BY LAURA GARZA
"They don't want me behind bars," said Lawrence Rockwood, a captain who was recently court-martialed and discharged from the army for actions he took while stationed in Haiti as part of the U.S. invasion force last year. "They are looking after their own self-interest.

"They want this story and the allegations against their criminal negligence to go away," he said of the military brass's actions. "By sending me to prison, of course, those allegations would not go away. It was not their ideals that motivated them. It's their lack of moral courage."

Rockwood took to heart President Bill Clinton's appeals to stop human rights abuses in Haiti.

He tried in vain to get superior officers to investigate reports of prisoners being held in the notorious national prison in Port-au-Prince. Getting no response, Rockwood went there Sept. 30, 1994, stating he wanted to inspect the facility for human rights violations.

Haitian authorities turned to the U.S. embassy for help, who dispatched a military attaché to the scene. Rockwood was ordered to leave the prison and sent to an army hospital for a psychiatric evaluation where he was cleared.

Rockwood was convicted of four charges, including leaving a U.S. compound and an army hospital without permission.

Rockwood's lawyer, Ramsey Clark, submitted reports from international groups monitoring human rights conditions in Haiti that cited a history of beatings of prisoners in Haiti. Up to 85 percent of the inmates in the national prison were said to be in jail for political reasons.

In the three years after the military coup that overthrew the government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, killings of political opponents were widespread. The current government estimates that 5,000 people were murdered.

One of the main groups organizing the terror campaign was a paramilitary outfit called Fraph, or Front for Advancement and Progress of Haiti. The head of Fraph, Emmanuel Constant, had long ties to U.S. government officials and was reported to be on the payroll of the CIA until the spring of 1994.

Constant fled to the United States, where Washington claimed it couldn't honor Haiti's request to extradite him because his whereabouts were unknown. But on March 29, Secretary of State Warren Christopher revoked Constant's visa stating his presence "would have potentially serious and adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States." Then, on May 12, the federal government announced they had found Constant, who up until then had encountered no difficulty living in Queens, New York, and had even given an interview to the newspaper Haiti Observateur. He is being held pending deportation proceedings.

While Washington is trying to give the impression it has made Haiti safe for democracy it is having problems justifying the treatment it is giving to Haitian refugees at the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo, Cuba. Some 450 Haitians remain on the base, about half are children, and most of the adults are receiving medical treatment before being forced to return to Haiti.

Even children with parents or others willing to care for them in the United States are being denied entry. Officials say they are preparing for their orderly return to Haiti. Held without adequate housing or medical care, and stuck relying on donated shoes and clothing, the youth organized a hunger strike and a school boycott recently. U.S. soldiers who tried to end the protest were pelted with oranges and some of the tents in the camp were burned down.

Despite pleas from many quarters, focusing mainly on the plight of the children, the U.S. government is continuing to send people back to Haiti. The Miami Herald reported on the case of a 12-year-old named Ronald found sobbing on the street the day he was repatriated to Haiti. His mother lives in Miami and his father is dead, but he was sent to Haiti because adults were with him when he arrived at Guantánamo, therefore he was not considered an unaccompanied minor. He is now living with strangers.  
 
 
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