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“HAITI” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H2356-H2361 on April 22, 2004.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
HAITI
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Burns). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, once again, it is a great honor to address the House of Representatives and the American people on a recent armed services trip that I took to Haiti and also talk about Haiti and the U.S. relations as we move forth from this point on.
Many Americans understand the changes that Haiti has gone through and the Haitian people, but tonight I wanted to share a few things because many times we hear on the news and read in the newspaper about what is going on in Port-au-Prince, Haiti; what happened today in Port-au-
Prince, Haiti; what happened as it relates to government, a lack of a parliament and the legislature in Haiti; an interim government in Haiti; what is happening as relates to AIDS and HIV in Haiti; also, as it pertains to hunger in Haiti and transportation. I think it is so very, very important, since Haiti had so much to do and does have so much to do with our very own independence.
Haiti took part in helping us fight for our own independence. ``Us'' is the United States of America. There are many Haitian Americans that are playing vital roles not only in our government but also in our democracy here in the United States, and I must say that this is a very pivotal time for Haiti. So I would ask the American people and Members of the Congress to just take a moment and pay attention to some of the things that I would like to share with my colleagues this evening to talk about this country, and I am going to have a map put up here beside me talking about why it is important that the United States of America plays a very strong role in not the rebuilding of Haiti but the building of Haiti, a country that is comprised of people that work every day, a country that wants to continue to move forth as a democracy, and I am going to address that. I am going to continue to address the issue of democracy because democracy is very, very important.
As my colleagues know, many thousands of miles away from the United States of America we are working hard to create and to also maintain democracies throughout the world; but I will tell my colleagues, as it relates to Haiti being in our own hemisphere, being the poorest country in our hemisphere, in the Caribbean, the very same Caribbean, I myself being from Miami, cruise ship capital of the world, many Americans and people throughout the world cruise the Caribbean for celebration, relaxation and sun; but Haiti that sits in the middle of our Caribbean, northern Caribbean, is a country that is in desperate need of assistance.
With the United States being the largest, most vibrant free society on the face of the Earth, the richest country on the face of the Earth, we are doing, in my opinion, more to Haiti than for Haiti; and that is the reason why we have to go through a paradigm shift.
First of all, I just would like to point out here, Haiti is actually only 600 miles away from the United States; and as we start talking about Haiti, we have to look at the Bahamas. That is up here. That is our friend and ally that has been really working with the United States as it relates to making sure that we not only stop the flow of illegal narcotics but also the flow of illegal immigrants to the United States of America. We have Jamaica down here that has also been very helpful to the United States in making sure that we fight the war against drugs and also illegal immigration.
I think it is very important for us to understand, 600 miles away, Cuba is actually 90 miles away, and we have many Haitians that are looking for safe harbor in the United States due to political persecution. I just want to talk for a moment, since we know exactly where Haiti is now and we know exactly where it sits as it relates to our own homeland security and where it sits as it relates to our responsibility of being able to assist Haiti as much as possible with the United Nations, I want to just share a few things with my colleagues.
Last Tuesday, I took the opportunity to travel to Haiti along with Senator Bill Nelson of Florida and also General Hill of SouthCom, who I think the commander of Southern Command is doing an outstanding job. He has a number of Marines that are there as a part of the international force to bring about peace in Haiti, and they are doing the best job that they can do under the circumstances. There are also French troops that are there in the north.
General Hill and I, we flew to northern Haiti. We actually flew to three cities in northern Haiti, and these cities are small cities but large as it relates to the population in Haiti.
The first place we traveled to was Fort Liberte, which is a city of over 5,000 people. French troops are up here securing this area of Haiti. It is close to the Dominican border, and there are a number of poor individuals there that are mainly fishermen and peasants. We walked through the streets of this city, dirt roads, and spoke to everyday Haitians; and I was stopped by a father that had two daughters that were dressed the same. They had matching umbrellas, in the heat of the day. This is Haitian time, maybe around 10:30, eleven o'clock. It was lunchtime. He was walking his daughters home, and I asked him how is life, through an interpreter, and he said, well, it is quite difficult because we have not had power in our city since December of last year.
Being from Miami and understanding hurricanes and disasters and power being knocked out, it is very difficult to survive. It is very difficult to be able to maintain some level of normalcy without having power and utilities; and that is so very, very important. It is an area that we have to make sure that we get more humanitarian assistance in the area of food, also in the area of clean drinking water; and definitely electricity should be provided up in this area.
We then moved from Fort Liberte that we see here over to Cap Haitian, which is also a border area. It is not a border area, but they have a port that is there, a deep water port that could be open for commerce, but right now the main business that they have now is humanitarian aid that actually comes in from that particular area. They have the World Food Programme that is there in that area that is providing meals every day. The population there is approximately 100,000 Haitians.
I met with representatives from the Catholic Relief Services and also the archdiocese of Cap Haitian and from the World Food Programme. I also met with local school educators, which it was a very good meeting that we had, also a representative from a local orphanage.
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We met there at the airport, and I must say that when we met there, it was more like an airport hangar. And in that region of Haiti, it is still a very dangerous region. Rebel forces still control half of Haiti. Now, I am not saying that rebel forces are violent or not violent, but what I am saying is that danger is still present there in Cap Haitien and throughout certain parts of Haiti. Even though we have French troops in the area, there is still a level of danger that is there.
We met with the school representatives that were there, the principal of a primary elementary school and also a principal of a number of the high schools that we would call our ninth grade through twelfth grade experience. They both said that they have the issues of power. This is a major, major issue in this country, and Haiti has to have some level of commerce, some level of economic development to be able to help itself. And I think for very little investment from the United Nations and from the United States of America we can achieve that.
So we had the opportunity to meet for about an hour and 15 minutes while General Hill moved on, meeting with the French troops, making sure our coalition is strong there in order to provide the right atmosphere for another larger United Nations force to take over.
I also spoke with one of the representatives from the archdiocese of the Catholic Church, and Catholic Relief Services, and he spoke to me in Creole, and through an interpreter he said, Congressman, that is fine. It is fine that you are here. We are glad that you are here. But we have had other visitors from the United States of America, though this was the first time he said he had personally met with a Member of Congress. But people come and people go, and Haitians are used to hearing, using his words, oh, this is wonderful; and, yes, we will take our notes, and we appreciated the meeting, and we will be back. And he said many people board planes and boats, and they leave, and they never see them ever again.
But this issue of hunger, the issue of the lack of having the opportunity to build jobs, the issue of children needing to be educated are very important. This is a very fertile area for economic development. We can put local peasants to work. And I am going to come back to that a little later on.
We moved from Cap Haitien by helicopter, a very mountainous area along this area between Cap Haitien and the city of Gonaives. Gonaives is an interesting city because this is where the rebellion started, right here in Gonaives, which many of the rebels are still there in that city. It is a very dangerous place.
The security responsibility of Gonaives is in the hands of the French troops that are there, and I commend those men and women that are there serving on behalf of the United Nations' international presence. I met with representatives of the CARE organization, which is one of the three to four providers that provide food through USAID, and he shared with me that, once again, energy, power, being able to keep the lights on in Haiti, in Gonaives, why power is so important; because, guess what, it generates clean drinking water.
They have four pumps in that city. Three of them work, but one of them needs repairs. These are very small things. These are issues that usually a city government or a county government may have an issue, and they appropriate a very small number of dollars towards repairing that, and the problem is solved. But fuel and petroleum is an issue in Haiti right now because of the lack of power. In Haiti they have to use gas generators, which is very expensive, so this means some days the pumps work, and other days they do not work.
They also provide meals for 60,000 people in this city of 200,000 people, which he said they can do a lot more. It is 70 miles northwest of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Now, one would say, why would you have to travel by helicopter? Well, Haiti is a very mountainous area, and the roads in Haiti, if Americans have experienced a dirt road experience, magnify that by 10 times. The best built road in Haiti was built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers in 1994. So it is very, very difficult to travel from Port-au-Prince to Gonaives.
We returned back on that Tuesday, back to Port-au-Prince, and flew back to Miami, Florida. Senator Nelson flew back to South America on another mission. The reason why we could not stay overnight in Haiti, my colleagues, was due to the fact that they still have a departure order in Haiti. It is that dangerous. It is so dangerous that even myself, a Member of Congress, not only had U.S. Marine security but State Department security on top of that and Haitian national police security.
Imagine. I can walk down the streets of the United States of America, even here in Washington, D.C., without security. I might be a little security-conscious, but without physical security, and without M-5 semiautomatic machine guns, but I cannot stay overnight in Haiti. The State Department will not allow me to stay overnight in Haiti. So imagine some who may feel any credible claim of fear or persecution, imagine what they may feel without security, without having armored vehicles to ride around the streets of Port-au-Prince in.
So we flew back to Miami Wednesday, stayed there, Thursday returned back to Haiti and spent that day, all day, in Port-au-Prince, and met with the USAID mission that is there, Director David Adams, who I believe is doing an outstanding job. And I want to say not only to his staff but to the administrators here with USAID, you could not have a better, more committed staff in Haiti than what you have under the leadership of Director Adams. He is emotionally attached to the work. But they need more resources to be able to do the things they need to do to develop jobs in Haiti, and I will address that in a few seconds.
I think it is important for us to remember that we have a lot of people doing great things in Haiti, but more needs to be done. We met with nongovernmental organizations from Haiti's southern claw.
Now, let me just point out the southern claw of Haiti. This looks pretty much like a lobster claw or a crab claw, but this is the southern claw. This is Port-au-Prince, Haiti, the capital, where the Presidential palace is located. You hear a lot about events taking place here. Port-au-Prince, Haiti, is the most populated city in Haiti, and it is its nation's capital. There is the southern claw, along this area here, south of Port-au-Prince.
This southern claw is not secured yet. This southern claw is still controlled by rebel forces. This southern claw is where many Haitians are hungry. This southern claw is where there is no power at all to be able to stimulate any level of sensible adult education, any level of humanitarian assistance. Everything is run by generator in the southern claw.
We have to remember that because I am going to talk a little about migration and the reason why Haitians leave Haiti. And I think it is important that we remember and we set the stage for the environment that they have to live in and the environment that we allow them to live in, because they are the poorest country in our hemisphere. We seem to have more interest in areas thousands and thousands of miles away, while we have this democracy, as shaky as it may be, with hungry, starving people, and very little assistance from the U.S. or from the U.N.
This is an area that can be very vibrant and prosperous, much more prosperous than what it is right now. Prosperity is only in pride in Haiti. There are very few numbers of individuals that have wealth in Haiti. The average per capita income of the everyday Haitian is a little bit over $400. That is a year; $400 in U.S. money is the per capita income for the average Haitian. And we will talk about that a little later.
But there is only one road down into the southern claw, my colleagues, and that road is not a secured road. The CMOC that is located there, which is operated by Southern Command, provides the very gateway or security for humanitarian efforts to make it to the southern claw and some parts of northern Haiti. The U.S. has security responsibility for Port-au-Prince only at this particular time. There are plans to move into the southern claw to be able to provide the kind of humanitarian assistance and health assistance that is needed there.
CMOC is an acronym which stands for the Civil Military Operations Center. This center was once located in 1994 when the Army was there, the 82nd Airborne. CMOCs are set up in many areas in Iraq, which has the largest CMOC. The CMOC in Haiti is a very small operation, and it brings together nongovernmental organizations where they work hand in hand with USAID.
Once again, the staff that is down there at that CMOC, which is mainly run by a gentleman that is a reservist, a colonel, is doing an outstanding job there. I met with Major Ray, who gave us an overview of the activities of the CMOC there, and my hat is off to those individuals, those patriots that are trying to provide just common things for the Haitian people and the plans they have there of being able to try to assist Haitians restore some level of health care in Port-au-Prince, and also making sure that nongovernmental organizations have a way to be able to carry food and the necessary cooking oil, things of that nature, to the southern claw of Haiti. I commend them.
The United Nations Development Program office tells me that the residents there are really looking forward, and they are continuing to engage the citizens of Haiti as it pertains to learning more about how the United Nations can play a role in humanitarian and economic development there. I would use the philosophy of not giving fish, but teaching how to fish. But I must say to the American people and to Members of Congress, the Haitian people are very creative people, so we do not necessarily need to teach them how to fish, we just have to provide the very essentials for them to go ahead and move forward with their entrepreneurial spirit to provide jobs in Haiti.
I want to share with my colleagues a few more facts about Haiti, and then I must talk about immigration, because that is the main thrust of the interest of our country. It seems to be the main thrust of the administration, any administration, because of illegal immigration and those individuals who take to the sea, and who our Coast Guard rescue many times.
I showed this map that had Florida in it. It is 600 miles to Florida from Haiti, and 90 miles from Cuba. When I was flying over in either a plane or helicopter, 20 feet out of shore, and many of the Members of Congress who are sports enthusiasts or are into water sports or fishing can understand what I mean when I say the deep blue water, it was deep blue water. That means that once you fall in it, you cannot touch the bottom. We have lost thousands, not hundreds but thousands, of Haitians trying to escape political persecution in Haiti.
I commend the Coast Guard for the work that they have tried to do to prevent the loss of life, but they also have a job to do, and they have been ordered to do it and they are doing it. I will also talk about that.
First, however, I want to share a little about the U.S. involvement. The reason why I am here today is to make sure that we have a paradigm shift in our policy as relates to Haiti. The U.S. involvement goes back to 1915 and 1934, when we occupied Haiti. The U.S. helped set up the Haitian Coast Guard. We built the embassy there during that period. We built the ambassador's residence during that period, and Ambassador Foley, James Foley, I believe, is trying to do the best that he can do under the circumstances.
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He is going to need the help of this Congress to be able to carry out the effort in Haiti.
In 1994, the U.N. multinational force, led by the United States of America, military intervention eventually worked towards the return of President Aristide. We were there for a very short time. I must say a lot was done during that period, but not one U.S. soldier lost his or her life during that period because, contrary to what one may hear on television or read in the paper, the Haitian people are very peaceful. There are a few that create thuggery in Haiti and give Haiti a black eye that it does not deserve.
On February 23 of this year, the U.S. sent U.S. Marines to secure U.S. facilities, which was a fast response team. In March 2004, as a part of a U.N.-backed force, the United States, Canadians, French and Chileans restored and maintained order of Haiti. My hat is off to those individuals who served. We had a Marine injured in an ambush. Marines returned fire, and three or four individuals have been killed that have tried to attack our men and women in uniform.
Secondly, as it relates to power in Port-au-Prince alone, the capital city, the largest city, the Marines and SouthCom, and once again I cannot say enough about them and what they are trying to do there, did an assessment of the needs of electricity in Haiti because it means so much. It goes towards the security of Haiti. Just imagine if you did not have lights in your neighborhood, what kind of safety, what kind of level of safety would you have in your neighborhood, let alone a sense of community or a community that would like to thrive. This was done by SouthCom, this report here that was given to the Prime Minister, saying his number one goal should be to ask for international assistance to get their energy facilities up to date. This can be done for $1.8 million.
When we look at the size of Port-au-Prince, and for Members who are engineers, you know for $1.8 million that is a very small price tag to repair the power resources in Port-Au-Prince alone. Port-au-Prince, Haiti, is not just the capital city; it is the heartbeat of the economy of Haiti. It is also the area we have to secure.
There is a city called Cite Soleil, which is more like what one would call squatters. They are tin roofs. In the country and heartland of America, you may have a barn with a tin roof. That makes the four walls and the top of the houses in Cite Soleil. Some of the most violent gangs are in the Cite Soleil. It is important that we understand that we have to provide power or have to make sure they have power in this city because usually when the violence starts, it starts in Port-au-
Prince, Haiti. That is why we hear so much about Port-au-Prince, Haiti. We should be hearing about the hard-working people in Haiti, but we will not hear that unless we target to restore and repair power there.
There are U.S. corporations in Port-au-Prince in the industrial part, which the HERO bill here in this Congress, represented by Members in this body and the other body, to provide not only trade opportunities with Haiti, but to also generate jobs within Haiti. One of the main cities that would benefit from that would be Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
I think what is also very, very important for us to discuss here is the issue of immigration. This is the very center I believe of the reason why we have to do the right thing now. There are a number of issues that are going on here on this island. We also have the drug trade, not Haitians growing poppy plants. Haitians are not growing marijuana plants or any other thing that may create some sort of illegal substance or illegal drug, but because of the lack of an economy in Haiti, drug lords have found not safe haven, but an opportunity to thrive as a point where they can take their drugs to move to the next area.
I want to bring my other chart back up because I think it is important that we understand what we are dealing with here.
We have Haiti here and within 600 miles to Miami, Florida. It is maybe even a shorter distance to Key West and what we call here the Gold Coast. As we see the Bahama islands, and there are over 700 Bahama islands, we have Cuba here. Drug dealers try to find some way to work in Haiti due to the lack of an economy. If we want to head off what we are dealing with in Colombia and some other parts of the southern hemisphere, we should do the right thing as it relates to the economy.
But also what comes along with drugs is, what, violence. What happens especially when you do not have police, when you do not have individuals that are provided jobs, then you will have a very small population of individuals that are gangs that will take control and will arm themselves and will end up giving the government the problems that they have now.
I said I was going to go back to the Coast Guard, and I think it is important. I do not want Members to feel that the Coast Guard is doing something wrong; they are doing everything right in my opinion. They are doing what they are told. Being a member of the Committee on the Armed Services, the Coast Guard carries out their orders. They report to the committee I serve on as it relates to the Select Committee on Homeland Security; but as it relates to U.S. policy towards Haitians that are interdicted at sea, it is not just, it is not fair and it is a violation of international law, period. No qualms about it.
Let me just share something with Members. This is not even what has happened over the last few years. The Coast Guard in January of 2004 intercepted and repatriated 113 Haitians. In February of 2004, they intercepted 1,076 Haitians, but only 11 out of 1,076 Haitians actually were found to have a credible claim of fear of persecution. Eleven out of 1,076. That means 1,065 went back to Haiti, and they were repatriated in Port-au-Prince. A lot of them were leaving because of political persecution. They were paraded right through Port-au-Prince. Many of them left from the northern and southern claw of Haiti, trying to escape political persecution; and they were repatriated. We do not know if those individuals made it home or did not. It is a violation of international law for us to do that.
Now, I said that to say this, what is important for us to do here in this Congress, the most important thing that we can do is to make sure that we appropriate the necessary dollars, just like we appropriate throughout the world. We have Members saying we have our own issues and we have the deficit and other things. Let me say I am overly concerned as relates to the deficit. I do not take pride as it relates to being in the 108th Congress, and history will say I was in Congress when we had the highest deficit in the history of the country, the history of the Republic. But at the same time we are giving international assistance to other countries, in the billions and in the millions. Haiti is slated to receive in the millions, a very small number as it relates to the big numbers that many of the other countries are receiving.
There will be an appropriations amendment to ask for $50 million for Haiti. The President has asked for $20 million, and some of that is in in-kind contributions, not necessarily hard dollars. It is important for the U.S. to be able to appropriate more than what the President has asked for for Haiti for two reasons. One, we cannot carry out acts of repatriating over 1,076 Haitians and say there is no real reason, you are leaving for other reasons. The 11 that had credible claims of fear, they are not in the United States; they are in Guantanamo Bay along with the terrorists from the Middle East, the enemy combatants that are jailed and are an issue before the Supreme Court right now.
So if we do not want Haitians coming over to the United States of America, if we do not want Haitians risking their lives, and we no longer want to see on the nightly news 300 Haitians falling in the middle of the Gulf Stream, and one may see with the Gulf Stream right off the coast of Florida where they will go on and on and we will never find these individuals, if we do not want that to happen, we should have more thrust to make sure we do right in Haiti. I want to say it is very, very important that we do this.
Mr. Speaker, I will be leaving, along with a bipartisan delegation, at 7:20 a.m. from Andrews Air Force Base to fly to Haiti and meet with Haitian government officials, those who we may call stewards of democracy at this time. But it is a very, very important message that we are sending to the Haitian Government, and that is they have to rule with a level hand.
To the ministers, the Prime Minister, I have not met with the President, maybe we will do that tomorrow, but it is important if they are going to set out warrants for members of the Lavalas Party and for the Aristide government, the interior minister has already been jailed of the Aristide government, if you are going to do that, I have no qualms about you carrying out the rule of law. But if you are putting out warrants there, you have to put out warrants for the arrest of individuals who are in the rebel forces and other parties that we know and they are known criminals and are carrying out daily acts of thuggery throughout Haiti.
There are some Members in this body that will cut off dollars, assistance dollars, if the Haitian Government does not stand for equality in making sure that we have security for all Haitians. The backdrop of American people is making sure that we set forth an environment for elections. Right now in Haiti they do not have this democracy that we celebrate here this evening, this Congress that allows representatives from different parts of Haiti to come to the capital to represent their constituents.
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They no longer have a parliament. They no longer have an elected president. They no longer are able to have mayors in their cities. Many of the cities are mayorless, without leadership; and so it is important that we set the security stage, that we help Haiti set the policy stage of making sure that we are able to have those elections so they can move forth.
So on this 200th bicentennial of Haiti's history and future, this country that was one of the first countries to get its own independence, Haitians. I share with the Prime Minister, who is a Haitian who was living in Boca Raton, Florida, in my State, that his role in this government in this time in this place will speak for the next 200 years. By the agreement of the Prime Minister's being in the office that he is in, he can no longer run for office in Haiti. He cannot run for office in Haiti. He cannot move on to the next government that hopefully will be elected. He cannot take part in that. So he has an opportunity to be an honest broker. The people around him in the ministry have an opportunity to be honest brokers of making sure that Haitians get a fair opportunity to have power, to be able to stimulate an economy in Haiti, and to be able to work with the international community to provide the kind of assistance that the Haitian people deserve.
Mr. Speaker, if anyone has traveled to Haiti, and I will tell the Members right now, it cannot help but pull on their heart to see people living under those circumstances and those conditions to do the things that they do day in and day out, to lay flat down and attend house that is clean, which may be the ground but it is swept, living under those conditions of not being able to have the clean water that they need, having electricity, but every day they try to send their children to school. Ninety-five percent of the schools in Haiti are privatized. USAID is building schools. We commend them for that. But the missions and things of that nature are providing an opportunity for them to educate themselves. But I can say, Mr. Speaker, that it is so very important.
So if we are concerned about Haitians coming to the United States illegally trying to escape political persecution because of thuggery in their local town or city, then we should have an effort here in Haiti to make sure that we provide the best environment possible for this country.
We are providing food, yes. We are providing medicine, yes. Are we helping Haiti as it relates to HIV and AIDS? Of course we are. But those are issues of providing fish, not providing the resources so that they can go and fish for themselves.
There are some countries that we have been in in Europe since World War II, Mr. Speaker. It is important that we do it right this time so that we do not have to deploy U.S. troops, so that we do not have to call in Reservists to go because our military is stretched too thin, so that we do not have to have emergency orders through the Security Council at the UN. It is very important.
The gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks), no relation to me, also represents a large concentration. I have the highest concentration of Haitians in my district, Haitian Americans. He has the second largest in New York.
I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. MEEKS of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) for his leadership and for his courageous battle to make sure that the people of Haiti are not forgotten, and that is really what this is all about, and that is why the leadership of the gentleman from Florida's focus has been not on the politics, not on what is in the best interest of this one or that one. His focus has been on what can we do for those people, those average everyday citizens that live in Haiti who have dreams and aspirations just like we do, who all they want is for their children to be able to have a better life, to be able to get an education, to be able to go to work to provide a living so that they can have a family themselves and live a life that is a life that is free of violence and that is free of the deprivation of food and human rights violations. And that is what this is really all about. It is about people.
And I am going to travel with the gentleman because he is going, and I know there is a bipartisan CODEL that will be leaving for Haiti tomorrow morning, and I have decided to change my schedule based upon his courageous trip that he has already taken, that he already visited, and he has gone out to not just the big cities. He has gone out to the side roads. He has gone out to the rural areas. He has gone out to where the people are.
And I want to just get a chance to get a feel of that so that we can make sure when we come back here that we can implement a kind of program and a kind of attention on Haiti that does not last just for 6 months, just for 1 year or 2 years, but something where it is sustained, 10, 15, 20 years, to establish a true and strong democratic institution, not for the United States of America, quite frankly, not for Canada, not for France, not for anybody else, but for the people of Haiti, that little country that is connected to the island of Hispaniola. We need to make sure that we do something for those people, and I just appreciate the gentleman's leadership on that.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I just want to say to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks) quickly that I appreciate his speaking out not only here on the floor of this great House of Representatives but also speaking out in the halls of Congress. As the gentleman knows, we partner in a bipartisan effort to try to do what is best for Haiti. Regardless of the politics, regardless of who is in control, we are supporters; and I know that he joins me in that, of democracy. And the only way we are going to get to truly elect a democracy is making sure that we bring the level of safety, number one, up in Haiti; number two, set the real stage for elections, which the United Nations is going to play a role in it.
And I am glad that he points out the fact that we are not trying to impose anything on the Haitian people. We want to make sure that we are there to be the bridge for the Haitian people to move forth and elect its government. And the interim government that is in there that, I must add, cannot continue on past the 2005 elections, that is in the agreement, that they have the necessary tools to be able to provide some of the things that I talked about here tonight. But it is good to have not only a partner like the gentleman from New York but someone who is willing to look at the big picture on behalf of the Haitian people. That is just the bottom line.
Mr. MEEKS of New York. That is it, Mr. Speaker. I think if we do not create the kind of democratic institutions and help them go along, and not just America, I think that he said it absolutely right. Not just us, but with the help of the United Nations, with them involved, so that we can create a climate of security. Because only if they have security can they have elections, and then only with elections can they have a true democratic government. And I do not like to get into these comparisons to Haiti and Iraq and things of that nature. We know that there are substantial differences. But one thing that is clear is there is a question as to what people of Iraq want and wanted. There is no question as to what the people want. Yes, they want us and they want the United Nations there to help them. They are begging for us to do this. So this is not something that is imposed, and they are just saying, if you give us the window of opportunity to create a secure environment, we know what we want to do and we just need that kind of help, not just for a day or for a week, as I said, but where it is a continuous help, and just help us get on par with the Dominican Republic, for example. Forget being another United States.
Help us so that when it is time to negotiate trade agreements when we are doing the FTAA that we as a country can take advantage of it and we can create the jobs. As the gentleman appropriately said, we can fish on our own.
So we are moving now. We have got the FTAA coming. We have got some other pieces dealing with the Caribbean Basin Initiative. We have got various other trade agreements. And if we do not help now, these people could be left out. But if we help now, they can be included in. And guess what? It will be short-term pain for us for long-term gain for everybody because then they will not be dependent upon us. Our troops will not be necessary there. They then will become a prosperous neighbor, and we do not have to worry about people coming over in a boat trying to get to our Nation, trying to flee an island that should be one of the most beautiful islands in all of the Caribbean. That is what this is all about.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, they have some of the best beaches in the world, and the cruise ships used to go there all the time. Now there is a little small part of Haiti on the northern tip that is gated, secured, and they go there.
Does the gentleman from New York wish to share with us anything else this evening? Because I am going to close because I know we have an early morning and we have other Members who have to address the House.
Mr. MEEKS of New York. Mr. Speaker, I will close with this: I will follow his leadership. He has been a great leader, and I think that the people of Miami, but more importantly, the people of Haiti, are well served by his leadership. I think he is doing this not in a political way, but in a bipartisan manner; and I look forward to being with him in the morning.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I cannot tell the gentleman how much I appreciate his saying that. I hope my mother was watching, who is a past Member of this body. Hopefully, she will see how important and how my colleagues think of me. I thank the gentleman from coming down.
I just want to say this very quickly in closing, Mr. Speaker, that it is very important we do what is right on behalf of this Nation. It is very important, if we are going to have a policy and interdict Haitians at sea and we want to save lives so that the Coast Guard will not have to pick bodies out floating face down around the waters of Haiti and between the United States of America that we provide the kind of atmosphere for economic development, and I would also say to the Members that it is vitally important that we continue to pay very close attention in a bipartisan way and do what is right on behalf of this nation that helped us fight for our independence.
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