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this president chair recognizes the senator from Florida. Thank you, Mr President. It's clear what the purpose of this resolution to establish a joint congressional committee to study the issue in Haiti is. And the purpose is to restrict the president's range of options for an indefinite period of time, especially his option to use force.

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The senator from Kansas, the distinguished minority leader, has stated that he did not consult with General Cedras before drafting this proposal. However, it is not without significant that General Cedras, upon becoming aware of this proposal, has adopted. It is clear that this degree of gridlock in United States foreign policy as it relates to Haiti would serve the primary purpose of emboldening the thugs who have stolen the sovereignty.

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The people of Haiti. President, I want to discuss some of the consequences should this Senate, in a fit of ill wisdom, adopt this proposal. But before I do that, I'd like to turn to the proposal itself and just a few areas in which it is factually erroneous.

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The premise of this resolution, this amendment is that Congress has been insufficiently consulted on Haiti that there is some mystery. Some attempt to disguise and keep from Congress the facts of what is occurring in Haiti. Mr. President. Up until just a few days ago, when commercial aviation service was cut off to Haiti and even today, as the senator indicated the delegation which will go to Haiti through the Dominican Republic this weekend, Haiti was a country in which Americans could visit travel, talk to people and gather information and form their own opinion.

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This is not a country which is thousands of miles away and, until recently, difficult to gain access to. This is also a country in which this administration since January of last year has had almost 30 briefings or presentations before appropriate congressional committees on Haiti. So people who wanted to get information about Haiti had the opportunity to do so.

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We do not have to defer to this commission and place our policy in limbo for 45 days after the enactment of this bill, which could well be into September October in order to learn about what's happening in Haiti. So the basic premise, a premise of ignorance and even more than ignorance, the premise that there has been some conscious effort to deny to the American people and to its representatives in Congress.

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Information is what's occurring in Haiti is fundamentally erroneous. Second, reading the proposition itself on page two lines one through four, it states under the category of congressional findings that Haiti's elected president, who is in exile and the de facto ruling hunter in Haiti have reached an impasse in their negotiations for the reinstitution of civilian government.

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That's plate blatantly false. First, their head. There was a good faith effort to negotiate a restoration of democracy in Haiti, an effort which was frustrated in October of last year by the military regime, which reneged on its commitment. The most dramatic example of that Mr President occurred in Port au Prince Harbor, when the United States and the Canadians, pursuant to a provision in the governor's island accord the agreement, which was to structure the return of democracy in Haiti.

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Under that agreement, the United States and Canada had committed troops come to Haiti not as warriors but as workers and educators, to work as CBS and Corps of Engineers personnel to help in the rebuilding of the country and at the same time to educate elements of the Haitian military as to how they could perform those functions for the benefit of the people of Haiti.

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The Haitian military regime had committed to the international community that that ship would be allowed to dock and that those men and women would be protected while they were carrying out their international responsibilities. What, in fact occurred, Mr President, as we all know his first the Haitian government arranged for a ship to be tied up at the only doc the harbor reported Prince, which was large enough to accommodate the Harlan County, our ship which contained those U.

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S and Canadian troops, and second, then brought to the dock a group of hoodlums who demonstrated against the U. S and Canadian troops being disembarked. As a result of that gross breach of their commitment, the military of Haiti caused the United States and the Canadian troops to withdraw.

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It was not a quote impasse in negotiations which caused the process leading towards the restoration democracy to break down. It was an arrogant, purposeful abrogation of obligations by the Haitian military, which caused the negotiations to break down in paragraph three. It states that extensive economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations, the United States against the de facto rulers are causing grave harm to innocent patients.

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That is erroneous, President. The sanctions are not a means of inflicting pain on the mass of the citizens of Haiti. The sanctions are a means of attempting to bring pressure towards the end of a voluntary transfer of power from those who seized it illegally at the point of a gun, ousted a democratically elected president and have taken over the sovereignty of the state.

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What is causing the grave harm to Haitian is 30 years of despotic rule and what is causing it today is that that long dark period in the history of Haiti has reached a new low. The level of human rights abuses, the levels of violence directed against the people, a record of almost 100 political murders per month.

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Since the first of February, a government which has driven the economy of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere even further into disarray, resulting in more than 50% of the people of Haiti being unemployed. Mr President, those are the factors that have caused grave harm to innocent Haitian sanctions were intended to be a means of giving relief to the mass of of the Haitian citizens by causing this illegitimate government to give way to the democratically elected president.

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And in paragraph five, Mr President, it is stated that an armed invasion of Haiti by forces of the United States, the United Nations and the Organization of American States would endanger the lives of troops sent to Haiti as well as thousands of Haitians, especially civilians. I would agree with the thrust of that paragraph.

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But what it fails to say is one of the dangers two democracy in this hemisphere and to the citizens of Haiti by a continuation of our current policy or by the policy which so many on the other side of the aisle are abdicating at, which is essentially a policy of surrender.

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Let us recognize the illegitimate regime. Let us stop a policy which commenced with President George Bush, and that is to commit our nation and the international community to a restoration of President Aristide. Let us forget that commitment. Let us lift the embargo and let us let this reign of terror continue unabated.

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Those Mr President, are factual inaccuracies contained within this resolution. But, Mr President, a great American theologian Harvey Cox once observed that not to the side is to decide there are consequences from indecision. I consider this resolution to be a statement of indecision were traumatized by all of the unpleasant choices that are before us.

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We are traumatized by what we see daily of the events from Haiti were traumatized by the thousands of people who are fleeing Haiti, and thus our answer is, Let's don't decide. Let's set up an ambiguous commission with an INDETERMINANT reporting date with a very vague charter and let's let that substitute for making tough choice.

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But there are going to be tough choices even if we were to adopt this resolution. Mr President, what are some of the consequences of adopting this resolution? One of the consequences is that any prospect of achieving the results of a voluntary transfer of power by the current military regime to the democratically elected President Aristide will be smack the only hope for a voluntary transfer of power.

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As bleak as I believe that hope to be is if the United States and the international community present a clear, sustained, consolidated position, demanding that there be such a transfer back to legitimate government in Haiti. Every time we send a signal that there is fracture and division and discord in this country, we make it even less like that.

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There will be a diplomatic resolution of this issue. We make it more like that we will be faced with either abject surrender or the use of military force. The second likely objective consequence of the adoption of this resolution, Mr President, is to unleash a reign of terror in that country that even pales that which is occurring today.

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We have seen this week the illegitimate regime told to the 100 United Nations and the Organization of American States human rights observers out 48 hours, pack your bags and leave. I personally think that the international community made a very serious error in accepting that order to leave.

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The policy of the international community had been not to recognize orders of this illegitimate regime. The policy of the international community had been to provide a presence inside Haiti to give some degree of protection to the people of Haiti. At least these acts of violence would have a capacity to be reported with a from a credible source and the world community informed as to what is happening in Haiti as a result of the international community's acceptance of this demand to leave, we have lost that capability.

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Now if we were to pass this resolution and send a signal, but there is a division within this country and that we are going to be incapacitated to act for an indeterminate period, I believe that we would have blood on our hands as we would be a co conspirator in a plot to butcher the people of Haiti and third, Mr President.

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I believe a consequence of this action would be to undercut our leadership in the international community. We've had many debates on this floor in recent months on the issue of Boston. One of the recurring themes in those debates has been that Bosnia should be the special responsibility for leadership of the European community.

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Bosnia is a European state. Europeans are going to be particularly effective by the consequences of what occurs in Bosnia. Europeans have been the ones who have been willing to step forward and place some of their troops on the ground in box. I believe that that is an appropriate assignment of primary regional continental responsibility.

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And in that same light president, I believe that the United States has a special role in the Western Hemisphere. Throughout our history, we have taken an interest and a leadership position in terms of shaping policies in the Western Hemisphere. Many of those past actions are now legitimately subject to criticism.

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Maybe they were overreaching and overbearing, and that created the concept of the ugly American in Latin America. Today. President, we hope that we are embarked on a new course and that the fundamental premise of our policy in the Western Hemisphere is to support the development functioning democratic governments which respect the rights of their people and provide a basis in which there is some hope for a prosperous future.

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For this and future generations of our fellow occupants of this new world. If we were to adopt this resolution, Mr President, and face of our commitments to the United Nations and the Organization of American States, uh, I think that we would be essentially abdicating, certainly raising serious questions about the credibility of US leadership and influence in this region of the world.

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Mr. President, I believe there are serious adverse consequences to adopting this resolution. This is not a free vote, Mr President. In conclusion, let me raise what what I consider to be the most serious implications of this debate, This issue which is before us. And that is as another example of the shattering of the concept of bipartisanship and foreign policy.

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We have been joined by my good friend from Arizona. I know we disagree on this issue, but I respect Senator McCain and we have spent more time together than maybe he would have preferred. But I know that he is deeply committed to the belief that when the United States speaks to the world that it should speak with a single voice.

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Yes, we're going to have debates like this in arriving at what that voice will be. But once the issue is joined that we are all Americans, I believe that there is the basis of this position in some previous statements that have been made by Senator Dole.

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You'll recall, in the fall of 1989 there was an attempt to overthrow then General Noriega from his despotic position in Panama, the effort that over throw failed and there was considerable criticism directed at President Bush for failure of the United States to support those who were involved in the coup, according to an article that appeared in Congressional Quarterly in December of 1989 right Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole spoke for many Republicans, and I'm now quoting from the article who lamented the administration's hesitancy to get directly involved with anti Noriega insurgents, but who blamed the decade and a half of congressional efforts to restrict the use of military or paramilitary force overseas and now quoting Senator Dole, A good part of what went wrong did not happen last weekend.

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It started happening many years ago when Congress first decided to start telling the president how he ought to manage a crisis. I think there is some wisdom in that statement that we've got to put aside whether we are Republicans or Democrats recognize that we are Americans with a responsibility for this nation's position of leadership and the special role that the United States has played throughout its over 200 year history as the prime example of a government of buying four the people.

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I think we ought to have a debate about American National is there a sufficient US national interest in Haiti. For us to be involved in all should we have the our role in the economic sanctions and the political isolation, which our current policy should we be prepared to go beyond those current policies?

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What is our interest in Haiti? I would like to briefly suggest Mr President, and I hope this would become the basis of further debate as we form our opinions on Haiti. Uh, and as we use this as a basis of forming opinions as to what our interest are in this post Cold War era that the United States has a number of critical interest at stake in Haiti, let me suggest a few of those entries.

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Just a few years ago, you could have counted on the fingers of your hand with several fingers left over the number of democracies in the Western Hemisphere. This was a very unstable and violent place. We can all recall the pictures of from countries like Chile and Argentina, where deprivation of basic human rights and flagrant homicides were a regular part of government action to intimidate its people.

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Today, Mr President, every country in the Western Hemisphere is democratic except for Cuba and Haiti. I believe it is very much in the interest of the United States of America to maintain this movement towards democratic government in the Western Hemisphere. It is those democratic governments with which we can have peaceful, productive, positive relationships political, cultural and economic.

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It is those. It is that stability within this region which will limit the instances in which we will have to have a debate such as we are engaged in today. The reality is, Mr President, because so many democracies in the Western Hemisphere are both new and fragile that they are also vulnerable.

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All over this hemisphere. There are the sons and the grandson, former military dictator, who are waiting in the barracks waiting for a signal that it is permissible to institute an old style military coup. And their eyes have turned to Haiti as an example of whether the international community is in fact prepared to be faithful to its commitments to support democratic government.

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I would suggest that if we fail this test that what we have already seen in countries such as Venezuela, which has had two military coup attempts since the deposing of President Aristide from Haiti and Guatemala, which almost had another, that we would see those as just the beginning of a chain reaction of assaults against fragile democracies within this hemisphere.

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You talk about the danger that is involved in dealing with this current crisis in Haiti and the danger that may befall some civilians within Haiti, I suggest. But the greater danger is to allow the signal that it is acceptable in 19 94 to continue to have a military regime which acquired power not through the legitimacy of the ballot box, but through the force of the machine gun.

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Second, Mr President, we do have an interest in human rights. We just past the Fourth of July, where many of us participated in patriotic observances. The Declaration of Independence was widely read around the smallest villages to the biggest cities of our country. That statement of basic beliefs and rights of mankind was not written by Thomas Jefferson to only refer to the relatively small number of colonialists who lived along the Atlantic seaboard.

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It was a statement of universal principle. It is a statement which has guided the United States foreign policies throughout our nation's history, at least In my opinion, it has guided our foreign policy When we were acting to our greatest of national benefit, we have within our own neighborhood, not thousands of miles away in Somalia but in our neighborhood, an example of horrendous human rights abuses.

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Every principle that Thomas Jefferson asked this nation to stand for is being violated on a daily basis in Haiti. I believe that ought to be of concern about I believe, that a sense of compassion is an appropriate quality in a great nations foreign policy. Mr. President, when bad things happen in Haiti, we are not going to be immune from the consequences of those evil deeds.

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We see it most dramatically in the thousands of Haitians who are leaving that country. Some 50,000 have left the country since the coup in September of 1991. The numbers have accelerated in recent weeks as the conditions inside the country have collapsed. We're going to pay a heavy price for those refugees.

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We're gonna pay a heavy price whether we decide to provide safe havens or admit them into the United States. Haiti has also become a significant transhipment point for drugs, drugs that used to flow through. Other places in the Caribbean are now coming through Haiti into the United States, showing up on the streets of Milwaukee as well as Miami.

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We are paying a price for what has happened in Haiti. We are not immune to the adverse consequences. President. I believe we do have interest in this country which warrant the firm resolve that our president is now proclaiming. I believe that we have interests that warrant us not adopting a resolution that will clearly be seen as a signal of a lack of that resolve of a withdrawal of any hand of hope and friendship to the mass of the people of Haiti.

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President. I would hope that we would use this debate as a serious effort to begin to restore principle of bipartisanship in foreign policy. There are serious issues here, issues that affect the future of our nation in the world, issues which affect the lives of individuals who have been caught in the hell that today is Haiti.

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I would hope, Mr President, that the Senate, in its wisdom, would defeat this resolution. I would hope that by maintaining a constancy of position that we might be able to achieve our goal of restoration of democracy in Haiti without the resort to force. I would hope that should we find that that desire is not possible, that we would abstain from the temptation to accept surrender an abdication to this group of international criminals who have taken over the sovereignty of Haiti that we in the international community would be prepared to stand for the values of human dignity and respect and the democratic process as the surest means of protecting those human values.

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That, Mr President, is what I believe is at stake. This issue. We would take a serious step away from those important national commitments by adopting this resolution with the Senate to you for a question, yes.