Baptists could face US trial

Ten Americans who tried to take a busload of undocumented Haitian children out of the country knew what they were doing was wrong and could be prosecuted in the US, Haiti’s prime minister said.

Max Bellerive said his country was open to having the Americans face US justice, since most government buildings – including Haiti’s courts – were crippled by the devastating 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,” Mr 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.

US embassy officials would not say whether Washington would accept hosting judicial proceedings for the Americans, Baptists who are mostly from Idaho.

For now, the case remained firmly in Haitian hands, US State Department spokesman PJ 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 January 12 quake.

The government and aid groups were still struggling to get food, water, shelter and basic health care to hundreds of thousands of survivors and many parents were desperate to get help for their children.

US diplomats have had “unlimited” access to the 10 detainees, and would monitor any court proceedings, said Mr Crowley. They have not yet been charged.

Members of the church group insisted they were only trying to save abandoned and traumatised children, but appeared to lack any significant experience with Haiti, international charity work or international adoption regulations.

After their arrest on Friday near the border, the 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,” lawyer Jorge Puello said from the Dominican Republic, where the Baptists hoped to shelter the children in a rented beach hotel.

One of the Americans, Charisa Coulter, 24, of Boise, Idaho, was treated yesterday at a field hospital for either dehydration or flu. She looked pale as she lay on a green army bed, 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.

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

Mr Bellerive said that without the documents the children were unlikely to reach the US, as some of their families might have hoped.

The 33 children aged from two months to 12, arrived with their names written in tape on their shirts at a children’s home where some told aid workers they had surviving parents. Haitian officials said they were trying to reunite them.

“One (nine-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 their parents may have knowingly given them to the Americans hoping they would reach the US – 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 to being seized and sold.

Sex trafficking has been rampant in Haiti and Mr Bellerive’s personal authorisation 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.