First Haitian Refugees Returned to Homeland : Caribbean: Most say they are unafraid, happy to be back. They’re protecting themselves, foreign official says.

The vanguard of thousands of Haitians forced to return home by the United States finally arrived Monday, most of them saying they are unafraid, happy to be home and that they hadn’t really wanted to leave in the first place.

The stories of the 162 Haitians who walked off the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Steadfast shortly after 9 a.m. flew in the face of claims made earlier by many Haitians to U.S. officials and journalists that they wanted to move to the United States because of violence and fear of political repression at home.

“I’m happy to be home,” said 26-year-old Meril Joseph, one of the first to walk down the Steadfast’s gangplank. “I’m back in my own country, so why should I be worried?”

Others said, yes, they fled Haiti after the Sept. 30 military overthrow of a democratically elected government because of economic deprivation.

The Steadfast--and four hours later, the cutter Bear, with another 219 Haitians on board--berthed at a dock cluttered with rusting tramp steamers, a huge tanker unloading cooking oil in violation of an international economic embargo of Haiti’s interim government and the maroon hulk of a Liberian-registered freighter bearing the name Shalom, the Hebrew word for peace.

The refugees came ashore in twos and lined up, their belongings crammed into plastic bags, tattered cardboard suitcases and cheap gym bags. One woman from the Bear carried her 3-month-old daughter, who was put aboard a leaky raft when she was only 2 weeks old.

There were no demonstrations of emotion, no protests and no noise but for the chatter of questioning reporters and the sound of feet shuffling along the half-mile route to a processing center at the end of an adjacent dock. There they were herded into a gazebo-like structure decorated with a peeling sign in English: “Welcome to Haiti.”

Each returnee was summoned to a Red Cross table where he or she was identified, given the equivalent of $3 for bus fare and a card to be exchanged at regional Red Cross centers for enough food to feed five people.

The returnees then filed over to a nearby table of Haitian immigration officials who took down names, fingerprinted them all, including the 3-month-old baby, and took pictures of them in groups of 10.

Finally they were put aboard buses and vans and driven about two miles to the Port-au-Prince bus terminal, there to be left to their own devices.

All of this took place in an atmosphere of clear apprehension that belied flat-toned words of happiness at being home. Monday’s stories had the ring of rehearsal, of determination to please authorities.

“I don’t want to say too much,” said one foreign official watching the scene, “but . . . many of these people say what they think will do them the most good. They knew their only hope to get to Florida was to say they were political victims. Now they know that the way to protect themselves here is to say they aren’t afraid and are happy to be back.”

Some like Frere Serise, 25, a fisherman from Cape Haitian, took that position even further. He said he had been working at sea when bad weather drove him far from shore.

“The Coast Guard picked me up and took me to Guantanamo three months ago,” he said, referring to the U.S. Navy base in Cuba, where the would-be refugees picked up by the Coast Guard were housed in tents pending resolution of their fate. “I never wanted to go to Florida. I’m happy to be home in my own country.”

The tale of the innocent fisherman was heard over and over. Forest Frankel, 26, a Cape Haitien resident, said the Coast Guard grabbed him and two others on Nov. 17, burned his boat and made him to go Guantanamo.

“Who’s going to give me the $600 to replace my boat?” he asked.

Random but extensive interviews with the passengers of the Steadfast and the Bear yielded similar tales. Among the most common theme was that of a lemming-like migration from some neighborhoods.

Maryse Sophonia Jean, a 38-year-old mother of three, said: “I was not afraid. I had no economic reason to go. But I left on Nov. 29 because I saw most of my neighbors leaving. . . . I’ll be happy to be home, and I’ll do my best to get along.”

Given the expressions of alarm from human rights groups, United Nations officials and supporters of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide--and a historically justified concern over government brutality against political opponents and the Haitian poor--the refugees’ statements Monday created a contradictory and surrealistic atmosphere.

Adding to the air of unreality were the statements of U.S. officials that the Haitians repatriated Monday had volunteered to return, an assertion seemingly at odds with the accounts of many passengers from the Steadfast that they had been awakened Saturday morning and told without discussion to get ready to leave.

The 381 people returned Monday, most of them young men, are among more than 14,000 Haitians picked up by the Coast Guard from tiny boats and dangerous, make-shift rafts after the violent, military-backed overthrow of Aristide, the country’s first democratically elected president.

Nearly all of these people were held at Guantanamo Bay while the Bush Administration tried to overcome a court injunction barring their return as economic refugees who do not qualify for political asylum.

Under pressure from the courts and human rights groups, the Administration did agree that about 3,000 had made enough of a case to deserve at least full hearings on their applications. But it insisted that more than 11,500 others had to be forced back home.

The U.S. Supreme Court overruled the temporary injunction last Friday, ruling that the repatriations could proceed at once while the legal issues work their way through lower federal courts.

The Administration announced that the next shipload would arrive Wednesday, at which time a regular schedule of two ships a day is to begin.

The argument against repatriation has centered on the threat of political repression and retaliation by the government against those who sought to flee it. Much of the concern Monday seemed to arise simply from uncertainty, but the fear showed through when several of the refugees asked reporters if it was true that soldiers were waiting to kill them.

One said that he had heard this from several other refugees still at Guantanamo. Others spoke of a Voice of America bulletin broadcast in Creole, the Haitian language, and played at Guantanamo that said the dreaded Tontons Macoutes, a shadowy and supposedly abolished paramilitary terrorist organization, had promised to kill the returnees “and drink their blood.”

But there was no threat evident at the dockside Monday. Only a handful of uniformed troops and civilian-clad security agents were on hand. The bus terminal seemed empty of armed men.

The threat of punishment may be more real when the refugees reach their small-town homes, where there are no independent organizations prepared to monitor the situation.

In Geneva, U.N. refugee chief Sadako Ogata expressed concern over the forced repatriation, according to the Associated Press. In a statement from her office there, Ogata, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, said: “Continuing reports of serious human rights abuses and violence by security forces since the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Haiti are cause for great concern. For this reason, UNHCR fears that those being returned may, in fact, be exposed to danger upon their return.”