Word: haitian
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...switch, so far at least, improved the situation in Haiti. Refugees were continuing to flee at the rate of 2,000 a day. Ad-hoc refugee camps at Guantanamo naval base and elsewhere were jammed to capacity, and Coast Guard cutters were nearly overwhelmed. In the Haitian countryside, many villages are being depopulated by the exodus; once bustling main streets are now virtually deserted, and more homes seem to be boarded up than inhabited...
Amid all this, the Haitian military seems to have embraced a surreal attitude halfway between apathy and stubborn denial. On Thursday morning, 200 green-uniformed soldiers, some carrying bazookas, marched through downtown Port-au-Prince in a show of force, occasionally breaking into a spirited goose step. On Friday, top military officials gathered in the parking lot next to the General Quarters to celebrate Cedras' 45th birthday. On the menu: croissants, Teem and sugary schadec juice, made with Haitian grapefruits...
According to military sources, the Haitian leaders have virtually no plan for defending themselves from an invasion. Some soldiers have openly admitted their intention to drop their weapons at the first sign of trouble. Indeed, when an American helicopter recently flew over the town of Jeremie on surveillance, the local army unit thought the invasion had begun and simply ran away. The paramilitary units that aid the army in terrorizing ordinary Haitians have announced that their response to an invasion will be to "evaporate" into the civilian population and begin a guerrilla war. The clandestine campaign, they say, will involve...
Despite indications that Haitian resistance would be negligible, Clinton's aides insist that the President still has not made up his mind about an invasion. Yet by rattling the saber so loudly last week, Clinton has left himself little alternative but to invade. If he does nothing, he risks looking even weaker and more indecisive than he already appears. And that is a scenario the Administration relishes even less than the prospect of military action...
...President once again showed a talent for thoughtful speeches to foreign parliaments and Reaganesque photo ops, he could never quite get Americans' minds -- or his own mind -- off his manifold problems elsewhere. In U.S. headlines and on TV newscasts, his efforts were upstaged by the collapse of his latest Haitian refugee policy. Then on Saturday he was forced to grapple at a press conference with the implications of the death of North Korean President Kim Il Sung...