Haitians

At first Stanley Hermane held up a toy phone to his ear as if an expectant caller had rung. Then the 21-month-old decided that the object was a baseball and threw line drives. Then it was a hammer that he banged with delight. The Haitian orphan that adoptive parents Michael and Monica Simonsen just brought back from the earthquake-ravaged country has already latched onto a favored object — so much so that he seem unfazed by the reporters who keep coming to witness the latest chapter in his story.

Washington. - The decision to forcibly return Haitian boat people to their country, temporarily held up by a federal judge in Miami, underscores that the U.S. government is prepared to espouse policies for other countries it is not ready to live with itself. Further, it demonstrates once again that the U.S. government is highly selective in its decisions of who it will and will not be generous toward when it comes to emergency migration.The U.S. government, at the very highest levels, has opposed the involuntary return of Vietnamese boat people.

President Bush is expected to sign an order banning foreign ships that do business with Haiti from entering United States ports. This follows his decision to return Haitian refugees to their homeland without giving them a chance to make a case for political asylum. The administration says the people are fleeing poverty, not political persecution. Critics say the U.S. is creating a "Caribbean Curtain" that does the same to Haitians as the Berlin Wall did to East Germans.The Evening Sun would like to know what you think.

The administration policy of using limited means to force change on Haiti has failed. It either must raise its means or reduce its goals.After a review of policy, the administration claims to have decided to increase the pressure on Haiti's military goons to relinquish power to the elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The U.S. will seek to persuade the United Nations to extend the current embargo on weapons and fuel for Haiti to all products except food and medicine. And it will try to persuade the Dominican Republic to stop the flow of oil across the border.

The future of an inhumane but effective U.S. policy toward Haitian boat people rests on resolution of a legal issue from never-never land. It is whether folks who are not citizens are protected by U.S. law in international waters, or whether the U.S. may violate its law protecting them so long as it does so in those waters.From the September coup ousting President Jean-Bertrand Aristide until May 24, the Coast Guard picked up 36,980 Haitian boat people on the high seas. After hearings to determine their status as political exiles in fear of persecution, or mere economic refugees seeking prosperity, the Coast Guard returned 27,242 to Haiti and admitted most of the remaining 9,738 to the United States as political refugees.

Haiti is about the size of Maryland, but fortunately nobody in the Clinton administration seems to have noticed that. Otherwise, it might have been reason enough for this bewildered White House to put Mickey Steinberg in charge of our policy there.Actually, the Maryland lieutenant governor might be an improvement. So might a committee chosen at random from the telephone book. As refugees continue to flee Haiti and drown by the score in the sea, it's beginning to look more and more as though simple desperation will determine what our policy is going to be.Driven by domestic political considerations and without any coherent philosophy of its own concerning foreign affairs, the administration has donned its fatigues and flak jacket.

Marylanders continue to mobilize to join the massive relief effort heading toward Haiti and try to establish contact with colleagues and loved ones in the earthquake-stricken country. Douglas Bright, IMA World Health Vice President, said Thursday that he still had no word from the Carroll County-based relief agency's senior staff members who were in Port au Prince this week, nor have they heard from the five Haitians who worked at IMA's offices in the capital. Three senior staffers, including two Marylanders, had just concluded a meeting at the landmark Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince when it was destroyed.

President Clinton's Haiti-related boost in his poll ratings is destined to be short-lived. Already, U.S. troops have been reluctant near-participants in clashes between the Haitian military and civilian supporters of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Already, the differences between Mr. Clinton and former President Jimmy Carter have become a public embarrassment for the administration. Already, Mr. Aristide has signaled his displeasure with the Carter-negotiated agreement that leaves his enemies in effective control of the Haitian government and negotiating partners with the U.S. military in maintaining law and order.

WRITER, PHOTOGRAPHER and ethnobotanist Wade Davis will offer a lecture titled "The Serpent and the Rainbow: The Power of Voodoo in Haiti," Friday at 8:15 p.m. at St. John's College.Dr. Davis went to Haiti in 1982, charged with finding the formula of a folk preparation that purportedly could induce a state of apparent death so profound that victims could be misdiagnosed as dead. Rumors of its power are the source of a great deal of myth and mysticism about Haiti, and about the culture of voodoo.

For Julie Strange, helping the victims of a devastating earthquake in Haiti was just a text message away. The 27-year-old Towson librarian read on Twitter of an American Red Cross campaign to raise money for disaster relief in the shattered country through text messaging. Within a few minutes, she made a $10 donation by texting the word "HAITI" to a five-digit number - an act of mobile giving that she's done for other charities for a couple of years now. "It's definitely starting to get a little mainstream now," Strange said.