Speaker. I would like to begin with good news. The United States Coast Guard today transferred more than 1.400 Haitian refugees from Coast Guard cutters to the area around the United States Naval Base at Guantinamo Bay. Cuba. to enable the Coast Guard cutters to continue rescue operations. The State Department announced that 858 Haitians were transferred to the Navy vessel Tortuga in Guantiinamo Bay. and 572 were being sent out to the base itself. That leaves 380 Haitians still on cutters. This is good news because it represents a more humane approach to the problem of assisting those Haitians who are so desperate that they are risking their lives to flee the terror of the military government. illegal military government. of Haiti. I think it is good news that our Government has ceased a policy of returning these refugees. political refugees. to Haiti. More than 500 have been returned already. but as a result of a court order. they have stopped returning the refugees and have started behaving like a more human democratic government. We have begun to apply the same standards to the Haitians that we have always applied to refugees seeking to escape terror and persecution. The policy of the United States Government is the primary reason we have the continuing turmoil in HaiLi. If only we would support the democratically elected government of President Aristide. we would not have had the problem of having to accommodate thousands of Haitians attempting to flee terror and persecution.
Keywords matched
refugees