By tolerating their defiance and unrelenting brutality, we have empowered Haiti's military thugs.

"They used to beat you up," he said of the military thugs.

Poverty, sickness and illiteracy undermine human dignity as effectively as military thugs.

The New York Times promptly thundered editorial condemnation of the C.I.A.'s "disgraceful covert relationship with Guatemalan military thugs."

"What the military thugs down there understand is that they have got a nod and a wink from the U.S. Government," Mr. Conyers said in an interview today after introducing legislation that would give Haitian refugees safe haven in the United States until democracy is restored.

In "The Fighting Man," Mr. Seymour takes his readers to a new locale, Guatemala, but it could be any of the Latin American countries run by tinpot dictators who are kept in power by secret police and military thugs.

He is backed by a bunch of military thugs who keep the population in line.

A woman, raped and mutilated by military thugs in Central America, looks forward to her death, convinced that she will be transfigured as a saint.

If a reasonably well-informed Haitian civilian must be confused about the policy of the Clinton Administration, imagine the effect on the military thugs in Port-au-Prince.

Fact: In 1992 President Bush launched a formal review of whether Indonesia, with its military thugs terrorizing labor organizers, was failing to live up to "international labor standards" and should be denied duty-free access to U.S. markets.