Haitian PM:US Baptists knew they were wrong to try to take 33 children

Haiti prime minister: US Baptists knew they were wrong to try to take 33 children


By Ben Fox (CP) – 5 hours ago
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Haiti's prime minister said Monday that 10 Americans who tried to take a busload of undocumented Haitian children out of the country knew that "what they were doing was wrong," and could be prosecuted in the United States.

Prime Minister Max Bellerive told The Associated Press that his country is open to having the Americans face U.S. justice, since most government buildings - including Haiti's courts - were crippled by the monster earthquake.
"It is clear now that they were trying to cross the border without papers. It is clear now that some of the children have live parents," Bellerive said. "And it is clear now that they knew what they were doing was wrong."
If they were acting in good faith - as the Americans claim - "perhaps the courts will try to be more lenient with them," he said.

U.S. Embassy officials would not say whether Washington would accept hosting judicial proceedings for the Americans, who are mostly from Idaho. For now, the case remains firmly in Haitian hands, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington.

"Once we know all the facts, we will determine what the appropriate course is, but the judgment is really up to the Haitian government," he said.
Haitian officials insist some prosecution is needed to help deter child trafficking, which many fear will flourish in the chaos caused by the devastating Jan. 12 quake. The government and aid groups are still struggling to get food, water, shelter and basic health care to hundreds of thousands of survivors, and many parents are desperate to get help for their children.

U.S. diplomats have had "unlimited" access to the 10 detainees, and will monitor any court proceedings, said Crowley. They have not yet been charged.
Members of the church group insisted they were only trying to save abandoned and traumatized children - but appeared to lack any significant experience with Haiti, international charity work or international adoption regulations.

After their arrest Friday near the border, the church group members were placed in two small concrete rooms in the same judicial police headquarters building where ministers have makeshift offices and give disaster response briefings.

"There is no air conditioning, no electricity. It is very disturbing," Attorney Jorge Puello told the AP by phone from the Dominican Republic, where the Baptists hoped to shelter the children in a rented beach hotel.

One of the Americans, Charisa Coulter of Boise, Idaho, was treated Monday at a field hospital for either dehydration or the flu. Looking pale as she lay on a green Army cot, the 24-year-old Coulter, was being guarded by two Haitian police officers.

"They're treating me pretty good," she said. "I'm not concerned. I'm pretty confident that it will all work out."

Investigators have been trying to determine how the Americans got the children, and whether any of the traffickers that have plagued the impoverished country were involved.

Puello said they came from a collapsed orphanage. Their detained spokeswoman, Laura Silsby, said they were "just trying to do the right thing," but she conceded she had not obtained the required passports, birth certificates and adoption certificates for them - a near impossible challenge in the post-quake mayhem.

Bellerive said that without the documents, the children were unlikely to reach the United States, as some of their families might have hoped.
The 33 kids, ranging in age from 2 months to 12 years, arrived with their names written in tape on their shirts at a children's home where some told aid workers they have surviving parents. Haitian officials said they were trying to reunite them.

"One (9-year-old) girl was crying, and saying, 'I am not an orphan. I still have my parents.' And she thought she was going on a summer camp or a boarding school or something like that," said George Willeit, a spokesman for SOS Children's Village, which runs the orphanage where they were taken.
The prime minister said some of those parents may have knowingly given their kids to the Americans in hopes they would reach the United States - a not uncommon wish for poor families in a country that already had an estimated 380,000 orphans before the quake.

Haiti's overwhelmed government has halted all adoptions unless they were in motion before the earthquake amid fears that parentless or lost children are more vulnerable than ever to being seized and sold. Sex trafficking has been rampant in Haiti. Bellerive's personal authorization is now required for the departure of any child.

The arrested Americans' churches are part of the Southern Baptist Convention, America's largest Protestant denomination, which has extensive humanitarian programs worldwide, but they decided to mount their own "rescue mission" following the earthquake.


Associated Press writers Michelle Faul and Paisley Dodds in Port-au-Prince, and Matthew Lee in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

Copyright 2010 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved

Pandan moman difisil ke n ap travèse la a, genyen opòtinis ki ka pwofite mennen biznis mesken. Mwen pa konnen si gwoup moun sa yo t ap aji an "good faith" tankou jan yo di an, men mwen si ke yo konnen ke genyen yon pwosedi nòmal ki pou swiv anvan ke yo deplase ak kèlkeswa timoun nan. Si ankèt lan pwouve ke moun sa yo pa genyen oken lyen ak òganizasyon trafik moun, yo toujou ka chaje yo pou kidnaping. Men si se yon rezo malfektè degize, ke yo aplike lalwa tout longè nan degwann yo.

Le juge Bernard Saint Vil a ordonné ce jeudi, la libération provisoire des 10 missionnaires américains accusés par la justice haïtienne d'avoir enlevé 33 enfants haïtiens, quelques jours, après le séisme du 12 janvier.

Le magistrat a pris cette décision après avoir entendu, les missionnaires ainsi que les parents des enfants. Il affirme que certains parents ont avoué qu'ils avaient volontairement remis leurs enfants a ces américains.

« J'ai interrogé les parents de ces enfants .Certains ont déclaré avoir volontairement confié leurs enfants aux religieux, avec la promesse qu'ils les élèveraient, prendraient soin d'eux et les laisseraient leur rendre visite .Donc après cette audition j'ai pris la décision de les libérer » a indiqué, le juge Bernard Saint Vil.

Monsieur Saint Vil, qui annonce l'ouverture d'une enquête dans le cadre de ce dossier, n'a toutefois pas précisé, si ces américains peuvent laisser le pays ou pas, après cette libération.

Rappelons que ces missionnaires, membres d'une église baptiste située dans la ville de L' Idaho aux Etats Unis, ont été arrêtés à la frontière haitiano-dominicaine alors qu'ils tentaient de regagner la République voisine, avec 33 mineurs haïtiens, sans autorisation préalable

Radio Metropole.