U.S. Resumes Emergency Food Aid to Haiti, Lifts Travel Warning

The State Department on Friday lifted its recommendation against travel to Haiti and resumed emergency food aid shipments halted during the fighting that led to the fall of Haitian President Jean-Claude Duvalier.

Department spokesman Charles E. Redman also said that the United States is helping find a permanent home for Duvalier, who is living in France while the French government tries to arrange permanent residence for him in another country.

Brazil joined the growing list of nations that have rejected asylum for Duvalier. The Brazilian Foreign Ministry said the government had turned down a request by the U.S. and French ambassadors to accept Duvalier.

“We’re working with the French government in support of efforts to find permanent asylum for Duvalier,” Redman said. He would not comment on whether Duvalier had asked to come to the United States or whether he would be offered the opportunity.

Sources at the French Embassy in Monrovia, Liberia, said Guy Penne, a special adviser to French President Francois Mitterrand, would arrive Friday night to “discuss the matter further.” Duvalier has said he does not want to live in Liberia, but it is the only country to indicate he might be welcome.

Permanent Stay ‘Unthinkable’

In Paris, the French Foreign Ministry said it is unthinkable that Duvalier would be allowed to remain permanently in France.

A Western diplomat, however, said, “It looks more and more like the French are going to be stuck with this guy.”

Officials in the French Office for the Protection of Refugees said they doubt Duvalier falls under the category of a political refugee--a status he requested Wednesday--which could allow him to stay in France.

Asked for comment on Duvalier’s request, Mitterrand said: “The constitution says that we should accord political asylum to all people in the service of liberty. I don’t know if this person symbolizes the best of human rights in the world.”

U.S. food aid to Haiti was cut off after rioting against Duvalier’s government broke out in late January. The United States said it saw evidence that distribution channels had collapsed. Americans were advised then to stay out of Haiti.

Though it lifted the anti-travel advisory Friday, the State Department said Americans still should exercise caution while in Haiti and respect curfews set by the new government.

Redman said the emergency food aid--part of a $25.7-million package for fiscal year 1986 that includes lunches for schoolchildren--was being shipped from U.S. ports in the Gulf of Mexico.

Linked to Rights

He said no decision had been made on whether economic assistance should be resumed. In the U.S. foreign aid budget for the current year, Haiti was to have received $26 million, but the money has never been dispensed because Haiti failed to meet human rights standards set by the Reagan Administration.

In Port-au-Prince, a top French official canceled a meeting with officials of the new government. Christian Nucci, deputy minister in the French Ministry of Cooperation, was scheduled to meet with the six-man ruling council. French and Haitian authorities had announced this week that Nucci’s visit would underscore “the will of the French government to assist the Haitian people in their fight to achieve democracy.”

But a French Embassy official in Port-au-Prince said the meeting had been canceled. The official declined to give a reason.