8 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, March 22, 1996 NATION/WORLD Violence threatens U.S. aid to Haiti Los Angeles Times WASHINGTON - New Haitian President Rene Garcia Preval, visiting Washington yesterday for his first official meeting with President Clinton, acknowl- edged a spate of police and political violence in his impoverished Caribbean country but blamed the prob- lems on matters beyond his control. Although he came to Washington for economic aid, Preval was dogged by questions about violence in his nation. He repeatedly defended the intentions of his inexperienced police force and said he needs more time to deal with investigations of political assassina- tions. Violence looms as a major obstacle to Clinton's promise to provide a $100 million program of for- eign aid to Haiti next year. So long as the police continue to fire into crowds and cases of political assassination remain unsolved, Congress will be reluctant to appropriate all the money requested. Congress already has frozen $2.5 million that was supposed to help finance the police academy that is turning out new policemen. The persistence of violence is a dispiriting cloud on what the Clinton administration regards as one of its major foreign policy triumphs-the return ofdemoc- racy to Haiti. For this reason, Preval found the issue raised in his meetings with both Clinton and Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, according to U.S. officials. Clinton, welcoming Preval to the White House, said in front oftelevision cameras: "I'm very proud of the progress that Haiti has made in preserving its freedom and liberty and very pleased that, when (Preval) was inaugurated, it marked the first peaceful transfer of power from one democratically elected president to another in 200 years." Preval, who succeeded Jean-Bertrand Aristide as president last month, told reporters at a breakfast meeting that it is difficult to solve cases of alleged political assassination because of "a corrupt judicial House passes -f tougher illegal h immigration bil1:, WASHINGTON (AP) -Moving on an issue that sprang into the Campaign '96 spotlight, the House late yesterday passed sweeping legislation to combat illegal immigration. In the first major congressional ac- tion on immigration in a decade, the House deletedmost provisions that would have re- stricted legal im- ..wi.. migration before It approving the mammoth bill, secure 0 333-87. "It is funda- borders, mentally wrong to take thejustifiable crime ano anger about our failure to deal jobs ,,, with the issue of - illegal immigra- tion and piggy- _ back on top of that anger a drastic ... cut in permanent AP PHOTO President Clinton met with Haitian President Rene Prevai in the Oval Office of the White House yesterday. Clinton called for a program of "achievable reform" to jumpstart Haiti's feeble economy. r I1 system and a young and inexperienced police force." Nevertheless, he said, he had appointed a special judicial unit to investigate the cases and expects a report next month. The Haitian president, however, cast doubt on the incidence of such assassinations, which some critics insisted have reached 30 since Aristide re- turned 17 months ago. Preval said, for example, that he is not certain that the most celebrated case - the murder of Aristide opponent Mireille Durocher Bertin last year- was a case of political assassination. Raising a sore point in U.S.-Haitian relations, Preval said the investigations of earlier assassina- tions under military rule probably would be more successful if the Pentagon released the documents that American troops seized from Haitian army headquarters when they landed in Port-au-Prince in September 1994. Deputy national security adviser Samuel Berger told reporters later, "We are taking steps to return those documents." But he said the U.S. government wants to protect the names of some of the people, including Americans, mentioned in the documents. There reportedly is concern that release of the documents would set off vendettas against those who collaborated with the previous military re- gime. Preval said recent incidents in which police fired into crowds could be traced to the inexperience and lack of equipment of the new force of 5,200 police. In all, 19 people have died at the hands of the police in the past eight months. The Haitian president said that fearful young police, lacking helmets or shields or tear gas or water pumps, fired into crowds when subjected to a barrage of stones. up an 800-number in five states- California, Texas, Florida, New York and New Jersey - that employers could call to check whether j6b'l unt- ers were eligible to work in the United States. "It will help secure our borders, re- duce crime and protect jobs for Aicri- can citizens,'" said, Rep. Lamar Sm inp(R-TexasJ, the bill's chiefauthor. r E~ven Witout Ir Evn *i'houtmany of the 'legal educe immigration pro- visions h4 had p~rotCect pushed, Smith said the bill "will en- courage legal im- Lamar Smith migrants tcbepr - ductive netiib4 R-Texas of our comnuni- ties and ease the burden on the hard-working taxpayer." The presidential primary campaign gave a high-profile boost to the drive to shut down illegal immigratioit' goth California Gov. Pete Wilson, betbre he dropped out of the GOP race, a'd tan- didate Pat Buchanan made it iwrtegral parts of their campaigns. r Buchanan has blamed illegal aliens among the causes of stagnant wags,i flated welfare costs and rising ciir 6 and has called for a five-year moratorili on legal immigration to give those t*dw here time to assimilate. t legal immigration, a cause and a force that has been good for this country," said Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), who cosponsored the House amend- ment deleting the legal immigration limits. The bill would double the U.S. Bor- der Patrol by adding 5,000 new agents over five years; crack down on smug- glers of aliens, document forgers and illegal aliens who overstay temporary visas and bar members of foreign ter- rorist organizations. It also would set Protesters attack U.N. official's miotorcade Newsday VUKOVAR, Croatia - The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, was stoned here yesterday by militant Serbs shouting, "Sieg Heil, Fascists" and "Get out of Yugoslavia." Local Serb police watched without intervening as rocks shattered a large glass pane on a U.N. van, raining glass on Albright's senior aides. The protest- ers also cracked windshields on two other vehicles, but caused no injuries. The attack, which took place in this historic city still in ruins from a four- month Serb bombardment in 1991, oc- curred after Albright reaffirmed that Serb-occupied East Slavonia will re- vert to Croatian control under a U.S.- brokered peace accord. Peter Galbraith, the U.S. ambassador to Croatia, said the violence appeared organized, possibly by Slavko Dokmanovic, the mayor of this devas- tated Danube town, whom Galbraith had excluded from Albright's six-hour Election process determine&ruonedte for upcoming Ireland vote AP PHOTO Sgt. Mark Patterson of Irvington, N.J., shakes hands with 9-year-old Bosnian Ibrahim Jahic through the fence that marks the limits of a U.S. Army base about 11 miles east of Tuzla. program. "Frankly, it did not surprise me that people who 'supported the destruction of Vukovar did not like me," Albright later told reporters. "A few rotten apples and stones ... cannot destroy a very important process" of bringing about a peaceful transition in the region, she added. Supported by the Yugoslav army just across the Danube River in northern Serbia, local Serbs rose up against the Croatian government in 1991, eventu- ally driving out the Croatian military and most non-Serbs in the population. When Albright and her entourage drove into this once-grand city of40,000 yesterday, there was hardly a building not damaged by the constant artillery bombardment. Many buildings lay in complete ruins, others had no roofs to protect them from the harsh weather. Determined to see the damage close- up, Albright stopped the motorcade and began to walk, passing the fa- mous Eltz Palace, named after a Ger- man count. They entered a makeshift open market, and as they walked down the main aisle local Serbs started to crowd around the party, some shaking their fists. The people appeared to be farmers, with the women in aprons and the men in overalls. The Washington Post LONDON - Prime Minister John Major announced yesterday a complicated election plan as the next step in the Northern Ireland peace process, saying, with visible frustration, that he was forced to produce his own pro- posal because rival political parties there could not agree on one. Major's plan, as outlined to the House of Commons, calls for voters in the British-ruled province to elect a 110- member body, or forum, May 30; that forum will then select delegates to "all-party" negotiations aimed at achieving a permanent settlement to decades of political and sectarian turmoil in Northern Ireland. The plan appeared to please only one of the many fractious parties in the troubled province-the Ulster Unionists, who represent the majority of Northern Ireland's Protestants. Catholic-based parties, as well as a smaller Protestant group led by the Rev. Ian Paisley, ridiculed it. Still, none explicitly declined to participate-except Sinn Fein, the political wing of the outlawed Irish Republican Army, which is barred from the process in any case unless the IRA agrees to halt its new campaign of violence. The election plan - put together by Major from an amalgam of proposals by the Northern Ireland parties - is designed to re-energize peace talks that began nearly a year ago, after Catholic and Protestant paramilitary groups de- clared a halt to 25 years of warfare in the province. Discus- sions broke down about six months ago over the IRA's refusal to "decommission" its weapons as a condition to Sinn Fein's participation in all-party negotiations. The IRA ended its cease-fire Feb. 9 by detonating a car bomb at London's Docklands development that killed two people and injured dozens. A second IRA bomb was found days later in London's theater district and de- fused; a third later exploded prematurely aboard qLon- don bus, killing the man carrying it and injuring a, number of bystanders. Seeking to end the impasse, Major and Irish Prime Minis- ter John Bruton jointly proposed an election as a preAidto- all-party talks that would begin June 10. Bitter arguments about the form, wisdom and comparative advantges various parties of such an election erupted immediate leading to Major's announcement today. ---i t Under his plan, voters in each of 18 parliamentary con- stituencies in Northern Ireland will cast ballots forpolitical parties, and the top five vote-getters in each constituency will send delegates to the forum. In addition, 2'mhiore delegates will be allotted to the 10 parties receiVing the highest number of votes province-wide. Each party repre- sented will then select from its delegates a negotiating team for the June 10 all-party talks; the forum itself will Have no role in the talks. Paddy Ashdown, leader of Britain's Liberal Den&ratic Party, called the plan a "dog's breakfast" but agreed'that it was better than nothing. Labor Party leader Tony Blair also expressed concern but endorsed the idea, guaranteeing its approval by Parliament- if not full participation by North- ern Ireland's politicians. Parliament members from Northern Ireland's Social-Demo cratic and Labor Party, representing the province' siiiority Catholic community, denounced the plan as a sell-6ito the Protestant Ulster Unionist Party - whose nine seafs in the' House of Commons help keep Major's ConservativePturty in power here. Major responded angrily to the charge, declaring tht if the Social Democrats and others in the province had shown 'a willingness to compromise, he wouldnot have had to impose his own plan. -,. 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