THE WHITE HOUSE (FinalCall.com)�Life for the people of Haiti�the poorest in the Western Hemisphere�is spiraling downward toward "horrendous outcomes," the 38-member Congressional Black Caucus warned President George W. Bush in a letter requesting a meeting.

Mr. Bush is "very attentive to the concerns raised by individual members of the Black Caucus," presidential Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters Nov. 20, but he offered no promise that a meeting would be scheduled and no answer to one of the chief complaints of CBC members: that the U.S. is blocking the delivery of more than $145 million in loans that have already been approved by Inter-American Development Bank.

"The people of Haiti are suffering," the Nov. 8 CBC letter said, and current U.S. policy is "contributing to the continued attrition of the quality of life" there, they complained.

The U.S. is holding up vital economic aid to Haiti�s eight million people, pending the resolution of a 16-month-old political standoff between President Jean Bertrand Aristide and his political opposition, following contested local and parliamentary elections.

Mr. Aristide�s opponents claim that his Lavalas Family movement rigged the vote. Since then, envoys from the Organization of American States have tried a dozen or more times to defuse the crisis between the Lavalas Family and the opposition Convergence alliance. Mass protests over the lack of basic services�sewage and garbage disposal, electricity, running water, and health care�sparked mass protests when OAS-mediated talks broke down in October.

Led by Washington, foreign donors have blocked some $500 million in loans and grants to Haiti hoping to break the impasse.

In the latest developments at Final Call press-time, police had to rescue two senators by helicopter who were trapped in the St. Marc Town Hall�about 50 miles northwest of Port-au-Prince�Nov. 22, after a mob confronted the legislators, and punctured the tires of their two all terrain vehicles, shouting "Long live Aristide!" and "Down with the government!" according to published reports.

Authorities from the Bahamas detained 127 Haitian boat-people Nov. 15 after their crammed wooden sailboat drifted into Bahamian territory. It was unclear whether the Haitians were heading to the Bahamas or the United States.

Already this year, Bahamian authorities have arrested and repatriated more than 6,000 Haitians, compared to 4,879 all of last year. Another 150 Haitians are still feared missing from a journey that began Oct. 30. Hurricane Michelle hit Cuba and the Bahamas Nov. 5, and the missing boat may have been in the path of the storm.

Riots in the badly overcrowded national penitentiary have left five inmates dead and two police officers injured, the director of the nation�s prison system said Nov. 16, according to a published report.

"The president has met with the Black Caucus before," Mr. Fleischer said in response to a question from The Final Call. While later conceding that Mr. Bush has met with the CBC only once: "Certainly, the stability of Haiti is an important part of America�s foreign policy and will continue to be one," Mr. Fleischer insisted.

But CBC members warn that conditions are worsening in Haiti. "A severe humanitarian disaster looms large over the population of eight million people," Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said to the House Nov. 15, "including a devastating HIV/AIDS pandemic, extreme poverty, and high infant mortality rates."

The irony concerning this humanitarian crisis is that it is "not a half-world away in Afghanistan, but in our own hemispheric neighborhood," Delegate Donna Christian Christensen (D-VI) of the neighboring Virgin Islands warned on the House Floor Nov. 15.