Continued Haitian Exodus Expected, U.S. Says : Caribbean: White House prepared to shelter up to 12,000 refugees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Clinton Administration officials said Wednesday that they expect refugees to continue flooding out of Haiti as long as the military rules there, and they announced that they are preparing to house as many as 12,000 Haitians at a newly reopened tent city at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The U.S. Coast Guard picked up at least 521 more refugees in boats Wednesday, bringing the number rescued over the last five days to more than 3,500--a total that exceeds the number picked up in all of 1993.

U.S. officials said they have concluded that there is little hope of stopping the exodus, which they acknowledge has been spurred by the Clinton Administration’s tighter economic embargo on Haiti and its promises of more humane treatment of refugees, as well as by military repression on the island.

White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers appealed again to Haitians to stay in their homeland, but another senior official said that the refugees have “many good reasons” for fleeing by boat.

“They tell us why they came” in interviews with the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the official said. “There is a combination of factors: the fact that we have put a system in place that is a humane way to process people, the increasing pressure of sanctions, the pressure of military abuses, their concern with a hopeless situation in Haiti.”

The Administration’s appeals to Haitians to remain on the island and apply for refugee status there have failed for two reasons, he said.

First, some applicants have been stalked and persecuted by those in power in Haiti. Second, refugees who leave by boat “are out of Haiti immediately,” while those who apply on the island face a delay of uncertain length before they can leave.

“Besides, we’re offering them three square meals and a shower,” the official added.

Publicly, Clinton Administration spokespersons say that the main factor prompting increased emigration is worsening repression by the Haitian military. But other officials say that is not certain.

“Clearly, what we are seeing is a continuing deterioration of the human rights situation in Haiti . . . and surely we believe that the reason for these outflows is connected to that,” President Clinton’s special ambassador for Haiti policy, former Rep. William H. Gray III, told reporters.

At a formal briefing at the White House, Gray insisted several times that this week’s sudden flood of refugees has come as no surprise to the Administration.

And he predicted that the exodus will continue until Haiti’s military regime is toppled.

But other officials, in both Washington and Port-au-Prince, Haiti, said that the human rights situation in Haiti appears to be a less important factor than reports of relatively comfortable refugee facilities for those who flee.

Indeed, human rights organizations in Haiti report that repression appears to have eased, at least in the short run.

For most of this year, the human rights groups estimated an average of more than 50 political murders each month in Port-au-Prince alone--but they have recorded six killings this month.

Instead, what appears to have happened in part is that the INS interviewers who ask Haitians to prove that they suffer “a well-founded fear of prosecution” have become easier to convince as a result of earlier reports of mounting repression.

Gray confirmed that the percentage of Haitians approved by the INS for refugee status--which means eventual resettlement in the United States, Canada or elsewhere--has climbed from about 5% last year to “between 20% and 30%” today. In some periods, other officials have said, the percentage approved has been as high as 40%.

The numbers approved are still relatively small, however.

White House spokeswoman Myers said that of 697 Haitians interviewed aboard the U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort in recent weeks, 211, or about 30%, were approved for refugee status, and 161 of those have already been moved to Guantanamo for “final resettlement processing,” which includes an AIDS test required by the INS.

Most of the 486 people denied refugee status already have been returned to Haiti by the Coast Guard, she said.

In another move to increase sanctions against wealthy Haitians, the State Department revoked all U.S. visitors’ visas issued at Port-au-Prince and the nearby island of Curacao.

“This is meant to target people who are close to the privileged class, who have supported the de facto government, who have supported the military regime,” Myers said.

The order does not affect Haitians who are permanent residents of the United States, who hold immigrant visas or who are residents of countries other than Haiti and obtained their U.S. visas there.

Haitians who are now in the United States on visitors’ visas will not be deported, she said, but if they leave the country they will not be allowed back in.

A White House official also said that Air France, the sole major air carrier still landing in Haiti, is expected to cut off service soon.

U.S. and Canadian airlines were ordered by their governments to end service to Haiti this month, but the French government has not pressed Air France to stop its flights until now.

Times staff writer Kenneth Freed in Port-au-Prince contributed to this report.