Haitian Boat

An article in yesterday's editions incorrectly reported the patient capacity of the hospital USNS Comfort, which is being deployed to the Caribbean in June. The ship has 1,000 beds.The Sun regrets the error.The Baltimore-based hospital ship USNS Comfort will be sent to the Caribbean early next month for possible use as a processing center for fleeing Haitian boat people, the Military Sealift Command (MSC) said yesterday.The Comfort -- last activated for military duty during the Persian Gulf war -- is undergoing routine maintenance at Newport News, Va., and "will report to the U.S. Atlantic Command for duty in the Caribbean in early June," according to the MSC, a civilian agency which operates the 250-bed hospital ship.

MIAMI -- A wooden freighter crammed with more than 350 Haitians was bumped and stopped barely six miles from the Miami shoreline yesterday.It was the second time in the past four months that the U.S. Coast Guard has had to respond to a grossly overloaded vessel illegally ferrying Haitians in search of a better life."

WASHINGTON -- The United Nations High Commissioner fo Refugees has drafted an ambitious proposal for countries throughout the Western Hemisphere to grant temporary asylum to Haitian boat people.The high commissioner is trying to take advantage of President-elect Bill Clinton's campaign promise to "stop the forced repatriation of Haitian refugees" even as U.S. immigration officials make plans to carry out the Clinton policy.In a confidential memorandum given to the Clinton transition team and to the State Department, High Commissioner Sadako Ogata and her staff said Mr. Clinton's inauguration Jan. 20 would create an "opportunity to fashion a humane and effective response" to the Haitian refugee crisis.

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba -- The expected U.S. invasion of Haiti was the excited talk of detainment camps here yesterday as hundreds of Haitian boat people volunteered to be "liaisons" between the U.S. military and Haitians during the operation.Creole-speaking U.S. soldiers, sailors and Marines put out the word to Haitian camp leaders at breakfast time that the invasion force was looking for a few good Haitians to help out after the expected assault. Lines of volunteers quickly formed, and Haitian detainees compiled long lists of their compatriots' names.

MIAMI -- President Bush's order to return Haitian boat people directly to Haiti without review violates international law and serves as a virtual death sentence for some Haitians, refugee lawyers said yesterday."

WASHINGTON -- Human rights lawyers will fly to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, today to seek evidence that more than 5,000 Haitian boat people picked up on the high seas by U.S. Coast Guard cutters in recent weeks face unfair consideration of their asylum requests.The lawyers will argue in a Miami court Monday that the way the boat people are being screened by U.S. immigration officials prevents proper judgment on whether they are refugees with an internationally recognized right to haven outside their own country.

WHEN the Clinton administration announced this month that it would no longer forcibly return Haitian boat people who have a well-founded fear of persecution, the president himself was said to have insisted upon the change -- reminding his advisers that "they are chopping people's faces off" in Haiti.The president is right. Unfortunately, the government is still wrong.The old repatriation order remains in force. Since the announcement, 1,000 boat people have been returned to Haiti, without the promised interviews to determine whether they are in danger of persecution.

If the Haitian crisis is solved soon, the camps for boat people thrown up at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, eastern Cuba, may suffice. Otherwise, the Immigration and Naturalization Service must rethink its opinion that desperate Haitians washed up on our shores are not political refugees.The inhospitable view toward immigrants taken lately by Washington is not uniquely targeted at Haitians. This country is also not taking Jews from the Soviet Union or Vietnamese boat people or the flood of Eastern Europeans cut loose by recent events, on the same ground that they are mere economic refugees.

MIAMI -- A wooden freighter crammed with more than 350 Haitians was bumped and stopped barely six miles from the Miami shoreline yesterday.It was the second time in the past four months that the U.S. Coast Guard has had to respond to a grossly overloaded vessel illegally ferrying Haitians in search of a better life."

ZAIRIAN soldiers have not been very friendly toll takers to the million Rwandan refugees. The soldiers have taken money, mattresses, motorcycles and farm animals. But this cruelty does not obscure a much larger point. The soldiers still let the refugees pass into Zaire.The Rwandan exodus, while making headlines as one of the fastest sudden refugee migrations the world has ever seen, is also a stunning example of a generosity African countries have ++ shown toward one another's refugees. While the United States, the world's richest and most powerful nation, is in the midst of yet another military campaign to reject the majority of Haitian refugees, African nations, no matter how poor or despotic their leaders, have opened their gates to fleeing men, women and children.

ZAIRIAN soldiers have not been very friendly toll takers to the million Rwandan refugees. The soldiers have taken money, mattresses, motorcycles and farm animals. But this cruelty does not obscure a much larger point. The soldiers still let the refugees pass into Zaire.The Rwandan exodus, while making headlines as one of the fastest sudden refugee migrations the world has ever seen, is also a stunning example of a generosity African countries have ++ shown toward one another's refugees. While the United States, the world's richest and most powerful nation, is in the midst of yet another military campaign to reject the majority of Haitian refugees, African nations, no matter how poor or despotic their leaders, have opened their gates to fleeing men, women and children.

WHEN the Clinton administration announced this month that it would no longer forcibly return Haitian boat people who have a well-founded fear of persecution, the president himself was said to have insisted upon the change -- reminding his advisers that "they are chopping people's faces off" in Haiti.The president is right. Unfortunately, the government is still wrong.The old repatriation order remains in force. Since the announcement, 1,000 boat people have been returned to Haiti, without the promised interviews to determine whether they are in danger of persecution.

An article in yesterday's editions incorrectly reported the patient capacity of the hospital USNS Comfort, which is being deployed to the Caribbean in June. The ship has 1,000 beds.The Sun regrets the error.The Baltimore-based hospital ship USNS Comfort will be sent to the Caribbean early next month for possible use as a processing center for fleeing Haitian boat people, the Military Sealift Command (MSC) said yesterday.The Comfort -- last activated for military duty during the Persian Gulf war -- is undergoing routine maintenance at Newport News, Va., and "will report to the U.S. Atlantic Command for duty in the Caribbean in early June," according to the MSC, a civilian agency which operates the 250-bed hospital ship.

Port-au-Prince, Haiti.--As Sauver Christian hammers galvanized spikes into the frame of a 42-foot sailboat on the beach at Leogane, an hour's drive south of the capital, he's focused on the inauguration of Bill Clinton in Washington. Like most Haitians he expects Mr. Clinton will reverse the U.S. policy of turning back boats filled with refugees and, instead, allow them to land in Florida.And he hopes Mr. Clinton will help the widely-loved, exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide return to power in Haiti.

WASHINGTON -- The United Nations High Commissioner fo Refugees has drafted an ambitious proposal for countries throughout the Western Hemisphere to grant temporary asylum to Haitian boat people.The high commissioner is trying to take advantage of President-elect Bill Clinton's campaign promise to "stop the forced repatriation of Haitian refugees" even as U.S. immigration officials make plans to carry out the Clinton policy.In a confidential memorandum given to the Clinton transition team and to the State Department, High Commissioner Sadako Ogata and her staff said Mr. Clinton's inauguration Jan. 20 would create an "opportunity to fashion a humane and effective response" to the Haitian refugee crisis.

MIAMI -- President Bush's order to return Haitian boat people directly to Haiti without review violates international law and serves as a virtual death sentence for some Haitians, refugee lawyers said yesterday."

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba -- The expected U.S. invasion of Haiti was the excited talk of detainment camps here yesterday as hundreds of Haitian boat people volunteered to be "liaisons" between the U.S. military and Haitians during the operation.Creole-speaking U.S. soldiers, sailors and Marines put out the word to Haitian camp leaders at breakfast time that the invasion force was looking for a few good Haitians to help out after the expected assault. Lines of volunteers quickly formed, and Haitian detainees compiled long lists of their compatriots' names.

Port-au-Prince, Haiti.--As Sauver Christian hammers galvanized spikes into the frame of a 42-foot sailboat on the beach at Leogane, an hour's drive south of the capital, he's focused on the inauguration of Bill Clinton in Washington. Like most Haitians he expects Mr. Clinton will reverse the U.S. policy of turning back boats filled with refugees and, instead, allow them to land in Florida.And he hopes Mr. Clinton will help the widely-loved, exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide return to power in Haiti.

WASHINGTON -- Human rights lawyers will fly to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, today to seek evidence that more than 5,000 Haitian boat people picked up on the high seas by U.S. Coast Guard cutters in recent weeks face unfair consideration of their asylum requests.The lawyers will argue in a Miami court Monday that the way the boat people are being screened by U.S. immigration officials prevents proper judgment on whether they are refugees with an internationally recognized right to haven outside their own country.

If the Haitian crisis is solved soon, the camps for boat people thrown up at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, eastern Cuba, may suffice. Otherwise, the Immigration and Naturalization Service must rethink its opinion that desperate Haitians washed up on our shores are not political refugees.The inhospitable view toward immigrants taken lately by Washington is not uniquely targeted at Haitians. This country is also not taking Jews from the Soviet Union or Vietnamese boat people or the flood of Eastern Europeans cut loose by recent events, on the same ground that they are mere economic refugees.