John Mica: “My colleagues in the House, the current policy or lack of policy ranks probably among the greatest foreign policy…”

“My colleagues in the House, the current policy or lack of policy ranks probably among the greatest foreign policy failures of any era. If President Kennedy's term in office, after only 2 years, was called Camelot, with Haiti President Clinton's era may be known as Nightmare on Elm Street. This week we have imposed tighter economic sanctions on the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Get this: We are tightening sanctions, economic sanctions, on a country where the average Haitian annual income is $252 a year. That is 69 cents a day. That is the proposal this week. The other proposal this week is to put the Haitians and process them on cruise ships off of Florida. That is not the answer to this problem. Then we have my colleague, and I know he is well intended, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Goss], and he has a just-pretend solution. It is a temporary solution. My colleagues, it is not a permanent solution. The only solution is to restore democracy, to enforce the U.N. accord to enforce the agreement of Governor's Island to restore democracy. When you say something, you do something. That is going to be the permanent solution, not setting up a temporary government in exile. We must have a multilateral force. We must not sacrifice U.S. Forces until we restore democracy on that island. We are not going to resolve the problems. Until we restore economic development on that island, these people will continue to wash on our shores, dead and alive.”