U.S. Sends Back 150 Haitians

An initial group of Haitian refugees left the U.S. naval base in Cuba Saturday night on a U.S. Coast Guard cutter bound for their island home as the Bush Administration began the repatriation of as many as 12,000 boat people.

Officials said the cutter Steadfast, carrying 150 Haitians, left the base for Haiti just after 10 p.m.

The 150 refugees had been interviewed by immigration officials and deemed ineligible for asylum, said Lt. Darian Benson, a spokesman for the Joint Task Force handling the Haitian crisis. They were volunteers tired of life in the tent city established at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, task force officials said.

“It wasn’t much of a problem at all” finding volunteers, said Marine Brig. Gen. George Walls Jr., who is in charge of the Haitian operation.

American military officials moved swiftly to begin sending the Haitians home after an emergency order by the Supreme Court cleared the way for the return of thousands of people who fled Haiti after a violent military coup last fall ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The first group, many of them barefoot and carrying their belongings in small plastic bags, were loaded quietly onto the cutter.

Lt. Cmdr. Gordon Hume of the Coast Guard said that everyone in the initial group had volunteered to return to Haiti after learning that the Supreme Court had granted an emergency petition by the Bush Administration allowing the government to return the refugees.

“Things are not good here,” said Jean-Baptiste Fousnel, 20, as he walked toward the Steadfast. “There are problems in Haiti, but it’s my country.”

Nearly 10,000 Haitians are being housed in temporary shelters at the base in Guantanamo. Reporters who visited the camp after the refugees heard of the court decision reported that the people were calm and seemed resigned to returning. Another 1,800 refugees are aboard Coast Guard cutters moored in the bay.

The way was opened for them to be returned late Friday night when the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 vote, lifted the ban by a federal judge in Miami on the government’s disputed repatriation program. The high court acted on an emergency basis after the Administration warned that 20,000 Haitians were massed on the country’s beaches and preparing to attempt the risky ocean crossing to Miami.

The State Department wanted to return the first 150 people to Haiti on Saturday and then move at least 500 a day from the temporary camps at Guantanamo Bay. The Administration hoped to have the process well under way before a lower federal court could rule again on the legal aspects of claims by Haitian refugee advocates that the people had a right to political asylum in the United States.

However, the American Embassy in Port-au-Prince objected and said it was impossible to begin the repatriation process before Monday because of staff shortages and diplomatic problems with Haitian authorities.

After a series of international telephone calls, the State Department had originally agreed to delay the initial shipload’s departure until today.

Serious doubts were cast over the Administration’s claim that quick Supreme Court action was needed in order to forestall an emergency that threatened the lives of thousands of refugees poised to flee Haiti.

In papers submitted to the court, Assistant Secretary of State Bernard Aronson had argued that the 20,000 Haitians had massed on Haiti’s beaches in preparation for a virtual invasion of the United States. He also claimed that the temporary refugee camp at Guantanamo was on the verge of being overwhelmed by an expected surge of boat people picked up by the Coast Guard.

However, visits by reporters, humanitarian organizations and others in Haiti found no evidence at any of the usual departure points for the Haitian boat people to support Aronson’s claim.

When asked about the claim, diplomats in Port-au-Prince first said the figure was based on surveillance photos, but then acknowledged that even if such pictures existed there was no way to distinguish a hopeful refugee from an ordinary person in the area. Later it was learned there were no pictures showing masses of people.

Also, U.S. military officials said that while the Guantanamo camp was filling up, enough room remained for about 2,000 more refugees, and that no crisis was imminent.

Ira Kurzban, a Miami attorney representing the Haitians in their court battle to win asylum, deplored the repatriations as “morally wrong and reprehensible.”

He called on President Bush to grant the refugees temporary protected status and allow them to come to the United States to pursue their asylum claims.

“I really, truly believe their lives are in danger when they return to Haiti,” said Kurzban. The forced repatriations, he added, “are a reminder that we really live in a racist country. They never would have done this to white people.”

Although Kurzban vowed to continue the fight to stop the deportations, he expected it would be Tuesday or Wednesday before he could challenge the Administration’s claims of an emergency before both the Supreme Court and an appeals court in Atlanta. But by that time, he said, many of the refugees could be back in Haiti.

Amnesty International U.S.A. denounced the Supreme Court order and declared that Haitians risked torture and death if they were returned. Leaders at the Haitian Refugee Center in Miami said a pirate radio station in Haiti had called on military backers of Haiti’s present regime to kill Aristide supporters.

In the weeks following the military coup in Haiti, human rights groups said that up to 2,000 people died at the hands of anti-Aristide forces and about 3,000 Haitians left by rickety boats and flimsy rafts for the United States.

Most were picked up by Coast Guard vessels and nearly 1,000 were returned under a Bush Administration blanket determination that they were economic refugees and unqualified for asylum in the United States.

But a federal District Court judge in southern Florida ruled twice that the refugees were being forced back unlawfully. Since then, thousands more Haitians have fled, most to be picked up by the cruising Coast Guard fleet. They are now at Guantanamo or kept on U.S. ships.

Although immigration officials modified their original approach and ruled that about 3,000 Haitians might face political persecution at home and thus could enter the United States, the lower court judge’s rulings were appealed to the Court of Appeals in Atlanta.

On Friday, the Atlanta court seemed to issue a ruling supporting the Administration and permitting the immediate repatriation of the refugees. However, four hours later, the court withdrew its ruling, saying it had been issued through an unexplained clerical error and that its true findings would come later.

Another five hours later, at 9 p.m., the Supreme Court ruled that the repatriations could begin while the Atlanta panel continued its deliberations, which some sources said could take from three days to three weeks.

Frantz reported from Washington and Freed reported from Port-au-Prince. Special correspondent Mike Clary in Miami and the Pentagon news pool in Guantanamo Bay contributed to this report.