Doug Bereuter: “It is with the utmost gravity that I must sound a warning to my colleagues: The Clinton administration is actively…”

“It is with the utmost gravity that I must sound a warning to my colleagues: The Clinton administration is actively considering the unilateral invasion of Haiti. Certainly it is true that the administration's Haitian policy has been a total failure and has, predictably, brought great additional suffering to the Haitian people. We were told last December when the United Nations imposed an oil embargo on Haiti, sought by the United States, that the de facto regime in Haiti would be bought to their knees by the middle of January. Four months later the regime and the Haitian military are not worse off than they were last January. In fact, they are profiteering from the sale of gasoline at $10 per gallon. The new proposals for a stepped--up embargo will not work any better than the current ones because the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic is a sieve; oil and goods continue to flow unimpeded from the Dominican Republic to Haiti. The suffering of the Haitian people and the level of violence that is inflicted upon them have only been increased by the embargo and by failures in United States foreign policy. These failures and, speaking frankly, domestic pressure and the concern about advancing a congressional agenda, now are strengthening the hand of invasion advocates within the administration.”