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OP-ED: C’est la vie —Ethan Casey

It’s eleven years since I met the driver in Miami, and the US and the world are still lurching from one crisis to the next

“Clinton got a lot to deal with right now, man,” said the black American driver on the way to Miami airport, in January 1993. “Somalia. Eye-rack. And Haiti. So he’s got to deal with those other places in the Middle East first. He can’t even deal with the economy. He’s got to put off Haiti for now.”

“But he’s got to deal with Haiti pretty soon, I think,” I suggested.

“Oh, yeah. I think Bush is testing his foreign-policy expertise, if you ask me.”

I asked him about Haitian refugees.

“There’s just too many of them here now, Haitians and Cubans too,” he said.

“What would you do if you were a Cuban?”

“I don’t know. I spent fifteen months in Vietnam fighting what they got — oppression. But if I was in their shoes? I don’t know. Me bein’ an American, I can’t see going to another country except my own. I can’t see going to another country just to go to jail. Because that’s what it is where they keep ‘em — barbed wire, and head counts, and all. Some of ‘em been there a year, year and a half. And it’s no good saying you’ll send ‘em to other parts of the country. They all just come back here. They got the tropical weather here, they got the same foods they’re used to, and they’re closer to home. As soon as Castro’s gone, we’ll have another influx of Cubans. And we can’t take any more. Miami gonna sink. Maybe we should just say no more refugees from anywhere for ten years or something, ‘til this country’s back on its feet.”

Haitians at the time were feverishly building wooden boats, hopefully awaiting the inauguration of the man who had pledged: “If I were President, I would — in the absence of clear and compelling evidence that they weren’t political refugees — give them temporary asylum until we restored the elected government of Haiti.”

A few days later, I strolled down a dirt road in Haiti with two young men after watching a cockfight. “I like white countries,” said the one named Ismael. “White countries are very rich.” He told me about his trip to Guantanamo Bay, the US-held enclave in Cuba. In May 1992, he had paid $100 to go there in a boat with 87 people. The boat had taken on water and had to return to Haiti’s southern peninsula.

I asked why he had gone.

There was much gang violence now in the capital, Port-au-Prince, he said. Zinglindos, bandits, terrorised, robbed, even entered houses to murder people. They would knock on people’s doors claiming to have news of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the popular exiled president. When the people opened their door, the zinglindos would enter the house, steal, kill, and rape.

Didn’t they know attempting a sea journey was dangerous?

“C’est la vie,” (That’s life) said Ismael’s friend, who planned to try again in February.

Why had he left the first time?

Zinglindos had broken into his house in Port-au-Prince, he said. He had escaped to a friend’s house in the mountains. He had paid $180 for passage to Guantanamo — more than Ismael, because his boat had a motor. He had stayed in Guantanamo two months, until his petition for political asylum in the United States was rejected and he was returned to Port-au-Prince.

A few days earlier, the Miami Herald had reported Bill Clinton’s announcement that he would continue the Bush policy of forcibly repatriating boat people. Did the young men know about this? Would it change their minds?

No. Both would try again regardless. Although they could die in boats, they said, they could just as easily die on the streets of Port-au-Prince.

What if Aristide returned?

“Can Titid [Aristide] stop the terror?” asked Ismael. “Can he control the army?”

In 1994 I wrote Restoring Democracy, a 125,000-word manuscript telling the story of my involvement with and evolving understanding of Haiti and its plight. The title was meant as an ironic twist on the Clinton administration’s stated intentions for Haiti. I sent it to a New York-based literary agent, who declined to represent it, saying “people’s interest in Haiti has peaked.” Little more than two months after the US invasion that had followed more than three years of violence and excruciating diplomacy, her attitude was one shared by many Americans: Well, that’s taken care of. On to Bosnia and beyond.

Since the February 29 ouster of Aristide, which many — including the Caribbean Community — allege or suspect was abetted by the Bush administration, Haitians are reportedly taking to the boats again. Already the number intercepted by the US Coast Guard is greater for this year than for the full years 2002 and 2003.

It’s eleven years since I met the driver in Miami, and the US and the world are still lurching from one crisis to the next.

Ethan Casey (ecasey@blueear.com) is the founding editor of the global journal BlueEar.com. His book ‘Alive and Well in Pakistan: A Human Journey in a Dangerous Time’ will be published later this year

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