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Time - Man of the Year
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06019911.000
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1992-09-10
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THE WEEK, Page 23WORLDAgainst All Odds
Calm weather and abject despair drive Haitians back into the sea
When they set out in their frail boats, most know they will
never reach the U.S. mainland. Yet Haiti's poor are so
desperate to escape their country's turmoil that a record 10,514
have left the island so far in May, including 1,635 in one day
alone last week. With the refugee camps at Guantanamo Bay in
Cuba reportedly full and no plans for an expansion in the
works, the Coast Guard began limiting its rescue efforts to
refugees in "imminent danger" of sinking or starving during the
600-mile voyage through the northern Caribbean to Florida.
Others were urged to return home but not stopped.
Although May's traditionally calm seas encouraged the
renewed exodus, the real culprit is a pervasive sense of
hopelessness on the island fostered by the ambivalent policies
of Haiti's neighbors. Military leaders seized power last
September from the popularly elected President, Father
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, but the Organization of American States
decided only this month to tighten its embargo by barring ships
from their ports that traded with Haiti. The U.S. supports the
embargo and is pressuring the European Community to stop
sending supplies, but the Pentagon has refused to strong-arm its
onetime military allies into accepting an OAS-brokered peace
plan.
Aristide, who is in the U.S. to win backing for his
return, hopes to address the United Nations this week even as
military leaders on the island are trying to push through a new
government formula excluding him from power. At least four
people died last week in Port-au-Prince during a one-day general
strike supporting his return.