Rules Are Different Here

Stowaways ran in pursuit of their destiny

December 4, 1985

This fall, an Australian media tycoon named Rupert Murdoch was granted U.S. citizenship just so he could purchase seven television stations.

Last week, five Haitian stowaways seeking work in America arrived on a freighter in Fort Lauderdale. They weren't offered citizenship. They weren't even allowed off the boat.

In a scene straight from Victor Hugo, the men were left to swelter for days in an airless hellhole aboard the freighter Alco Trader.

The Bahamas, where they came from, didn't want them; neither did the United States. As both countries quarreled, the ship sloshed back and forth across the Gulf Stream, the stowaways its wretched prisoners.

This sad scene may be repeated in coming months as the Bahamas conducts a coldhearted purge of as many as 40,000 Haitians, many of whom have lived and worked in the islands for years.

For these Haitians, Florida is the next logical destiny, but there will be no parades for them here, either.

If the Alco Trader stowaways had been Cubans, Nicaraguans or Russians, you would have seen mobs of angry pickets and demonstrators. Congressmen would have lunged for the telephone, and the refugees would have been whisked to civilized quarters.

And if the stowaways seeking asylum had been Czechoslovakian tennis stars, you would have seen the red carpet rolling out; accommodations in the Hilton, not a hot box.

But Haitians have scant political clout and, so, are of scant use to those in high office. "They were treated like animals," says Father Tom Wenski of the Haitian Catholic Center. "What are they trying to come here for? For life. For a better life."

This country cannot absorb all the hemisphere's poor, but we also can't afford an immigration policy that is a contradictory mess. We speak in one voice to the rich and white, like Murdoch, and in another voice to the poor and black or brown. Meanwhile Congress remains unable to pass a cogent, equitable and humane law.

Haitians are shunned, yet millions of illegal Mexicans get work because Big Agriculture depends on them. Cubans are admitted as political refugees, while Haitians are rejected as "economic refugees"; in truth, there's little difference.

Haiti's stark poverty results partly from its despotic politics, a fact conveniently overlooked in Washington. President-for-Life Jean-Claude Duvalier is a friend and anti-Communist, and we do not upset our anti-Communist friends with talk of human rights.

But the plight of many Haitians is as pitiable as anything in Castro's Cuba; the poverty is more killing, and political persecution not only real but sometimes violent. This summer three Catholic priests were expelled from Haiti for speaking out against the Duvalier regime. A week ago three student protesters were shot to death by Haitian troops in the town of Gonaives.

If this is not repression, I'd love for someone at the State Department to tell me what is.

We Americans have a strange way of deciding who deserves to be in this country, and who doesn't. Citizen Murdoch wasn't fleeing political persecution in Australia; he came here to multiply his fortune.

Just like the Haitians in the cargo box.

Last Friday, the hot and hungry stowaways escaped from their stinking cell. It is unclear whether a guard looked the other way, or simply made a mistake, but I'd like to think the deed was the work of a compassionate heart.

Who can blame the men for escaping? I would have done the same; so would you. So would anyone with a shred of dignity.

If tradition holds, the refugees will soon find jobs, homes and sanctuary among 90,000 Haitian countrymen now living in South Florida. Much of the money they earn will be mailed home to poor relatives.

Somehow I feel better about the stowaways on the loose than I do about Rupert Murdoch.

Mass murders haunt Mayan asking refuge

June 27, 1986

Her name is Petrona Mateo Esteban. She is from Guatemala. She came to the United States because something horrible happened to her family in the highland village where she lived.

The United States says Petrona should not stay here, that it's safe for her to go home; there is a new government in Guatemala and things are looking up.

This week Petrona's deportation trial began in U.S. Immigration Court in Miami. It was a most unusual proceeding.

Petrona is a Kanjobal Indian, one of about 800 who have resettled in Indiantown as migrants. She is 26, and partially crippled from a childhood disease. She speaks neither English nor Spanish, only the unique Mayan dialect of her village.

The court interpreter, the only one to understand Kanjobal, had learned a language slightly different from Petrona's. Her story, painful to recall under any circumstances, became excruciating in Judge Neale Foster's court.

She wore a beautiful Mayan dress and sat impassively on the witness stand. Often she spoke in little more than a shy whisper. She tried to tell how they had practically skinned her father alive.

In 1982 Petrona's village, El Mul, was caught in Guatemala's vicious civil war. The guerrillas would raid the rural towns for food and chickens; then the army would sweep in, tracking the insurgents and punishing those thought to have aided them.

Defense attorney Peter Upton: "How do you know there was a war?"

Petrona: "Because the helicopters came by."

Q. "What were the helicopters doing?"

A. "They were dropping bombs and shooting bullets."

Later Upton asked: "Did the soldiers ever kill anyone in your family?"

A. "They came and killed my father … he was taken by them and beaten by them … It was 6 in the morning. We were sleeping at the time. They broke down the door."

Petrona said the army men seized her father and two brothers, Esteban and Alonzo, and dragged them away from the others. Alonzo was only 14. Petrona said the soldiers beat them with rifles and hacked them with machetes. She and her mother ran for their lives.

After the soldiers had gone, Petrona said, she came back and found her home burned to the ground. Her brothers and father lay dead. Her father's features were "destroyed." His hands had been bound behind him; Petrona untied the rope.

In all, 11 men were murdered in El Mul that morning. Petrona said she remembered their names, they were her neighbors: Tomas Augustin, his son Daniel, Miguel Jose, Mateo Martin, Esteban Martin, and so on.

After the massacre Petrona eventually fled to Mexico to pick cotton and coffee. From there she made her way to America.

She does not fully understand the politics of her country, but what she knows is this: Men with guns came from the hills and invaded her village. They stole her family's food. Other men in uniforms arrived and stole more. They also slaughtered her father.

As you might imagine, Petrona does not wish to go home.

Kathy Hersh of the American Friends Service Committee says of the Mayans: "They were really caught in the crossnre.They are apolitical.The government doesn't know what to do with them."

Six months ago Guatemala elected its first civilian government since 1966.The United States says this is a new leaf, that the military is enlisting "civil patrols" to improve its image and help battle insurgents. Unfortunately, more than 700 men and women have been murdered in political violence since the new regime came to power.

Petrona seeks asylum here. Her case, and those of other Mayans, probably won't be settled until early next year. The immigration court must decide if the Kanjobales would be singled out for violence if they returned home, if they have a well-founded fear of persecution.