The New Dark Age

9 February, 2010 — HLLN

Recommended HLLN Link: Podcast: Ezili Dantò of HLLN on Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Feb. 8, 2010 (mp3 – bit.ly/bxRBKX) bit.ly/9JQoZm

Haitians will defend their sovereignty www.africaspeaks.com/blog/?p=3031

Beasts in Samaritan Clothing axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_58194.shtml

The Vultures Circle Haiti at Every Opportunity, Natural or Man-made bit.ly/97rA2F

In this post

– Officer: U.S. missionaries had tried to take other Haitian kids www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/09/haiti.border.arrests/?hpt=T2

– Doctors: Haitian may have survived 4 weeks in rubble – CNN.com, Feb 8, 2010 bit.ly/axWfNI

– Link: Podcast: Ezili Dantò of HLLN on Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Feb. 8, 2010 (mp3 –bit.ly/bxRBKX) bit.ly/9JQoZm

CNN.com

Officer: U.S. missionaries had tried to take other Haitian kids From Karl Penhaul, CNN, Feb. 9, 2010

www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/09/haiti.border.arrests/?hpt=T2

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

* Ten Americans in Haiti already charged with kidnapping 33 Haitian children

* Officer says that the group had tried to take another group of kids out of country illegally

* He says he stopped bus with 40 kids on it, directed group leader to Dominican embassy

* Police officer’s superiors confirm his version of events

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) — The group of American missionaries in Haiti facing kidnapping charges for trying to take 33 children out of the country last week made an earlier, unsuccessful attempt at taking dozens of other children, a Haitian police officer said Monday.

The officer did not want to be identified for fear of reprisals. He told CNN that he had stopped the 10 Baptist missionaries, including group leader Laura Silsby, on January 26 as they tried to transport 40 children on a bus from Haiti to the Dominican Republic.

The officer said he discovered Silsby and the nine other Americans on a bus in the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Petionville in the early afternoon of January 26 after receiving a tip from a concerned citizen.

He stopped the group and ordered the children to get off the bus. He then directed Silsby to the Dominican embassy.

“I said what happened, and she (Silsby) told me, ‘I have the paperwork to cross the Haitian Dominican border with 100 children,’ “ the officer said. A former attorney for the group, Edwin Coq, said the officer has testified of his account.

The officer was questioned by prosecutors last week in the case against the missionaries. Prosecutors no longer suspect him of any wrongdoing, and he is now a witness, according Coq, who is familiar with the prosecution’s case file.

The police officer’s superiors also confirmed his version of events. Lawyers for the Americans did not immediately answer calls for comment.

Full coverage of the earthquake’s aftermath

The 10 missionaries were charged Thursday with kidnapping children and criminal association for trying to take 33 children out of Haiti last week.

Earlier Monday, Jorge Puello, a Dominican attorney who said he was hired to represent the group, said they had authorization from the neighboring Dominican Republic to bring the children across the border.

Puello showed reporters a manila folder he said contained documents that prove the Americans had authorization to bring the children into the Dominican Republic, but he did not show the documents to reporters.

Dominican authorities have previously said the Americans did not have permission, and Puello did not say whether the group had the authorization of Haitian officials.

The Americans have said they were just trying to help the children get to a safe place after January’s magnitude-7.0 earthquake, which has left more than 200,000 dead.

iReport: Looking for loved ones in Haiti

Arriving outside the Haitian attorney general’s office Monday, Puello said he was hired by a church that counts some of the jailed Americans among its members. He did not identify the congregation.

Coq announced over the weekend that he had resigned. Puello said Monday that Coq had been fired but gave no details.

Some of the Americans have said they thought they were helping orphans, but their interpreters told CNN this week that they were present when group members spoke with some of the children’s parents.

Some parents in a village outside Port-au-Prince said they had willingly given their children to the Americans, who promised them a better life. The parents also said they had been told they could see their children whenever they wanted. But the Dominican consul general has said he warned the group’s leader, Silsby, about trying to cross the border without proper documents.

Silsby and four other Americans arrived for an appearance before an examining judge Monday morning. One of them, Paul Thomson, referred reporters to a passage in the New Testament book of 1 Corinthians, in which the apostle Paul tells early Christians, “It seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena.

“To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless,” the passage continues. “We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly.”

** See also: – “We have authorization from government to bring orphaned children, babies up to 10 years, to our orphanage in DR…Fliers New Life Children’s Refuge missionaries brought village of Calebasse promised beautiful place for children, soccer field, pool, ocean” (Children taken from Haiti face uncertain fate – bit.ly/ckrp8D)

– Laura Silsby in Haiti – Sincere aspirations or greed? bit.ly/cashkids

– The kidnapping of Haitian children for Jesus bit.ly/cLs1kk

Doctors: Haitian may have survived 4 weeks in rubble February 8, 2010 9:12 p.m. EST

Photo – CNN.com: The man told doctors someone brought him water while he was trapped. bit.ly/axWfNI

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) — A man pulled alive from the rubble of a building in Haiti’s capital Monday may have been trapped since the January 12 quake that leveled much of the city, doctors reported.

The 28-year-old man, identified as Evan Muncie, was found in the wreckage of a market where he sold rice, his family told staff at a University of Miami field hospital. He suffered from extreme dehydration and malnutrition, but did not appear to have significant crushing injuries, the doctors said.

“He was emaciated. He hadn’t had anything in quite some time. He had open wounds that were festering on both of his feet,” said Dr. Mike Connelly, of the university’s Project Medishare.

The people who brought him to the hospital said they found the man while digging out the marketplace, Connelly said.

The man told doctors that someone was bringing him water while he was trapped, but doctors told CNN that he sounded confused and at times appeared to believe he was still under the rubble. Connelly said the man must have had some water during the past month to have survived, but Connelly wasn’t sure how he would have had access to it.

“Initially, I’m sure he had his senses with him, so maybe he was able to find some kind of resources,” Connelly told CNN.

The discovery came nearly a month after the magnitude-7.0 earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince on January 12. More than 200,000 deaths have been blamed on the quake.

Haiti’s government declared search-and-rescue efforts over on January 23, but survivors still were being unearthed as late as January 27.

Podcast: Ezili Dantò of HLLN on Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Feb. 8, 2010 (mp3 –bit.ly/bxRBKX) or at – bit.ly/9JQoZm

HLLN Action Alert: A call for help from Croix-des-Bouquets at zone Li Lavoix, Haiti bit.ly/bOTrRu