Haiti-On the Border7-27-1994
7-27-1994
^U.S. Wants To Patrol Border to Tighten Sanctions
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
CROIX-DES-BOUQUETS, Haiti (AP) _ In daylight, the once-busy road leading from Haiti's capital to its only international border is nearly empty.
Things change after nightfall, local residents say. Trucks rumble along the two-lane blacktop, carrying gasoline and other contraband barred by the international trade embargo that has cut most air and sea traffic to Haiti.
The United States, in an effort to slam the door on the overland route, wants to patrol the Dominican Republic side of the border with military helicopters. At stake is the success of the embargo, and perhaps whether President Clinton orders an invasion of Haiti.
Clinton has said an invasion is an option if the embargo fails to force Haiti's military to resign and allow the return of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, ousted in a 1991 coup. Clinton has backed up his threat by sending 2,800 Marines aboard a fleet of warships to waters off Haiti.
U.S. military brass met with officials in the Dominican Republic last week to set up the surveillance operation on Haiti's border with the Dominican Republic. But no agreement to allow the deployment has been signed yet between the United States and the Dominican Republic, U.S. diplomats said.
The Dominican government may be stalling.
President Joaquin Balaguer, who has close ties with Haiti's military and business elite, has never supported sanctions, although he has promised to enforce them. Balaguer and most other Dominicans fear they risk a wave of Haitians crossing the border in search of food and work if the embargo is fully implemented.
Also, the diplomats said, the surveillance is such a sensitive political issue that no permission can be expected until after a winner is declared in the May 16 presidential election. Balaguer was ahead by only 31,000 votes in preliminary results and his closest challenger has charged fraud and called for new elections.
U.S. diplomats, however, are confident the Dominicans will allow the helicopter patrols.
Stanley Schrager, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Haiti, said he expects the patrols to begin within two weeks.
"It is very important that we get the team out there and cut off the remaining supply of gasoline," he said Tuesday.
Six Huey helicopters and surveillance and communications gear will be dispatched to the Dominican Republic for the mission, according to the Pentagon.
Some U.S. officials are frustrated that the operation hasn't already begun and that the Dominican Republic is allowing the embargo to be circumvented.
Rep. Ronald Dellums, D-Calif., urged the Clinton administration this week to cut economic aid to the Dominican Republic if it continues to allow goods to cross the border.
"The U.S. has been maddeningly slow to use its full leverage to shut down the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic," Dellums, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in an editorial in Sunday's New York Times.
Haiti closed the border for "security reasons" last month, after journalists photographed the smuggling operation.
But residents of villages near the frontier say a road that leads only from the border and winds past mottled brown hills, small corn fields, mud huts and banana and palm trees comes alive at night with transport of contraband.
"The nighttime traffic began after the border was closed," said a resident of a southeast Haitian border village along the road, which goes to Port-au-Prince.
"We hear the trucks all night,'" the man said, on condition of anonymity. "They pull up to the Dominican side with loads of gas, and it's transferred to trucks waiting on the Haitian side."
Local residents are adapting to the new dead-of-night traffic.
Gesline Gaston sells soft drinks and beer from her shop along the road in Croix-des-Bouquets, a town near the border.
She now stays open two hours later, until 11 p.m., to cater to the drivers.
"I'd stay open all night," she said. "But I've got to have some time to sleep."
^U.S. Wants To Patrol Border to Tighten Sanctions
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
CROIX-DES-BOUQUETS, Haiti (AP) _ In daylight, the once-busy road leading from Haiti's capital to its only international border is nearly empty.
Things change after nightfall, local residents say. Trucks rumble along the two-lane blacktop, carrying gasoline and other contraband barred by the international trade embargo that has cut most air and sea traffic to Haiti.
The United States, in an effort to slam the door on the overland route, wants to patrol the Dominican Republic side of the border with military helicopters. At stake is the success of the embargo, and perhaps whether President Clinton orders an invasion of Haiti.
Clinton has said an invasion is an option if the embargo fails to force Haiti's military to resign and allow the return of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, ousted in a 1991 coup. Clinton has backed up his threat by sending 2,800 Marines aboard a fleet of warships to waters off Haiti.
U.S. military brass met with officials in the Dominican Republic last week to set up the surveillance operation on Haiti's border with the Dominican Republic. But no agreement to allow the deployment has been signed yet between the United States and the Dominican Republic, U.S. diplomats said.
The Dominican government may be stalling.
President Joaquin Balaguer, who has close ties with Haiti's military and business elite, has never supported sanctions, although he has promised to enforce them. Balaguer and most other Dominicans fear they risk a wave of Haitians crossing the border in search of food and work if the embargo is fully implemented.
Also, the diplomats said, the surveillance is such a sensitive political issue that no permission can be expected until after a winner is declared in the May 16 presidential election. Balaguer was ahead by only 31,000 votes in preliminary results and his closest challenger has charged fraud and called for new elections.
U.S. diplomats, however, are confident the Dominicans will allow the helicopter patrols.
Stanley Schrager, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Haiti, said he expects the patrols to begin within two weeks.
"It is very important that we get the team out there and cut off the remaining supply of gasoline," he said Tuesday.
Six Huey helicopters and surveillance and communications gear will be dispatched to the Dominican Republic for the mission, according to the Pentagon.
Some U.S. officials are frustrated that the operation hasn't already begun and that the Dominican Republic is allowing the embargo to be circumvented.
Rep. Ronald Dellums, D-Calif., urged the Clinton administration this week to cut economic aid to the Dominican Republic if it continues to allow goods to cross the border.
"The U.S. has been maddeningly slow to use its full leverage to shut down the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic," Dellums, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in an editorial in Sunday's New York Times.
Haiti closed the border for "security reasons" last month, after journalists photographed the smuggling operation.
But residents of villages near the frontier say a road that leads only from the border and winds past mottled brown hills, small corn fields, mud huts and banana and palm trees comes alive at night with transport of contraband.
"The nighttime traffic began after the border was closed," said a resident of a southeast Haitian border village along the road, which goes to Port-au-Prince.
"We hear the trucks all night,'" the man said, on condition of anonymity. "They pull up to the Dominican side with loads of gas, and it's transferred to trucks waiting on the Haitian side."
Local residents are adapting to the new dead-of-night traffic.
Gesline Gaston sells soft drinks and beer from her shop along the road in Croix-des-Bouquets, a town near the border.
She now stays open two hours later, until 11 p.m., to cater to the drivers.
"I'd stay open all night," she said. "But I've got to have some time to sleep."
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