By Ken Dilanian
USA TODAY
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Friends and relatives of 10 U.S. Baptist missionaries charged Thursday with kidnapping Haitians are appealing for the United States to step in and help. The Americans, they say, were only trying to rescue children whose own families gave them away.
"We are concerned and worried about them," read a statement issued by relatives of the members of the Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho. "But the two governments need time to work this out."
However, the Obama administration said the matter was in Haitian hands.
"This will be a judgment based by the Haitian government on Haitian law," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said. "If Haiti decides to consult with the United States in terms of other legal avenues, obviously, there are legal procedures for us to do that."
What those avenues could be was not spelled out. Crowley said that because of the "unusual circumstance" of Haiti's diminished governing capacity, U.S. officials have been in contact with Haitian judicial officials to understand their process.
State spokesman Gordon Duguid said the case is proceeding in a "transparent judicial process."
But Edwin Coq, a lawyer who is representing the group, said that under Haiti's legal system there won't be an open trial — a judge will consider the evidence and render a verdict.
Group leader Laura Silsby said they were arrested Jan. 29 near the border with neighboring Dominican Republican with the children, who they were taking to an orphanage after receiving permission from an orphanage or relatives.
The Associated Press reported that a Haitian pastor and relatives of the children said they had given the children willingly in hopes for a better life. However, Haiti says the Americans did not have official permission to take the children out of Haiti.
The charges come as the U.S. has pledged more than $400 million in aid and sent more than 17,000 military personnel to help the island after it was devastated by an earthquake on Jan. 12.
In the Mont Canape Vert neighborhood, several Haitians said it is common in Haiti for parents to send children to live with those better off.
"We don't have a problem with that. But it has to be done properly," Charles James said. He didn't think defendants should be sent to prison. "No, not if they did it for humanitarian reasons," he said.
Roger Oldham, spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention, said the incident is a warning to missionaries that they need to follow the laws.
"If people act on their own, especially cross-culturally," he said, "it becomes a barrier to better serving people."
The Idaho congressional delegation said they are working to ensure the Americans are treated humanely. "We hope that the judge will act quickly," they said in a joint statement.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. It is upsetting that the Haitain government has such a strict legalistic view of this situation, and I am very unsure of their reasoning behind it. First off, America, partly through its church groups, has donated millions of dollars worth of money, time and effort towards relieving this disaster stricken country. These church group members had every intention to help, and it is unfair to punish them at a time like this. Not only is it unfair, it is causing more harm than good..
ReplyDeleteThe amount of orphaned children in Haiti was exceptionally high to begin with, and the earthquake has only made the situation severely worse. There weren't enough resources to provide for all of these children in the first place, and now even more of them will be homeless and face horrible conditions. If a few kids had the promise of a secure life of food,shelter and education in America, why did their own government deprive them of it?
You would think the government of Haiti has its hands tied with the thousands of people dying every day, but that's just not the case. Apparently they feel that they have adequate resources to go through the entire judicial process to punish a group of people trying to help their dismal situation.
These kids were abandoned and hopeless, and basically all the church group did was perform an adoption without all of the formalities. Haiti should have let them go, but now they have to deal with America trying to get some of its people home.
I hope it was worth it