U.S. Prepares to Return Haitian Refugees

After rejecting a final offer of $80 in cash and the chance for a job if they volunteered to return home, nearly 4,000 Haitian refugees remaining in detention camps at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, faced being shipped home anyway--by force if necessary, officials said Thursday.

“We haven’t had any trouble yet,” Marine Sgt. Joseph Muniz, a base spokesman, said Thursday by telephone. “We do not expect any violence, maybe some sit-down protests. But we are preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.”

As the 4:30 p.m. deadline for accepting the voluntary repatriation offer came and went Thursday, guards at the sprawling base began moving Haitians out of the tent cities and into an airplane hangar for final interviews with U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service officers. Those refugees who can prove that their lives would be endangered if they return to Haiti--even after the restoration of democracy and the return of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide--may be permitted to enter the United States.

But Miami attorneys for the Haitians expect that few will be found to qualify. “It’s a sham,” said Cheryl Little, one of the lawyers representing the Haitians. “This is not a bona fide attempt to identify refugees. The U.S. government wants to make room for the Cubans who are returning from Panama.”

About 9,000 Cuban refugees are being detained in Panama, which agreed to give them haven after last summer’s rafting exodus from the island nation. But Panama set a time limit of six months--which expires in March--and the refugees are expected to be taken to Guantanamo, where 23,000 other Cuban refugees are being detained in tent cities.

Of the first 100 Haitians interviewed Thursday, none were found to have a credible fear of persecution, and all were expected to be on the way back to Haiti by late Thursday, said Army Maj. Rick Thomas.

Little said she and other lawyers will seek a U.S. District Court order todaycq to block the forced repatriations.

The Clinton Administration last week offered the cash bonus and job incentive in hopes of enticing about 4,500 Haitian holdouts at the detention camps to go home.

Since U.S. troops paved the way for Aristide’s return in October, about 16,000 Haitians have gone back to their country willingly. About 650 more accepted the cash offer.

Most of the holdouts maintain that thugs still loyal to the military regime continue to be a threat, especially in the countryside, outside the reach of U.S. forces.

“They fear they will be killed upon return, it’s as simple as that,” said Little, who added that she receives daily telephone calls from Haitians at Guantanamo. “These are people who nearly lost their lives fighting for democracy. But they know well that their attackers retain arms in Haiti. It’s a fragile democracy at best.”