Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle: The gentleman from New Jersey (Chairman Smith); the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Simmons), subcommittee chairman; the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Evans), our ranking member; and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Rodriguez), ranking member of the subcommittee. They have done a fabulous job in putting together this legislation.

And this is a good day for veterans. It is a good day for veterans because, again, we are beginning to address some of the issues that we should have addressed a long time ago. Let me just say the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Rodriguez) has done a very wonderful job. I am very proud of the work he has done, and I really do commend him to the care and attention that he has given.

And to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Evans), I served with the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Evans) when I first came to the House, and I had the opportunity even to vote for him to be Chair. Sonny Montgomery has never forgiven me. But he is the best advocate the veterans have ever had, and I appreciate him each and every day.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is important for a number of reasons. Someone mentioned earlier that homelessness among the veterans of this country is a disgrace, and it really is. I was at the U.S. Vets again on Veterans Day, and that program fed over 600 or 700 veterans off the street who were homeless. Some of them were fortunate enough to be in the program; others just off the street who were fed that day. But any place that one goes in America and particularly in our cities, when they go to the areas where the homeless congregate, whether they are in the downtowns or wherever they are, disproportionately those will be veterans. So this bill increases the overall authorization for the Grant and Per Diem Homeless Veterans Assistance Program from $75 million to $99 million in funding year 2005, and I hope that each year it will continue to go up.

It is a good bill. It has a lot of good things that are covered in the bill. And so I am pleased that I am here to support it, and I would ask my colleagues to do so.

Mr. Speaker, on February 29 of this year, President Jean- Bertrand Aristide, the first democratically elected President of Haiti, was overthrown in a coup d'etat. This coup d'etat was led by heavily armed thugs and killers, many of whom are former members of the Haitian Armed Forces which were disbanded in 1995 and are notorious for their history of human rights violations. These thugs and killers have refused to disarm and now control several Haitian towns and cities, where they terrorize the local population. They are demanding the reestablishment of the Haitian Armed Forces, and they even had the gall to claim that the Haitian Government owes them more than 10 years of back pay.

The following research paper, entitled ``Haiti: Smoldering on the Edge of Chaos,'' is an insightful analysis of the crisis in Haiti brought about by these thugs and killers. The paper was written by Jessica Leight, a research fellow at the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization. I hope my colleagues find Ms. Leight's analysis informative.

Haiti: Smoldering on the Edge of Chaos

Six months after the abrupt and violence-laced departure of

constitutionally-elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide,

and over three months after the deployment of U.N.

peacekeeping units which were hailed as an instrument for

order and stability for this long-troubled Caribbean island,

Haiti remains poised on the edge of chaos. Just as nature in

the form of a tropical storm that has managed to kill as many

as 3,000 Haitians, thousands more have died over the past

decade, victims of right-wing military and paramilitary

forces. Today, ruled by a bumptious, ineffectual and

illegitimate cabal whose only validity is supplied by U.S.

fiat, Haiti now faces the imminent de facto reconstitution of

its brutal Haitian Armed Forces (FADH), dissolved by Aristide

in 1995. Across the island, bands of former soldiers are

seizing police stations and establishing themselves as the de

facto local power, at times displacing the remnants of the

national police and placing large swaths of the country under

what is effectively outlaw rebel jurisdiction. Meanwhile

these soldiers demand the restitution of unpaid wages over

the past ten years for such services as torturing and

murdering civilian victims.

These soldiers of ill-fortune have met little, if any,

resistance from the rump Washington-imposed interim

government of Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, and at times

they have received open encouragement from Latortue's

``cabinet members,'' most notably Interior Minister (and

former general) Herard Abraham and the island's notorious

justice minister Bernard Gousse, both of whom have suggested

that former soldiers--some of the most prominent among whom

have already been convicted in absentia for human rights

violations committed during the military government of 1991-

1994--could simply be integrated into the police force.

An Army Reborn

In the face of these developments, FADH leaders are

gathering strength in a bid to retake political power and

restore the repression for which the army could always be

counted to provide throughout most of Haiti's turbulent

twentieth-century history, the U.N. stabilization force

and the international community alike have remained almost

deafeningly silent. At the present time, the U.N. presence

in Haiti is more myth than fact, while a handful of

renegades with a military background, in conjunction with

the tiny opposition business and professional Group of

184, have the clearest access to the Latortue regime and

its ability to obtrusively impact on the daily lives of

the population. Within Haiti, international troops drawn

principally from the former rogue armed forces of Brazil,

Argentina and Chile, which were better known for the

repression of their own citizens during previous eras of

military rule than for their nation-building skills, are

seemingly paralyzed by inaction. These U.N. forces have

made only the paltriest of efforts to preserve order in

the face of paramilitary power-grabs by ex-FADH and police

figures like Louis-Jodel Chamblain and Guy Philippe. They

have proven better at stalking pro-Aristide Lavalas

party's political forces than well-armed renegade former

soldiers.

In Washington, a State Department preoccupied by Iraq and

North Korea appears to have all but overlooked the island's

existence; and in New York, a craven lack of political will

is in evidence, accompanied by the kind of Machiavellian

plotting by the U.S. and French U.N. Security Council

delegations that was witnessed when that body refused to

provide an international police force to defend Arisitide

earlier this year. Nor is U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan

any more sensitive to the plight of the Haitian populace than

he was just before Aristide's downfall, when he provided

cover for the U.S. insistence that the former president

deserved to be forced into exile because he was a failed

leader.

There has yet to be any kind of clear acknowledgment of the

magnitude of the threat that Haiti's already battered

democratic institutions face from the military resurgence on

the island, much less the strategy which will be used to

disarm these illegal militias as well as clearly establish

the authority of a trained, professional police force, and

bring to justice the same former soldiers accused of human

rights abuses who are now making outrageous demands for

compensation. Quite to the contrary, as the exoneration of

mass murderer Louis Chamblain by Justice Minister Gousse and

the island's tainted courts graphically exemplifies, Haiti is

still a very sick country.

Thus as the clock continues to tick on a peacekeeping

mission originally authorized for only six months, it seems

increasingly likely that the United Nations will exit Haiti

much as the United States and Canada precipitously did in

1996: leaving behind a profoundly unstable political

situation dominated by heavily armed factions, as thousands

of weapons remain in the possession of right-wing vigilantes

as well as some in the hands of pro-Aristide supporters. The

situation is made even more volatile today by the former

military leadership's aspirations to restore both the army

and the same reign of terror it applied during the decades-

long Duvalier and post-Duvalier military dictatorships, as

well as under the brutal 1991-1994 military junta led by the

brute General Roaul Cedras.

The Haitian Military: Rising from the Ashes?

Among the most alarming signs of military resurgence within

the last sixty days was the acquittal on August 17, in a show

trial, of former army captain and paramilitary leader Louis-

Jodel Chamblain, previously convicted in absentia for the

1993 murder of prominent Aristide supporter Antoine Izmery.

This outrageous verdict, achieved under the aegis of

Latortue's disreputable justice minister, Bernard Gousse, was

reached after a ludicrously brief overnight trial in which

the prosecution called only one witness who proved to be

entirely irrelevant to the case. This earned for the interim

government opprobrious remarks on the editorial pages of the

New York Times and the Washington Post, as well as widespread

denunciations from human rights organizations, and even from

the State Department, which bears much of the blame for the

current dysfunctional rule of the island. However, the

subsequent rash of self-serving individual power plays on the

part of the ex-soldiers, and the government's utter

unwillingness to confront or even denounce such challenges to

state authority, has received virtually no attention outside

of Haiti. This development has to be rightfully considered

part of the same dangerous phenomenon which includes the

growing power of former military figures like Chamblain, as

well as sly ideologues like the grinning Justice Minister

Gousse, who was clearly complicit in

orchestrating Chamblain's acquittal.

For example, only six days after the conclusion of the

Chamblain trial, the Haitian Times reported on August 18 that

the interim government had appointed Winter Etienne--a leader

of the bloody armed uprising in Gonaives that preceded

Aristide's exile, who is also the coordinator of the National

Reconstruction Front, a party headed by former army officers,

including rebel leader Guy Philippe. The last named became

the director of the National Port Authority in Gonaives, the

very city he earlier had helped sack. At the Ministry of

Interior, former ranking military figure Minister Herard

Abraham continues to add former high-ranking military cronies

to his staff; among the recent arrivals is former colonel

Williams Regala, a particularly sinister aide to former

dictator General Henri Namphy and undoubtedly a main plotter

of the massacre of voters during Haiti's aborted November 29,

1987 election. Regala joins another former colleague, Colonel

Henri-Robert Marc-Charles, a member of the Cedras-led

military junta that overthrew democratically-elected

President Aristide 1991, who currently is the target of a (as

yet un-enforced) judicial order requiring his imprisonment

prior to trial for alleged involvement in a peasant massacre

in Piatre in March 1990.

Erosion of Authority of the most pathetic Government in the Caribbean

Given these pro-military signals on the part of the

Latortue government, which consistently has demonstrated its

sympathy for former military leaders at the same time it

officially rejects the idea of reconstituting the armed

forces on the grounds that such a momentous step should be

taken only by the

next elected government, it is hardly surprising that bands

of former soldiers are making ever more far-fetched bids for

power in municipalities across Haiti. On August 17, five

officers of the national police's riot squad (CIMO) returned

to their Port-au-Prince headquarters asserting that a group

wearing the garb of the disbanded military had attacked them

and seized their weapons and uniforms. Subsequently, Radio

Kiskeya reported that other CIMO officers have accused the

government-appointed director of the National Police

Administration and former military figure, Destorel Germain,

of organizing the attack along with a number of demobilized

soldiers seeking reinstatement, an accusation that raises

the specter of collaboration between some of the more

predatory elements of the police force and bands of ex-

soldiers, in the latter's fight for legal status.

Former military elements already have begun to establish

their control over a series of small urban areas,

particularly in the desperately poor Central Plateau region.

On September 1, a large force of 150 former soldiers took

control of Petit-Goave, southwest of the capital, and seized

ten police officers as hostages the following day in

neighboring Grand-Gove. This was in retaliation for the

arrest of four soldiers by police officials. The two sides

subsequently agreed to an exchange of prisoners. Also on

September 2, more than fifty heavily armed ex-soldiers

demonstrated in Gonaives, calling for the reconstitution of

the army and the restoration of their back pay. Once there,

they were met with open arms by the fiercely anti-Aristide

rebel group, the Gonaives Resistance Front--itself largely

constituted by former soldiers--which expressed its support

for the immediate formation of a legally reorganized and

retrained army.

Even more alarming was the response of the official

government authorities to the Gonaives march. Rather than

denouncing this clear threat to public order on the part of a

``gang of thugs'' (as they earlier had been characterized by

Secretary of State Colin Powell), departmental delegate Elie

Cantave declared that the former soldiers had no aim other

than to help the people of that city as he prepared to

negotiate with them over their taking over as their

headquarters a state school located within the city. Further

south in Jacmel and on the same day, yet another contingent

of former soldiers arrived to reinforce with arms and

ammunition a group of their colleagues occupying the office

of Radio Ti Moun. And in perhaps the most symbolically

important incident, former soldiers occupied the police

station in Belladere on the Dominican border on September 5

and immediately repainted the facility in yellow, the

traditional color of FADH barracks. Simultaneously, the band

of ex-soldiers in control of Petit-Goave was swelled by new

arrivals, and coast guard installations in Les Cayes remained

under the control of ex-soldiers.

The first evidence of a response on the part of the

government and the U.N. peacekeeping force came on September

7, when Haitian police, backed by Argentine troops,

regained control of Saint-Marc a day after former soldiers

took control of the city sixty miles north of Port-au-

Prince. In response, rebel leader Sergeant Remissanthe

Ravix declared on behalf of the ex-soldiers, ``We'll fight

to the last man. We'd rather die in combat instead of

dying on our knees. They [government authorities] came to

power thanks to our weapons they now declare illegal. If

they think they can deny us our rights, they will know the

same fate as Aristide. The fact that we left Saint-Marc

does not mean we gave up. We'll teach a lesson to those

who want to destroy the military.'' Ravix, once implicated

in a brutal 2002 massacre committed by former FADH

personnel in Belladere, is now the most visible and

rambunctious spokesman for the ex-soldiers' movement,

which is on the brink of maintaining de facto control over

large swaths of Haiti.

Escalating Violence, Ineffective Response

The government's show of resolve in Saint-Marc on September

7 hardly deterred the ex-soldiers in their attempts to

establish themselves as a rival security force. Also, on

September 7 in Port-au-Prince, two ex-soldiers, reportedly

from Petit-Goave, were shot and killed by riot police near

the Prime Minister's office in Musseau after firing at a

police station. According to Police Commissioner Fritz Gerald

Appolon, the two were riding in a seized police car that had

been reconfigured as an army vehicle, and were fatally

wounded after one of them shot at an officer who had called

upon him to lay down his weapon. Ravix denounced the incident

as an ``assassination'' and called for retaliation across the

country. The following day, in response, a group of ex-

soldiers attacked the police station in Hinche and hundreds

of former FADH and its supporters from other anti-Aristide

factions paraded in Cap-Haitien demanding ten years of back-

pay. These former soldiers already had begun arrogating

police functions to themselves inside of Cap-Haitien,

including going out on surveillance patrols. In Petit-Goave,

rebels took four police officers hostage and seized their

weapons, though they were released later that day.

In the face of this wave of new challenges, the government

and U.N. peacekeepers alike appear virtually helpless. Prime

Minister Latortue and his self-caricaturing government

have made bold declarations that peacekeepers will

``imminently'' retake control of all government buildings,

but the prospect of any such action occurring any time

soon appears to be nothing more than a mixture of bluff

and fantasy. The government has set up a committee to

negotiate with the soldiers and offered as an initial

concession, the integration into the police force of up to

1,000 former soldiers of a body that once numbered over

6,000 in strength. However, Ravix refused to meet with the

commission, declaring in Petit-Goave, ``The government

doesn't need to reconstitute us. We are here. We have

always been here. The only thing the government has to do

is pay us the 10 years, seven months they owe us and let

us do our jobs.'' On September 12, the government did

succeed in obtaining the commitment of a group of

representatives of former military personnel (of which

Ravix was not a member) to a vaguely worded declaration

asserting that ``The matter of the military will be dealt

with through dialogue; the authority of the Government

must be respected; [and] the voluntary and peaceful

evacuation of public buildings actually under the control

of demobilized soldiers must be done . . . within the

framework of an agreement between the two parties.''

Whether this vague rhetoric will produce any concessions in

practice on the part of the ex-soldiers remains to be seen,

but subsequent demonstrations in their support in St.-Marc

and Petit-Goave, on September 13 and a march of ex-soldiers

wearing military uniforms in the capital on September 15 sent

a clear signal that the militant remnants of the FADH are far

from ready to yield their arms to civil authority.

Stabilization Mission is Too Weak to Stabilize

At the same time that the government has shown itself

utterly incapable of (or uninterested in) controlling the

rebel bands, the U.N. Stabilization Mission (MINUSTAH) has

disavowed itself of any responsibility in dealing with the

ex-soldiers. Spokesman Toussaint Kongo-Doudou declared, ``We

have no comment on the subject because it is a government

problem. It is not a problem of the MINUSTAH. This is a

Haitian affair.'' As astounding as this statement appears,

given that among the principal points of MINUSTAH's mandate

are the disarmament of armed factions--of which the ex-

soldiers are currently the most powerful--the

establishment of a climate of security in advance of

national elections on the island is a must. The

acknowledgement of a stalemate when it comes to security

issues is an all too accurate description of the current

limitations of the undersized U.N. force now in Haiti. To

date, only 2,755 of an authorized 6,700 U.N. troops have

arrived in Haiti, making deployments in the north and east

of the country impossible, and only a few hundred of the

3,000 civilian police officers authorized have been

trained and deployed. Thus the U.N. is unable to maintain

a security presence in many of the more remote regions of

the countryside, and has yet to launch the disarmament

program that is a fundamental prerequisite for the

reestablishment of some measure of political stability.

Moreover, the U.N. force's Brazilian commanders have openly

warned that they do not have enough troops to stop renewed

conflict. Likewise, Argentine Defense Minister Jos Pampuro

highlighted the particularly troubling prospect that renewed

skirmishes could have taken place on September 18, the

anniversary of the dissolution of the army by Aristide. While

additional troops from Sri Lanka, Nepal, Spain and Morocco,

among others, are expected to bring the total MINUSTAH force

to 5,000 members by the end of October, for the moment, the

U.N. peacekeepers have been rendered completely incapable of

fulfilling their most basic function: preserving order and a

measure of governmental authority.

The Sound of Silence: Washington, New York Turn Their Eyes Away from

Port-au-Prince

Perhaps the most alarming aspect of the rapidly

deteriorating security situation in Haiti is the

extraordinary indifference, aside from some storm-related

humanitarian aid in response to the natural catastrophe that

just hit Haiti, that has been exhibited by the international

community in the face of this creeping coup being executed by

the former FADH. The Security Council issued only an anemic

statement on September 10 in which it stressed ``the urgency

of disbanding and disarming all illegal armed groups,'' but

offered not even the whisper of a commitment to ensure that

this task is in fact achieved. The Organization of American

States has remained silent, as has the State Department, and

much of the Caribbean Community, which over the past six

months had taken the most courageous stands on unfolding

events in Haiti. CARICOM is now riven by internal

divisions over whether to readmit the Latortue government

into CARICOM.

Also strangely absent is the recently appointed U.N.

Special Representative to Haiti, Chilean diplomat Juan

Gabriel Valdes. His selection was widely hailed at the time

as evidence of a new Latin American commitment to inter-

hemispheric cooperation, but he has since all but disappeared

from carrying out his admittedly difficult mission. While his

capacity for action may be constrained, Valdes should at the

very least be actively attempting to convey to the Security

Council, the Bush administration and the leaders of other

hemispheric bodies the gravity of the unfolding military

takeover in Haiti. Unfortunately, up to now, Haiti's

plight has been overshadowed by the persistent bloodshed in

Darfur, Iraq, and Afghanistan, or has been patronizingly

dismissed as yet another round of violence in a perennially

unstable country. Additionally, the natural disaster that

occurred to the island landed a devastating blow to its

ability to function.

Haiti has reached a point of crisis, and decisive

intervention is required if any shred of, or hope for,

Haitian democracy is to be preserved. However shorthanded and

overburdened its staff may be, the task of convincing the

international community of the necessity of such intervention

falls first to the U.N. Stabilization Mission and to Valdes.

Hopefully, in the coming months they will decisively

demonstrate their commitment to ensuring that Haiti is not

being abandoned by the international community yet again, or

that leading U.N. authorities, including Valdes, will at

least have the dignity of resigning from their assignment in

protest of the cruel hoax now being unleashed on the island

and its population.

Mr. Chairman, I wish to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) for yielding me this time to talk on this most important piece of legislation.

Mr. Chairman, this bill should have been voted on and passed a long time ago, but the President and the Republican leadership have simply dragged their feet. We must not forget that Republicans opposed the creation of the 9/11 Commission. Now, House Republicans are pushing a bill that does not make all the necessary reforms that will help ensure the safety of this Nation.

The 9/11 Commission has done outstanding work. It spent months interviewing members of the intelligence community, hearing testimony and reviewing documents. After all that, the Commission unanimously approved its report and the recommendations included in it. Most importantly, the families of those who lost loved ones on September 11 have endorsed the Commission's report. Unfortunately, the House Republicans continue to delay and to refuse to embrace the Commission's work.

I find it appalling that the Republican leadership thinks it has a monopoly on the wisdom needed to make our country safe. I urge my colleagues to support a bill that incorporates the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I rise in support of H.R. 5212, the Supplemental Appropriations Act, which provides disaster relief for damage caused by hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne, which caused widespread damage in several States of the United States as well as several Caribbean countries.

My colleagues, I would like to say that my heart goes out to all of the families and victims of these disasters, but I am very pleased that we live in a prosperous Nation where we can appropriate $11 billion to assist in recovery

actions of Florida and other areas that were devastated. The recent hurricanes had devastating impacts on the entire Caribbean region. In Grenada, Hurricane Ivan destroyed 90 percent of all the homes, as well as numerous government buildings, hospitals, schools and churches. In Haiti, Hurricane Jeanne caused extensive flooding, killed over 3,000 people, with thousands more in desperate need of food, clean water, emergency shelter, and medical care. And stagnant waters have given rise to a large mosquito population that could lead to a malaria epidemic.

I could go on and tell you about Jamaica and St. Vincent and the other islands in the Caribbean. And I am thankful President Bush proposed $50 million in supplemental appropriations, and I understand, as of this evening, that has been raised to $100 million. We are indeed grateful that we can help our small neighboring countries in this way. But this cannot begin to meet the tremendous needs of thousands of affected people in Haiti and Grenada and other Caribbean nations.

I sent a letter to the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations requesting a supplemental appropriation of at least $500 million in disaster relief for the Caribbean. Sixteen Members of Congress signed my letter. That is all the time I had to get signatures. This Supplemental Appropriations Act does provide, again, $100 million for these nations, and I am grateful, but I would hope that, in conference, we could raise that to $500 million. It would go a long way in these very small countries and help them to deal with this terrible devastation they are experiencing.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California for helping to organize us to be able to address this most important issue this evening.

I rise in support of H. Con. Res. 496, a resolution that simply supports humanitarian assistance to countries of the Caribbean devastated by Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne. The recent hurricanes have had devastating impacts on several Caribbean nations. In Grenada, Hurricane Ivan destroyed 90 percent of the homes and 78 percent of the electrical system, as well as numerous government buildings, hospitals, schools and churches. Approximately 60,000 of the island's 95,000 inhabitants were left homeless. In Jamaica, 18,000 people were displaced by Hurricane Ivan, which was the worst natural disaster to hit Jamaica in 50 years. The Bahamas incurred an estimated $125 million in damage as a result of Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne. In Haiti, Hurricane Jeanne caused extensive flooding and left 300,000 people homeless. More than 1,500 Haitians were killed, and another 900 are still missing. Thousands of people are in desperate need of food, clean water, emergency shelter and medical care. Relief efforts continue to be hampered by water and mud covering the main roads, and stagnant waters have given rise to a large mosquito population that could lead to a malaria epidemic.

The nations of the Caribbean are small island nations that do not have the capacity to respond to the widespread death and destruction caused by hurricanes of this magnitude. Immediate assistance from the United States is critical to enable these countries to meet the emergency needs of their people and begin to rebuild damaged homes and infrastructure.

I am thankful that the President did show some concern, and he proposed $50 million in supplemental appropriations to cover disaster relief for the nations of the Caribbean that have been devastated by hurricanes and tropical storms. But it is a very small amount, and it cannot begin to meet the tremendous needs of thousands of Haitians, let alone the needs of our other Caribbean neighbors. The affected countries and territories include Bahamas, Barbados, the Cayman Islands, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Lucia, Puerto Rico, St. Vincent, the Grenadines, Trinidad, Tobago, the Turks and Caicos, even Venezuela, Cuba, the U.S. Virgin Islands, have all felt the devastation of these hurricanes. So we need a lot more to respond to this terrible devastation.

Even though the President has proposed $50 million in supplemental appropriations, it is a small amount, and it cannot begin to meet the tremendous needs of thousands of Haitians, let alone the needs of all of these other countries. The Congressional Black Caucus is on record now in asking the President for at least $500 million in disaster relief to mount an effective response. Of course, I would urge my colleagues to vote for H. Con. Res. 496. I would also urge my colleagues to provide a supplemental appropriation of at least $500 million in disaster assistance to help our Caribbean neighbors rebuild their homes and their lives after these unprecedented storms. This resolution does not have that amount in it, and we know that we must do the work with the Appropriations Committee, but this is a resolution that would give recognition to this tremendous devastation that has taken place and squarely place us on record in wanting to respond to it.

I am very thankful for the opportunity to share with the gentlewoman from California this concern as we demonstrate through this resolution.

Mr. Chairman, if anyone had told me that coming to the Congress of the United States of America, representing my district, I would have to be on the floor of Congress defending the constitutional rights of the Supreme Court to make constitutional rulings, I would have told them they are crazy. This is absolutely outrageous. The gentleman just asked when do we get so angry that we agree to strip the Court of its constitutional responsibility.

Mr. Chairman, I have disagreed with any number of decisions of the Supreme Court. I disagree with the fact that the Dred Scott decision said separate was all right, separate but equal. And in the last 2002 election, I disagreed with the fact that the Supreme Court gave the Presidency to George W. Bush. But my colleagues did not see me and others coming in here and talking about stripping them of their ability to make constitutional decisions.

The court-stripping proposed in this bill would destroy the Supreme Court's historical function as the interpreter and ultimate arbiter of what the Constitution requires. This misguided legislation to strip the Supreme Court of its appellate jurisdiction also would have seriously damaging implications for the relationships among our three branches of government. This bill and other court-stripping bills proposed by the Republicans would be laughable if the results of enacting this bill were not so tragic and not so threatening to the constitutional rights of our people and the independence of the Federal judiciary.

If H.R. 2028 were passed into law, it would constitute the first and only time Congress has enacted legislation totally eliminating any Federal court from considering the constitutionality of Federal legislation, in this case the Pledge of Allegiance.

Mr. Speaker, I find this debate to be extremely interesting. The gentleman on the opposite side of the aisle asks why are we listening to Joe Scarborough. Well, not only are we listening to him, I am listening to Pat Buchanan. Pat Buchanan said my colleagues are a bunch of fake conservatives, they have run up this deficit, and I have to remind my colleagues when Bill Clinton left office we had a reserve. We had money in the bank, and since they have been in power, the Republicans have been in power, this administration, they have been spending like drunken sailors.

My colleagues have created a $7.3 trillion tax debt. Buchanan says my colleagues are not true conservatives; and at the same time that they created this debt and it keeps growing, they had the audacity to come into the Committee on the Judiciary and pretend to attempt to pass a balanced budget amendment. We know that that was just a political act. As a matter of fact, one of my colleagues reminded my colleagues that they are in charge of the House, they have the majority in the Senate, they have the White House. They could work to balance this budget anytime they want to. They do not need to have a balanced budget amendment, but they cannot do that because they are in the political mode in an election year, and they come back with the most outrageous public policy to extend tax cuts.

It does not take a Harvard scholar to know that we cannot keep spending, spending, spending and at the same time reduce the amount of money that is coming in. My colleagues are mismanaging $4 billion a month, and they cannot win with the $4 billion. $4 billion a month, no post-war planning, we cannot even take Fallujah and Najaf. The soldiers do not have all of their equipment, and my colleagues are coming back for more money.

Well, on top of that, when we look at what is happening domestically, 44 million Americans with no health insurance, a housing crisis, veterans crying, and my colleagues are going to come in here and give a tax cut to the richest corporations and Americans in this country. It is outrageous. It does not make good sense. They ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Mr. Speaker, I am sick and tired of waking up every morning to the news that more men and women are being killed in Iraq. I am as patriotic as anybody, but why are we in Iraq? We have discovered that we were misled. There are no weapons of mass destruction. But our young men and women are dying every day.

At the same time, we are spending $1 billion per week on this war. We are spending $1 billion a week, but we have 44 million Americans without health insurance. We have rising poverty. We have men and women who work every day but cannot afford to pay rent. Yet this administration is cutting the section 8 program that would support families in their ability to have a house.

What are we doing in education? Far too many dropouts, not only in our inner cities but in our rural areas. This President says, leave no child behind, but it is empty rhetoric. He is not putting his dollars where his mouth is.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, this is a very simple amendment. The United States has a trade deficit. We are not able to sell our goods abroad in the way that we should be able to do it.

Cuba has been literally dying for us to sell them goods. We finally had the good sense to open up the way for the sale of agricultural commodities, medicine and medical supplies to Cuba, and they are buying, but they have to pay cash on the barrel head. So this amendment would prohibit the use of funds to implement sanctions on private commercial sales of agricultural commodities, medicine and medical supplies to Cuba.

U.S. exports of agricultural products and medical supplies to Cuba have been legal since 2001. However, American farmers and other exporters must maneuver through a myriad of restrictions in order to export these products to Cuba. Exporters are denied access to export assistance, credit guarantees and private commercial financing. All transactions must be conducted in cash in advance or with financing from third countries. These restrictions make trade with Cuba unnecessarily expensive, bureaucratic and complicated.

The effect of my amendment would be to free exporters from the need to comply with these cumbersome regulations.

The people of Cuba need food and medicine. Their needs have never been greater than they are now, following the devastation caused by Hurricane Ivan. Cuba is one of several islands in the Caribbean ravaged by Hurricane Ivan, and the people of Cuba are trying to recover from the extensive damage caused by this terrible storm.

The people of Cuba are more than willing to purchase food and medical supplies from their American neighbors. American exporters have already exported $210 million in products to Cuba in the first 5 months of this year despite the cumbersome restrictions involved, and they can expect to increase their market share significantly if they are freed from these restrictions.

U.S. agri-business companies have estimated that U.S. farmers are missing out on a market of $700 million in Cuba because of these restrictions. Removing the prohibition on private financing would be especially helpful to smaller companies and individual farmers. Small businesses cannot afford to export goods to a foreign country without financing.

My amendment would ensure that American exporters could use private financing to export agricultural products and medical supplies to Cuba. A similar amendment was offered by my colleague, the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moran), and was adopted by the House on July 23, 2002. Unfortunately, this amendment was not included in the conference report.

Other countries, like China, Germany and Canada, permit trade with Cuba, and these countries have financing arrangements that facilitate exports to Cuba. If the United States continues to make exports of food and medicine unnecessarily difficult and complicated, American companies will continue to be left out.

My amendment would ensure that American exporters could use private financing to export agricultural products and medical supplies to Cuba. Exports of food and medicine to Cuba are good for the American economy and they are good for the people of Cuba.

Mr. Chairman, I would urge my colleagues to adopt this amendment. I know that there are Members of this House who strongly dislike Fidel Castro. I know that there are Members who would do whatever they could to disadvantage that island. But I think it does not make good sense to cut off your nose to spite your face. We have all of these small businesses that want to do business with Cuba. Cuba wants to do business with us. We need to get rid of these restrictions so that they can have the kind of credit and financing from private companies, so that they can buy more and more and more.

How are we ever going to get rid of this trade deficit if we are not smart enough not to let some of the political ambitions of a few of our colleagues get in the way of what is good for America? We are sitting right down here 90 miles from Cuba in Florida with a lot of folks who want to do business with them. It is time to change our policies and go in a new direction.

It is time also to show people that we are willing to do the right thing. How can we sit here and know that people need the food, we need the money, and not allow it to happen?

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to support the Lee amendment to prohibit the use of funds in this bill to implement the Administration's new restrictions on travel to Cuba for educational purposes.

These new restrictions prohibit American students from participating in educational programs unless they were organized by the institution in which the students are enrolled. Students would not be allowed to participate in programs organized by other colleges or universities. This would deny students the opportunity to study in Cuba unless their own institution has its own program in Cuba. This unreasonable restriction could prevent thousands of American students from studying abroad in the country of their choice.

Throughout the Cold War, American students studied in the Soviet Union. Many of them went on to become diplomats, scholars and policy- makers who used the knowledge they gained to contribute to the development and implementation of U.S. foreign policy. Similarly, many Americans are studying in the People's Republic of China today. There is no reason to treat study in Cuba differently.

Study abroad provides valuable educational experiences for American students and contributes to the development of knowledgeable and informed professionals who can use their knowledge to serve our country in the future. I urge my colleagues to support the Lee amendment and support educational opportunities for American students in Cuba and throughout the world.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to support the Rangel amendment to prohibit the use of funds to enforce the economic embargo on Cuba.

If Congress were serious about our relationship with Cuba, Congress would pursue a policy of negotiation and diplomacy--not isolation. Such a policy would allow the export of seeds, agricultural tools, and other products, which are desperately needed by the Cuban population. Instead, Congress is allowing the continuation of its out-dated embargo against this small country, which is only 90 miles from America's shores.

I urge my colleagues to support the Rangel amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my request for a recorded vote on Waters Amendment No. 12 and to have the Chair put the question de novo.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Oxley- Frank-Kolbe-Pastor-Hinojosa amendment to H.R. 5025, the FY2005 Treasury Transportation Appropriations bill. The amendment would strike bill language, section 216, that prohibits the Treasury Department from enforcing or even publishing its recent regulations implementing the USA PATRIOT Act provisions requiring financial institutions to take reasonable steps to identify their customers.

This bipartisan Amendment is supported by the White House, the Chair and Ranking Member of the Financial Services Committee and virtually every major association within the financial services industry including the American Bankers Association, Consumer Bankers Association, Bankers' Association for Finance and Trade, America's Community Bankers, Financial Services Roundtable, the Credit Union National Association and the Securities Industry Association.

The Amendment would strike language adopted in subcommittee that would prohibit the Treasury Department from spending funds to administer and enforce regulations implementing Section 326 of the USA PATRIOT Act. Specifically, this language would prohibit the Treasury Department from implementing regulations issued on May 9, 2003, that permit financial institutions to accept matricula consular identification cards as part of a valid customer identification program.

Mr. Chairman, while I have objections to many aspects of the USA PATRIOT Act, I support the Section 326 requirement that financial institutions must establish ``reasonable procedures'' for verifying the identity of customers seeking to open a new account. Section 326 enhances the ability of financial institutions to detect and prevent both money laundering and the financing of terrorism by requiring institutions to develop comprehensive procedures for verifying customer identity. Yet section 216 of H. R. 5025 would make it impossible to achieve this important objective, and, thus, it should be stricken from the bill.

If the Oxley-Frank-Kolbe amendment is not adopted, this appropriations bill could drive large sections of the U.S. population to underground financial services providers and thereby weaken the government's ability to monitor and enforce our money laundering and anti-terrorist financing laws. Adopting this amendment is critical to ensuring that our government has the ability to track terrorist finances.

Mr. Chairman, while those who are hostile to the Mexican matricula consular card want to transform this issue into a debate about immigration, this issue is not a debate about immigration. Rather, it is a debate about whether we will preserve the ability of our government to work with financial institutions to fight terrorism by tracking terrorist financing. The language in the bill doesn't simply prohibit the use of matricula consular cards--the bill prevents the Treasury Department from enforcing ANY type of identity verification under this important regulation.

The Oxley-Frank-Kolbe amendment enables banks and credit unions to recognize matricula consular cards as identification for financial transactions. The language in the bill does not merely discourage the acceptance of matricula consular cards. It, in effect, prevents their acceptance by financial institutions. The language in the bill effectively prohibits the Treasury Department from enforcing the USA PATRIOT Act's customer identification provisions that are designed to combat money laundering and terrorist finance.

If Section 216 remains in this bill, the Treasury Department would be prohibited from even telling financial institutions that they must verify the identity of their customers. Mr. Chairman, all of us know that it becomes more difficult to track tracking terrorist financing whenever more people turn to the underground financial system. Why would we want to adopt legislation that will make it easier and more common for people to opt out of the transparency of the mainstream financial system?

Mr. Chairman, denying foreign nationals access to the U.S. banking system will undermine the ability of U.S. law enforcement, regulatory, and economic agencies to do their jobs, since individuals will likely turn to other, less transparent, less regulated, and more expensive methods to transmit funds. We should be encouraging immigrants to use the mainstream financial system to hold and transmit funds. Allowing financial institutions to choose to recognize matricula consular cards as part of their customer identity verification program is sound public policy. I urge all my colleagues to support the Oxley-Frank-Kolbe Amendment.

Offered By: Ms. Waters

Amendment No. 12: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition both to this bill and to the process which produced it. H.R. 4571 would make fundamental changes to the Rule 11 sanctions process without our even receiving the benefit of input from either the Judicial Conference or the Supreme Court.

Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that the proponents of this legislation do not want to hear from our judges because they know that the vast majority of our judges do not agree with this bill. As a matter of fact, I think that this bill could appropriately be named big business versus the people.

Mr. Speaker, big businesses pay expensive lawyers by the hour to protect their interests. Trial lawyers handling many of these cases that are being termed frivolous are paid only if they win.

I would like to quote John Q. Quinn, a veteran trial lawyer from Houston, who sees this as a make-or-break election issue in an article that appeared in the Los Angeles Times. ``Corporate America is in charge these days. They control the White House, the Congress and the Supreme Court. But so far they do not control the right to trial by jury. That is the only place where ordinary citizens can go and have their complaints heard,'' Quinn said. I further quote him when he said ``Ordinary people cannot hire lobbyists in Washington, but in the courtroom they get an equal chance to stand up against a corporation.''

Now the Chamber of Commerce and big corporate America, spending millions of dollars in public relations campaigns, would have Members believe that the number of civil cases have risen and thus the number of frivolous lawsuits, but that is simply not the case. I would like to further quote this Los Angeles Times article which said, ``The Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Center for State Courts track civil trials and verdicts in the Nation's 75 largest counties. In April, the bureau reported in the last decade the number of cases have gone down, not up.''

The number of general civil cases disposed of by trial in the Nation's largest counties declined from 22,451 in 1992 to 11,908 in 2001. That is a 47 percent decline. The plaintiffs won about half the time, and the overall median award was $37,000 in 2001, down from $65,000 in 1992.

These cases included automobile accidents, medical malpractice and product liability claims. About one-third of the cases involved contract claims which typically involve one business against each other. Mr. Speaker, we are talking about ordinary people. We are talking about people who get up every day and go to work, common folk who just earn sometimes entry-level wages. We are talking about people who could be harmed in an automobile accident or on the job working at a company that does not care about their safety, where they can lose a limb, their eyes, they could be killed. They could lose their lives.

Are we going to prevent the ability of these people to be heard and have their day in court? Big business may not want to accept liability, but it must; and we cannot live in a country where we have big business, because they

have money, come to the Congress of the United States and produce legislation that would prevent the average, little person from having their day in court and being heard by a jury.

Mr. Speaker, I am so proud of the gentleman from Illinois (Chairman Hyde); the ranking member, gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos); the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne); the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers); the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo); the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf); the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky); and all of those on both sides of the aisle who have been working so hard to bring this genocide to the attention of our own government and to the world. We have people who are working very hard to get something done.

My heart is heavy this evening because it has taken us much too long. I know that the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) did give a word of thanks to Colin Powell and Kofi Annan for making the trip and for urging the Khartoum government to cooperate and stop the genocide. But I say to the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), we have to ask Colin Powell and Kofi Annan and the President of the United States to get tougher. They have got to get tougher. We are watching genocide take place.

I am pleased about this resolution. Genocide has taken place in this world far too many times, genocide that could have been stopped if good people just took a little tougher action.

We have watched genocide time and time again, in most recent of times, Rwanda. This does not have to continue. Over 30,000 people have died; 1 million people stand to die as I stand here today.

So it is time to act and act now. We must first recognize that the Khartoum government is part of the problem. They keep making promises, but they lie. The minute they say they are going to cooperate, we turn our backs, they are supporting the Janjaweed. They are indeed a part of the problem. We must act, we must act now, and we must be tough. We can stop this genocide.

Tonight, we define it for what it is with this resolution. Thank you, I say to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne). It is genocide. Let the word go forth, and it must be stopped.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to support the Lee amendment to add $800 million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic is having a devastating impact on Africa and the world. Over 60 million people have been infected by the AIDS virus since the beginning of the epidemic, and 42 million people are currently living with this dreadful disease. Approximately three million people died of AIDS last year, and another five million people became infected with HIV.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic has already curtailed the economic development of many countries in Africa. AIDS is responsible for shortages of skilled workers and teachers, high rates of absenteeism and labor turnover, and the deaths of workers and managers throughout business and government. Teachers and other skilled workers can be very difficult to replace. Tragically, in some parts of Africa, employers even find it necessary to hire two workers for every job opening, because they expect one of them to die of AIDS.

On May 1, 2003, the House passed H.R. 1298, ``the Global AIDS Bill,'' which authorizes appropriations of $3 billion per year over five years for global HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention efforts. This bill, which is critically needed and long overdue, was signed into law by the President on May 27 of last year. However, it has never been fully funded.

According to UNAIDS, HIV/AIDS has spread rapidly in Eastern Europe, and gained a strong foothold in India and China over the past year. Fortunately, there has been progress, as infection rates actually fell last year in a few hard-hit areas of Africa. Without adequate funding, however, our progress will be short-lived.

I urge my colleagues to support the Lee amendment.

Point of Order

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Flake] for the time.

I rise to support the Flake amendment to prohibit the use of funds in this bill to enforce the Commerce Department's recently-announced anti- family restrictions on sending gifts to Cuba.

These restrictions are part of an extensive set of new Bush administration rules that punish Cuban-Americans who have families in Cuba. These regulations include limiting family visits to Cuba by Cuban-Americans to once every three years and further restricting the ability of Cuban-Americans to send money to their families in Cuba.

The Commerce Department's new regulations would make it illegal for Cuban-Americans to send clothing, seeds, soap, personal hygiene products and veterinary medicines to their families in Cuba. Other gifts would be limited to one gift parcel per month per household in Cuba. Gifts could be sent to parents and children, but not to aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews or cousins.

What conceivable rationale could there be for this cruel, misguided assault on Cuban-American families? Is there anyone who truly believes that we are achieving anything productive by keeping Cuban-Americans from helping their family members who remain in Cuba? How dare this administration tell American citizens they can't send clothes, toilet paper or toothpaste to the families they love!

I urge my colleagues to protect the right of Cuban-Americans to assist their families. Let's help these families, not punish them. Support the Flake amendment.