Tensions Rise Among Haitian Refugees at Florida Camp : Detainees: Guards at the facility are accused of abuse. Hopelessness reigns in the face of White House policy to return boat people without hearings.

Tensions have mounted among hundreds of refugees being held in a huge Florida detention camp in the aftermath of the U.S. decision that all Haitian boat people stopped at sea would be returned to their homeland without being given an asylum hearing.

Lawyers for the Haitian Refugee Center, an advocacy group, this week released sworn statements in which at least two Haitians held at the Krome Detention Facility at the edge of the Everglades say they were “badly beaten” after a fire last Saturday that caused $3 million damage to the men’s dormitory. No one was injured in the fire, which has been ruled arson.

Exacerbating what refugee attorney Cheryl Little called “a growing sense of hopelessness and frustration” among Haitians here was a ruling Friday from a federal judge in New York upholding the Bush Administration’s policy of returning Haitians to their strife-torn country without listening to their claims for political asylum.

While denying a motion to block Bush’s May 24 executive order, U.S. District Judge Sterling Johnson Jr. said in a written opinion: “This court is astonished that the U.S. would return Haitian refugees to the jaws of political persecution, terror, death and uncertainty when it has contracted not to do so. The government’s conduct is particularly hypocritical given its condemnation of other countries who have refused to abide by the principle” of not returning refugees.

Although the United States is a signatory to a United Nations protocol on refugees, the Administration has successfully argued that the agreement does not apply in the case of Haitians who are intercepted short of U.S. territory.

Johnson said the protocol was “a cruel hoax and not worth the paper it is printed on” unless Congress passes legislation that would make it binding on the United States. Michael Ratner, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the ruling would be appealed.

In Miami, lawyers for Haitian refugees being held in the Krome facility pending deportation hearings say they will continue to collect affidavits attesting to abuse, harassment and intimidation by guards. According to sworn statements released by the Haitian Refugee Center, a pattern of abuse by guards was begun after the mysterious fire broke out near the first floor laundry room of the two-story men’s dormitory.

Among other abuses reported by the detainees was a group inspection in which many Haitians among the 456 people being held at the facility earlier this week were made to “strip off their jockey shorts and jump up and down while they looked for incendiary devices,” according to Sharon Brown, a refugee center attorney.

Other detainees said they were roused from bed at 3:30 a.m. and told to search the grounds of the facility for cigarette butts, according to Brown. Others testified that they were made to scrub toilets and walls with their bare hands.

Richard B. Smith, district director of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in Miami, dismissed the charges as “ridiculous allegations.”

“This is typical of the Haitian Refugee Center,” he said. “I’m not paying a bit of attention to it. I stopped paying attention to them two years ago. They are irresponsible. They are trying to create something out of nothing.”

Smith said that if attorneys for the Haitians brought him specific allegations against specific guards, they would be investigated.

Another factor in the rise of tensions, both inside the Krome facility and in the large Haitian community in Miami, was the May 24 death of detainee Edser Altemira, 22. Smith said Altemira had been flown some weeks ago from the tent city camp at Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba to a military hospital in Norfolk, Va., for surgery to treat a heart condition.

After a period of recovery at Krome, Smith said, Altemira was put in the general population on May 22. “On the second morning he goes out there and played soccer, at 11 a.m., the hottest part of the morning,” he said. When he collapsed, Smith said Altemira was taken immediately to an area hospital by ambulance, where he died two hours later.

According to Brown, the refugee center attorney, many eyewitnesses to Altemira’s collapse said guards were slow to summon help because they thought he was trying to avoid a work detail.

Following Altemira’s death, some detainees took part in a prayer vigil and fast. Six days later, on the day the fire broke out, a scuffle between a Haitian and a Cuban detainee also was reported.

“The people at Krome feel more forgotten than ever,” said Little. “There have been some serious suicide attempts. They feel hopeless as doors shut in their faces, they are repatriated, or not paroled.”

Smith agreed that tensions in Krome have been escalating since Bush’s order. “The detainees and the Haitian community have been upset with that, and they have been vocal,” he said. “But there was no violence.”

Over the years there has been violence at Krome, including riots and frequent reports of rape, beatings and racially motivated harassment. In April, 1990, following a refugee center report that included dozens of affidavits from detainees alleging abuse, the FBI launched an investigation into conditions and treatment at the facility. That investigation reportedly is continuing.

The Krome Detention Facility was opened on an abandoned missile base in 1980 during a tumultuous spring in which 125,000 Cubans and some 25,000 Haitian refugees poured into South Florida. Although it is used to hold any foreign national who enters the United States without proper documentation, the population has always been predominantly Haitian, which has led to charges that U.S. immigration policy is racist.

Smith said the center can hold up to 750 people, but budget cuts have reduced the optimal population to 450. Since the fire, which has made the men’s dormitory unusable, Smith said he has liberalized his parole criteria to lower the population to 300.