of a dead of whatever size would not have an effect in the media were short term if the united states continues to take possession of it has witches that these folks are economic wreckage in the economic situation is difficult in haiti why then is the united states not contemplating nasty day well twenty nine million dollars given that and given our year given our relatively scarce at resources worldwide i think is a considerable

amount of a big ad age and he also received aid from from other international donors and international financial institutions in in terms of the aid that we provide worldwide i think it is a significant amount on the other side of the argument is you know mr mcintyre is that even the twenty nine million dollars that the united states gives a hundred and thirty six million i think this poll i read today that loophole of data that money in a rat hole it doesn't really go those people needed that well that's not really accurate that of course there are there are there have been instances in which sherrod irregularities are taking place i think that's that said understandable and probably not totally inaccurate but that as i pointed out these aid programs are very carefully controlled bb eight aig has as for years develop the mechanisms to make sure that these that these aid funds and he saved money to go to the aid to the people for whom their intent and both through while private voluntary organizations and through the aid mechanism

itself and carefully monitored programs and projects and moreover i think it's it's important to note that says these are labor intensive most of these projects are in fact labor intensive projects they do in fact provide employment to many haitians and end well being within the economy and so forth as possible within our limited aid resources worldwide you're mr dominic story at the beginning as along with the rest of a serve the story that his own personal story about what happened to israel station told the story in his new radio station was closed them the report is that political repression well that's certainly one thing to be called i think however that what we need to point out here is that as recently for instance as a late this summer a number of people who had gotten into political difficulties with the regimes are various things that they had published about were given a trial

a fair trial and a haitian law and then were sentenced fairly under haitian law our embassy paid close attention to the trial and there i think it was it needed a better way to say it is that there are political difficulties in haiti but at the same time there is an opposition newspaper and he there is legitimate political opposition he bought and that that to characterize the vast majority of people who party as political refugees fleeing a dictatorial regime is simply not accurate do you agree with me that it may be a problem no i don't think that's the case anymore then for instance if we are to define it is weird to find people as political refugees we're debasing the coinage that the concept of political refugees a very exact concept art and unless we're willing to accept the idea that everyone that out which is to better himself and comes from a country where the standard of living is lower than the united states has a right to come to the united states as a

political refugee and just completely dreamed of meaning the cancer political refugee i think that those consequences are something that we're not prepared to accept as a nation what is it were argument that the political nature of this regime is forcing these people out of the country on your own you intend to put the thing on a large scale isaac joins wallace to florida track off the pay isn't leaving is to land an ally lefties glad you must we landed the pins and rods and when he's forced to leave we wanted it drives to know what forces will be kind of our workforce is working and serving in the court the mock wanted to take the lead and we investigated not i had a case of open his office close to cooperate here its very

fertile land the land of the colony and your results may be isn't what to regulate the department of justice to be clear that section such as sir mike or jerry of the piece to guide by the mott welfare seen him i didn't get some time the same way we wouldn't let me that that it and then least of justice ms doherty it was this is now russia's hang on a case that's one of the only case we investigate and how many comedy cases were there wherever you're aware that was happening ari nineteen seventy nine i can tell you that the eve we feel for weeks there was a piece there it doesn't of gays ruin investigating in the northwest in the naughty naughty witty play yourself mr macintyre does the state department have the state

department looked into any of these cases yes a number of them and i think that that me give a couple of figures that the the idea that they're that people a prosecutor persecutor harassed upon their return to haiti for instance is simply not credible our last year twenty three hundred haitians were returned from the bahamas to haiti the embassy to pay close attention to these people to return they were met by the red cross and there has not been a single instance reported and end the embassy as why context at all levels of the haitian community in haiti it's not been a single instance reported in which at eight a person was persecuted prosecuted or harassed for having deported or for having returned assist our good jew i answer my question about as the state department any era looked into any record of cases like the ones mr dominic of talking where thousands were forced by the tonton macoute to sell their lamb and then emigrated mentally when we heard these reports and andy we have investigated them in afghanistan we have

that we have the decisive or embassy is not such that we can now massive investigations in a foreign country of these kinds of reports but insofar as our resources allowed us to add we did investigate the reports that we've heard the version which we reported reporting here and there there doesn't seem to be any any basis to it it's it's it's it's going around in terms of rumor but there's not been a single documented case of that that we've been able to discover mr nations what i do i realize of course that haitian politics is a model for haitians and i am perfectly willing to assert the midst of the medics interpretation of that ah ah but i didn't i say it there is of course political repression in many countries and there's no doubt in my mind that it has in haiti which is a dictatorship but i don't see that that is the main problem is the main problem is a much broader one and i think it is both a question of american immigration policy

and the sovereign right of this country to control its immigration policy the danger is all an appearance of an inability to control a lot of very serious to a democracy but also another plaque and i wanna take issue with a spokesman for the state department the body a bit get something out of this he got the united states too talk to him and this represents a very real threat on it was witness in the case of money and do what they use all the large migrations as a political weapon in international relations is looming on the horizon just to me one of the most grotesque violations of human rights i'm sorry i have to interrupt you if there's a mango but that is the end of our time and i thank you for joining us from tallahassee to mcintyre in washington thank you nominee thank you you imagine that's often i actually back tomorrow night i'm robert mcneil

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