Haiti's prime minister says it's clear to him that the ten U.S. Baptists who tried to take 33 children out of his quake-ravaged country without permission "knew what they were doing was wrong." But Prime Minister Max Bellerive says his country is open to having the Americans go before courts in the United States because Haiti's judicial system was devastated by the Jan. 12 earthquake.The purported Baptist "rescue mission" has become a distraction for a crippled government trying to provide basic life support to millions of earthquake survivors.
But Bellerive said some legal system must determine whether the Americans were acting in good faith as they claim or are child traffickers in a nation that has struggled to fight exploitation of children.
Meanwhile, Idaho's congressional leaders say they're closely monitoring the safety and health of the ten Americans arrested in Haiti Friday while trying to take dozens of children out of the country. Nine of the people detained by the Haitian government are from Idaho and members of Baptist churches in Twin Falls and Meridian.
Senators Mike Crapo and Jim Risch and Congressmen Mike Simpson and Walt Minnick say they're keeping in touch with the U.S. State Department to ensure that adequate food, water, and medical care are provided.
The detainees were arrested by Haitian police near the border after failing to show proper documentation to take the children from the country. They've said they were on a mission to rescue abandoned Haitian children and get them to an orphanage being set up in the Dominican Republic. But some of the children say they were misled and have parents who survived the earthquake.
Also in Haiti, Haitian police at the Port Au Prince airport, refused to allow a private plane load of medical supplies from doctors in Miami unload without paying a bribe to police. The more the Haitian government is allowed to resume control, the more of these stories come to light.
Please pray for all Americans in Haiti.
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