The Haitians are fleeing the bloody dictatorship of “President-for-life” Jean Claude Duvalier. Many are so desperate they take to the sea in small dangerously overcrowded boats.

The U.S. government, arguing that the Haitians are fleeing economic hardship “only,” tries to deport them.

The brutal treatment they face has been brought to light by testimony in a class-action lawsuit seeking to block the deportation of 4,000 Haitians. Hearings began here November 23.

The court heard testimony from a Haitian who had served five years in Duvalier’s secret police. He reported that standing orders from the dictator require the immediate arrest and imprisonment of any Haitian who is returned after unsuccessfully seeking political asylum.

A second witness who had worked in Haitian defense headquarters testified that he had seen an order for a group of returnees from the U.S. to be sent to Fort-Dimanche prison. The prisoners were later executed without a trial.

Dade County officials estimate that between 10,000 and 19,000 Haitian refugees live in the Miami area.  
 
December 27, 1954
The decision of the General Assembly of the United Nations Dec. 10 to send Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold to Peking to negotiate for the release of 11 imprisoned American airmen and two civilians poses once again the question of recognizing the Mao government. Whether the Chinese charge that the prisoners were “spies” is true or false, the fact remains that the Mao regime, in trying and convicting them, acted as a sovereign government, and the UN in delegating Hammarskjold to represent it at Peking recognized this reality in fact. The UN action constituted a diplomatic victory of first-rate importance for China.

Premier Chou En-Lai’s acceptance Dec. 17 of the proposal of the head of the United Nations to come to Peking thus opens a new stage in China’s formal standing as a world power, a stage clearly pointing toward its admission to the UN. For it would seem handier in negotiations—if only for practical reasons—to have a delegation from China at UN headquarters in New York rather than having to send a UN delegation to Peking.

The capitalist press, of course, is placing big emphasis on the problem of getting the airmen released. They insist on the fact that 11 of the men shot down over Chinese territory during the Korean conflict were in uniform and consequently couldn’t be “spies.” They would do better to explain why Truman sent U.S. forces to Korea without even consulting Congress.  
 
 
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