The Michigan Daily - Friday, September 9, 1994 - 13
U.S. steps up plans
for Haiti invasion
AP PHOTO
Cuba.Leandro Gomez pulls his brother Alexandro in a box yesterday afternoon inside the camp housing Cuban refugees in the Guantanamo Naval Air Base in
Washingo Havana to resume talks
on rfees seeking asym in
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON - The United
States, stepping up its planning for
not only the invasion of Haiti but also
its aftermath, has begun recruiting
Haitians now exiled at Guantanamo
Bay to be part of a future, temporary
Haitian civilian police force, admin-
istration officials said yesterday.
Senior officials said an intergov-
ernmental task force has been assigned
the project of building an interim po-
lice force to be installed almost im-
mediately after a U.S. invasion. In a
second phase that will begin soon
afterwards, a permanent force would
be recruited and trained under a pro-
gram being developed by the Justice
Department.
Preparations for the invasion it-
self went forward Thursday with a
Pentagon announcement that seven
giant cargo ships were being readied
in ports around the country to trans-
port heavy equipment for possible
use by U.S. forces.
The ships, each of which is about
700 feet long, rank among the biggest
in the nation's ready reserve fleet and
normally are used to carry tanks,
trucks, track vehicles and other
weighty equipment.
The sizeable transport capacity
being activated surprised even some
Pentagon officials, in light of wide-
spread predictions that an invasion of
Haiti would meet little resistance and
could be managed quickly. But
sources familiar with the contingency
plans said significant forces would be
available and used if the United States
invades, possibly with more than
15,000 troops involved.
Administration officials still held
out the possibility that Haiti's mili-
tary leaders, watching the public un-
folding of invasion plans, will finally
decide to depart Haiti-but no U.S.
official expressed much optimism
yesterday that that would happen.
One senior official said a "drop-
dead date" by which Haiti's military
leaders must leave has not been de-
cided by President Clinton, but that
the "window" is between the last week
of September and mid-October. Pen-
tagon officials said another week or
two is needed to move all the desired
equipment and forces into place.
Under the U.S. scenario for a post-
invasion Haiti, an interim police force
made up of Haitians now in the mili-
tary there - assisted by as many as
500 Haitians as translators, aides and
helpers from Guantanamo Bay, Mi-
ami, New York and elsewhere -
would arrive "within days" of the
actual invasion to provide basic secu-
rity in the country. The Haitians at the
U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba were taken there after U.S. ships
picked them off when they tried to
flee Haiti in boats.
Police "monitors" from the United
States and several other nations would
oversee the interim force to prevent
human rights violations and other
"unacceptable behavior" by members
of the current military selected to be
part of the interim force. Officials
said Haiti's exiled president Jean-
Bertrand Aristide, who would be re-
stored to power in the U.S. invasion,
and others have lists of "known badl
guys"; but essentially elements of tlh'
current military would be the nucleus
of the new force.
The Clinton administration, with
memories still strong of problems in
the U.S. military operation in Soma-
lia, is putting emphasis on providing
security in Haiti once its military lead-
ers are out of the country, either vol-
untarily or through an invasion.
Two senior State Department of-
ficials -AlexanderF. Watson, assis-
tant secretary for inter-American af-
fairs, and Thomas E. McNamara, act-
ing assistant secretary for politico-
military affairs - have been visiting
several countries in the region to per-
suade them to provide police moni-
tors for the post-invasion period.
Replacing the interim force would
be what the United States envisions
as a permanent civilian force of 4,000
recruited in Haiti, some of the interim
force and some now, trained by the
Justice Department at a new "police
academy" to be immediately estab-
lished after the invasion.
Its graduating classes would
gradually replace the interim group,
under the plan.
The United States, one official put
it, "does not want its troops to be
perceived as the cop on the beat."
On invasion planning itself, Pen-
tagon spokesman Col. Doug Kennett
disclosed the activation of the reserve
cargo ships and called it "a prudent
step." He said Deputy Defense Secre-
tary John Deutch had signed the acti-
vation order Wednesday night.
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON - Pivotal talks
with Cuba over stopping the refugee
flow are scheduled to resume this
morning in New York, with a deal
hinging on whether Fidel Castro has
dropped demands for easing the trade
ban with his island, U.S. officials
said.
No important differences persist
over the numbers of Cubans that the
United States would permit to immi-
grate annually, a guaranteed mini-
mum of 20,000 a year, a U.S. official
said. The special program is unprec-
edented in U.S. immigration.
The administration is also willing
to concede that special consideration
ought to be given to a backlog of
Cubans built up during the past de-
cade who have tried to migrate le-
gally through the American Interests
Section in Havana.
Although no number has been
specified for speeding their entry, the
United States will take steps to "work
down" the backlog, a U.S. official
said. Cuba puts the number at about
140,000.
In return for the migration pack-
age, the United States expects Castro
to crack down on dissatisfied Cubans
trying to flee the Communist-ruled
island.
Talks were broken off Wednes-
day to give chief Cuban negotiator
Ricardo Alarcon time to consult in
Havana. Alarcon returned to New
York Thursday night.
"The question is whether Alarcon
is coming with something, or whether
we'll have to make the hard decision
on breaking off the talks," a U.S.
official said.
Ending the exodus would permit
Clinton time to decide what to do with
more than 25,000 Cuban refugees
locked behind. barbed wire at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in
Panama.
It would also clear the Caribbean
decks for a possible invasion of Haiti.
It would be awkward to be picking up
refugees in one spot while sending
Marines ashore in another, particu-
larly if Castro provoked larger num-
bers to leave.
A U.S. official described the dif-
ferences over the embargo issue as
based on something, "the Cubans want
politically and something we can't
deal with politically."
Last month, Clinton tightened the
trade embargo by banning cash gifts .
from Cuban exiles to their families in
Cuba and restricting visits by exiles
to family.
The measures were taken to ce-
ment the support of anti-Castro Cu-
ban Americans for Clinton's policy
of barring Cuban refugees from reach-
ing the United States.
Cuba argues that because the
measures were put in place in re-
sponse to Castro's decision to let
Cubans freely take to sea, it should be
revoked once Castro reverses his de-
cision.
Revocation would also be a sign
thatPresident Clinton is breaking free
of the influence of the anti-Castro
lobby, which Castro refers to as a
mafia.
Alarcon also asked for the United
States to muzzle private radio sta-
tions who broadcast anti-Castro mes-
sages to Cuba; some American offi-
cials say the obvious constitutional
prohibitions on interfering with
speech apply.
- -.
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. .e dSouth Dakota's Miss America hopeful draws tire tor
.Minister denies fear of . T~
new war in Rwanda
plans to penorm Native American dance in pageant
Los Angeles Times
KIGALI, Rwanda - Defense
Minister Paul Kagame yesterday
downplayed a U.N. official's conclu-
sion that guerrilla warfare might soon
erupt in Rwanda, but said his troops
mustquickly moveinto aformer"safe
haven" for refugees to ensure that it
doesn't happen.
Asked if armed men from the former
government now in exile in Zaire were
infiltrating border areas ofRwanda, as
the top United Nations official here
indicated this week, Kagame said: "We
have been seeing some funny move-
ments, especially around the border
with Burundi, and then, of course, the
area inside (the country)."
Soldiers and members of the militia
of the former hard-line Hutu govern-
ment and ruling party - defeated in a
civil war that ended in July - "have
been moving freely around, terrorizing
the civilians," Kagame said. "We have
been seeing such activities and have
been concerned. We need to check that
out and bring it under control."
Kagame, who guided the young
soldiers of the Rwandan Patriotic Front
to victory, is believed by many to now
be this African country's top leader.
In a report this week to United
Nations headquarters in New York,
Shahryar M. Khan, special representa-
tive to the U.N. secretary-general in
Rwanda, said that in the period Aug.
29-Sept. 4 young men carrying large
stocks of weapons and rations had been
spotted infiltrating the country's
southwest, a remote and forested area
the French had turned into a sanctu-
ary for fleeing Rwandan refugees
during the summer.
These are "classic preparations for
guerrilla war," Khan said, noting how
favorable the terrain would be for in-
surgency operations. U.N. peace-keep-
ing officers say it is screened from
aerial reconnaissance by thick foliage.
The high-ranking U.N. official
gave no hint of the size of the infiltra-
tions, but Kagame maintained that
"they're on a limited scale so far, not
a big problem."
Returnees from the defeated army
have "just been responsible for iso-
lated incidents," he said. "It hasn't yet
gone to high levels of threat."
But the fact that hostile and armed
men are now sneaking into the country
demands a prompt reaction, Kagame
said.
This week, Rwanda's new govern-
ment for the first time sent permanent
civilian administrators and soldiers into
the southwest, U.N. officials reported.
An estimated 480,000refugees from
the ethnic Hutu majority are in the
southwest, along with more than 1
million local inhabitants. Many of the
refugees fear they will be victimized
and subjected to reprisals by the
Front's army, which is led by Tutsis,
because of the nationwide massacres
perpetrated by Rwanda's former gov-
ernment last spring.
Newsday
Miss America contestant Kristi
Lynn Bauer isn't circling the wagons.
Despite criticism that a buckskin-
clad dance Miss South Dakota in-
tends to perform in preliminary com-
petition at the Atlantic City, N.J.,
pageant is an insult to American Indi-
ans, she says her show will go on.
And, in effect, the Miss America
pageant said yesterday that it can't
tell her what to do -so do it she will,
if she wants.
"It's to honor the Native Ameri-
can culture," said Bauer, a blue-eyed
blonde from Brookings, S.D., who
says she is part Indian, though she can
name no Indian forebears.
"I'm taking the side of cultural
sensitivity, which it's important for
everyone to do."
But American Indian Community
House Inc., a New York-based non-
profit social service agency that serves
Indians and acts as a communications
network on national issues, disagreed
yesterday.
"This appropriation of native cul-
ture is insensitive, unacceptable and
in no way honoring native people,"
the group said in a statement.
"Even after being told that she
will be insulting American Indians
and making a mockery of their spiri-
tuality ... she has not changed her
plans to perform a dance dressed in a
buckskin dress under a tribal burial
scaffold adorned with traditional ob-
jects like a drum and buffalo robe for
her 'talent' competition at the Miss
America Pageant."
But Bauer insists her performance
is not insulting.
She says Larry Belitz, whom she
said served as a technical adviser for
the movie "Dances With Wolves"
and is also her adviser, asked her to
perform the dance at the Atlantic City
It's to honor the Native 'The issue here is you
American culture. ... don't do a dance
I'm taking the side of routine in a cemetery.
cultural sensitivity, That's the message
which It's Important for she sends. One, it's in
everyone to do.' bad taste. Two, if it's
- Kristi Lynn Bauer
South Dakota
Miss America
contestant
pageant.
The South Dakota commissioner
of Indian affairs, Francis Whitebird,
also criticized Bauer.
The finals of the Miss America
Pageant will be televised Sept. 17.
done routinely (in
pageants) it may be OK
to them but it's not to
me.'
- Whitebird
Lakota Inidan and
member of the
Rosebud Sioux Tribe
IAl"
SBring back 8-tracks
Internet is the fastest growing source of information and
services for millions of computer users. You can: connect
to NASA, visit the Library of Congress, send and receive
electronic mail, access an electronic encyclopedia, etc.
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Internet Seminar
These seminars are meant for all computer users. The presenter
will give an overview, demonstrate and discuss issues related to the
key providers, and answer some of the most common questions.
Dates: Sept. 16 or Sept. 26
Time: 9:00 AM
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