Haiti released Eight Missionaries

From the NYT:

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — A Haitian judge on Wednesday ordered the release of 8 of the 10 Americans arrested here on child abduction charges but decided that two members of the group, including its leader, would remain in jail for additional questioning.

The judge, Bernard Saint-Vil, told lawyers for the Americans that he freed the members of the group, five of whom were from a Baptist congregation in Idaho, after parents of some of the 33 children with the Americans testified that they had voluntarily handed over their children to them. The Americans said they were planning to house the children in an orphanage across the border in the Dominican Republic.

The eight Americans emerged from a jail here on Wednesday looking exhausted and were accompanied by American diplomats to the airport. The group flew out on an Air Force plane, Reuters reported, and landed Thursday morning in Miami.

The arrests of the Americans touched a raw nerve here, highlighting fears that criminal networks would take advantage of the post-earthquake chaos to engage in child trafficking. Some of the children are not orphans, and it soon emerged that a Dominican adviser to the group was wanted in El Salvador on sex-trafficking charges and in the United States on charges of smuggling illegal immigrants into the country.

This is a few days old, but I want to continue blogging this story through to whatever the conclusion is. It does appear that Laura Silsby is the one who is going to take the most heat, and the mysterious and complicated figure of Jorge Puello makes it seem like something more complicated than an altruistic act gone awry was afoot. I'm not feeling up to speculating just what the hell was going on there. I think they were "strangers in a strange land" and just didn't bother to think about what they were doing for the most part.

It's one of the reasons why I'm skeptical about the efficacy of some faith-based groups doing this kind of volunteer work--I wonder if they are equipped with much more than good intentions and the armor of their faith. Sometimes more savvy and cynicism is called for. But also, without an understanding of the culture or the rules they were going into, I think they fell into the paternalism that they were doing "what was best" for those children--a thing you just can't do unless you know what end is up. I think it's a cautionary tale that to do right by people, you have to think things through and not assume you know best.