Haitians Escape Guantanamo, Not HIV Shadow : Miami: Immigrants infected with virus that causes AIDS fight to build new lives in United States, a country that has made them feel unwanted, deeply suspicious.

For more than an hour, Michel talked animatedly and enthusiastically, waving his fork over his plate as he recounted the incredible events of the last two years.

There was a lot to relate--his political activism for Jean-Bertrand Aristide, his days in hiding after a military coup exiled Haiti’s first freely elected president, his Coast Guard-intercepted effort to reach Florida by boat, and the 20 months spent agitating for release from an oppressive detention camp at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.

Then, the fork stopped in midair.

Michel’s eyes narrowed as the question was translated from English into Creole: What did he think about detaining him and other Haitians at the camp because of their health?

“Some of those people had nothing wrong with them at all,” he replied emphatically. “It was just an excuse by the U.S. government not to let them into this country. I don’t have any health problems.”

As the next question started, again about his health, he recoiled, jabbing his fork into the sauce surrounding his broiled snapper:

“And now you are asking personal questions that I am not obligated to answer.”

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Michel, 29, has tested positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. He is among more than 200 Haitians struggling to build new lives in the United States, shadowed by a deadly virus in a new country that has made them feel unwanted and deeply suspicious.

Because of his diagnosis, Michel spent 20 months in a U.S. government-created purgatory, living behind razor wire in stark tents filled with dusty, steamy heat and dispirited, sad-eyed people lying listlessly on cots.

“It was a nightmare,” recalled Michael Ratner, a New York attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights. “When I took the ferry crossing the bay, it was like crossing the River Styx”--the mythical boundary of hell.

The Navy base at Guantanamo Bay lies at Cuba’s southern tip, separated from arid mountains by minefields. An irritant to the island’s communist regime, the base is mainly used as year-round training for U.S. forces.

When Haitians flooded off their island after Aristide’s ouster in September, 1991, the base became a conveniently located detention camp. Coast Guard cutters patrolled the Windward Passage, stopping overcrowded wooden boats at sea and taking anyone aboard to Guantanamo.

About three-fourths of the 40,000 people who fled after the coup were sent back to Haiti.

Haitian advocates criticized the Guantanamo camp and waged court fights. From a peak of 12,500 detainees, the camp dwindled to a little more than 200 Haitians--young men and women who tested positive for HIV.

Although they had provided enough evidence of political persecution in Haiti to qualify for entry into the United States, they were stranded by a policy against admitting HIV-positive immigrants.

Rico, 33, described the frustration.

He arrived at Guantanamo on May 19, 1992, one day after fleeing Haiti after getting word that soldiers were waiting for him inside his home. He was interviewed by immigration officers and told a few weeks later that he had qualified for transfer to the United States. Within days, he was called at 6 a.m.

“That was the time they called you when you were going to the United States. I felt very happy. I was ready to leave. I wanted to get in contact with my family as soon as I got there.”

Instead, he was taken to another camp, smaller and isolated.

“At first, they didn’t tell me anything,” Rico said. “Then, they told me this was the camp for the people with medical problems.

“I became very sad. I even cried a lot. I was thinking that if this was what I was going to get, I would have stayed in Haiti and risked getting killed by the soldiers.”

Although unfriendly U.S. policy toward Haitians is nothing new, the indefinite detention of people with medical problems in such a camp stirred outrage.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson was arrested in New York at one of several demonstrations for the Haitians. AIDS coalitions and human rights groups joined the protests. Actress Susan Sarandon and actor Tim Robbins used the pulpit of the Academy Awards broadcast to urge the Haitians’ release.

U.S. District Judge Sterling Johnson Jr. blistered the policy. In March, he ordered that 50 Haitians who had developed AIDS be sent to the United States for medical treatment lacking at Guantanamo. On June 8, he ordered closure of what he called “nothing more than an HIV prison camp.”

The remaining 142 Haitians were flown to the United States.

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“I don’t feel well. I can’t go to school. I can’t eat. I’m crying. I’m alone.”

The tearful call came recently to Nellie Antoine in the middle of the night from a woman who is one of 120 Haitians resettled in Brooklyn after being released from Guantanamo in June.

“They went through multiple traumas, and now, like any new immigrant, they have to deal with a new culture,” said Patricia Benoit, who runs the Haitian Women’s Program, which provides follow-up care as part of the effort Antoine works for in New York.

The Coalition for the Homeless and other groups teamed up with New York City officials to cut red tape and quickly arrange housing, medical care and other aid.

Though several other private agencies also have pitched in, many of the refugees still have had trouble finding or keeping jobs.

“I don’t like New York,” said Bernard, 21, who was a mechanic in Haiti but is unemployed here. “But I am resigned.”

In Miami, neither Michel, an agriculture technician, nor Rico, who worked in the Haitian civil service, have jobs, although they are actively looking.

“I have a lot of friends who help me, but I know I can’t do that forever,” Michel said. “I want to be self-sufficient.”

None of the refugees interviewed wanted their last names used. Rico said he never tells anyone he was detained at Guantanamo because of the stigma. Michel said, “It depends on who you meet. I haven’t had any problems, but I’ve heard that some people have.”

Such difficult transitions worry those who provide psychosocial counseling and medical treatment for the Haitians. One former Guantanamo detainee died in Miami of AIDS, but most are people ranging in ages from 19 to early 30s who have remained healthy.

“The kind of stress these people have can be catastrophic,” said Dr. Larry Pierre at the Center for Haitian Studies, a nonprofit services center in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood. “The shock of how they learned, the level of denial is very high. Because of the political aspect, the people see this as a conspiracy against them.”

Dr. Joel Hilaire, a counselor at the center, said many refugees initially refused to believe they were HIV-positive, some getting tested repeatedly in hopes of a negative result. Some say they were injected with the virus.

“They’re scared of doctors. They think when they took blood out at Guantanamo, they gave them the virus,” Hilaire said.

Still, about two-thirds of the refugees settled in the Miami area regularly participate in counseling and follow advice for regular checkups and keeping healthy lifestyles, counselors said.

Rico goes to counseling at Church World Services and says he is at peace with himself.

“I don’t let it bother me too much or take over my thoughts,” he said. “Everyone in life has a destiny from God. I could have stayed in Haiti and been shot, or I could have been run over by a car. I’m taking care of myself.”

Michel softened after being asked about two small children he left in Haiti. “I have a lot of dreams for my children,” he said.

Digging his fork back into his dinner, he said: “Maybe in a few months, I’ll go to a doctor for a consultation.”