Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Clinton terms Haiti child smuggling case 'unfortunate'
AFP ^ | Feb 3 06:51 PM | AFP

Posted on 02/03/2010 6:19:11 PM PST by topfile

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday it was "unfortunate" that American Christians are suspected of smuggling children out of quake-hit Haiti even if their intentions were good. Haitian prosecutors are due to decide Thursday whether to charge the 10 Christians, who have been held by authorities there since they attempted to sneak a group of 33 children out of the country.

"Trafficking of human beings, particularly of children is a problem across the world," Clinton said after holding talks in Washington on Wednesday about the problem of trafficking in persons worldwide.

"The Haitian nation acted to protect children who were being removed from their country without appropriate documentation," the chief US diplomat said.

"It was unfortunate that, whatever the motivation, this group of Americans took matters into their own hands," Clinton said.

(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: clinton; haiti; hillary; obama; orphans; soshillary
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-31 next last
Christian Child traffickers?

I'm sure the Obama Admistration would love to persecuteprosecute these folks themselves.

1 posted on 02/03/2010 6:19:13 PM PST by topfile
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: topfile
All Christian groups should pull out of that country. Let the non Christians help them.
2 posted on 02/03/2010 6:22:57 PM PST by americanmother (2nd Tim chapter 3)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: topfile

‘unfortunate’

Like that blue dress......


3 posted on 02/03/2010 6:31:58 PM PST by ButThreeLeftsDo (Political Correctness Will Get Us All Killed)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: topfile; americanmother

Please educate yourselves before defending these slimy child traffickers. See previous threads:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2443203/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2442299/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2441691/posts


4 posted on 02/03/2010 6:32:53 PM PST by GovernmentShrinker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: topfile

Well if they had smuggled them for the purpose of prostitution then they could have paid their unregulated fees and been on their way /s


5 posted on 02/03/2010 6:33:45 PM PST by the_daug
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: topfile

Is it not yet known whether or not there was criminal intent?


6 posted on 02/03/2010 6:33:57 PM PST by Gene Eric (Your Hope has been redistributed. Here's your Change.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ButThreeLeftsDo
Like that blue dress......


7 posted on 02/03/2010 6:34:00 PM PST by topfile
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: topfile

Clinton seems to have decided they are guilty. Saying it in public is grossly irresponsible.


8 posted on 02/03/2010 6:41:21 PM PST by Mister Da (The mark of a wise man is not what he knows, but what he knows he doesn't know!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Gene Eric; GovernmentShrinker; AnAmericanMother
I think Government Shrinker has a real obsession about one of the women involved with this. I think she might be flaky, but there's no indication that any "child trafficking" was intended here, even by her, and certainly not by the others in the Baptist group. They were a convenient distraction for the Haitian government to focus on: evil white American Christians trying to "steal" children. Meanwhile, the place where child trafficking takes place is actually Haiti, and involves Haitians themselves (who sell their children to wealthier Haitians).

And we don't want any attention paid to the fact that the Haitian government is both so corrupt and so inept that hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign aid is sitting undistributed or, when distributed, is immediately stolen.

It's better to get the New York Times in on condemning a few possibly naive but definitely not criminal American Baptists who were obviously trying to help...yeah, that's the way to go!

9 posted on 02/03/2010 6:41:27 PM PST by livius
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: topfile

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday it was “unfortunate” that American Christians are suspected of smuggling children out of quake-hit Haiti because they failed to bribe the proper officials, as all the child-sex-slave traders have done.


10 posted on 02/03/2010 6:43:46 PM PST by UCANSEE2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Gene Eric
Is it not yet known whether or not there was criminal intent?

That will be determined after the appropriate Port-Au-Prince 'officials' receive envelopes with huge sums of cash.

Perhaps the US Secretary of State could speak to the US Ambassador to Haiti. I heard he has tons of money in offshore accounts. Surely they both have some concern for this persecution of the Baptist Group?

11 posted on 02/03/2010 6:49:07 PM PST by UCANSEE2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: livius

I’m not “obsessed” with Laura Silsby, the ringleader. I just noticed right from the start that her story didn’t add up, and had time to do a little digging (which has also been done by a number of media outlets, blogs, and other sites that I bumped into). Every single thing I learned about her added to the impression that her intent all along has been to set up a very profitable adoption business with scant regard for legalities.

Her own financial history is sketchy enough that nobody should be writing her checks for her grand plans that exist only as claims on websites. She’s got a stack of unpaid judgements against her back in the US and the address listed on the incorporation papers for her “non-profit” is her former home which she lost ownership of a whopping 2 days after she used the address to incorporate the “non-profit” (which apparently doesn’t actually have legal non-profit status yet, though it’s not clear that the people who have been writing checks to it were aware of that).


12 posted on 02/03/2010 6:51:31 PM PST by GovernmentShrinker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: GovernmentShrinker

/marking these links for later read 0_0


13 posted on 02/03/2010 6:58:37 PM PST by happinesswithoutpeace (We are unable to transmit through conscious neural interference.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: GovernmentShrinker

You’ve Scooped Drudge!


14 posted on 02/03/2010 7:04:07 PM PST by topfile
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: topfile
"It was unfortunate that, whatever the motivation, this group of Americans took matters into their own hands," Clinton said.

Trust me, Lizard Queen, you ain't seen nothin' yet.


Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

15 posted on 02/03/2010 7:25:15 PM PST by The Comedian (Evil can only succeed if good men don't point at it and laugh.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GovernmentShrinker
I read all 3 posts. Only the NY Times article implied these people might be trafficking children. The other 2 articles seemed sympathetic to the missionaries.

Personally, I'm gonna give these people the benefit of the doubt until something more than accusations from a left-wing rag is revealed. Also, if Hillary Clinton thinks they are guilty - she does - then I am doubly doubtful of their guilt.

I suspect this is just business as usual in Haiti. If you don't payoff gov’t officials, you get arrested. I also suspect the hundreds of injured children taken to US hospitals, were taken with or without Haitian gov’t permission. Florida schools are preparing to handle an influx of Haitian children. I doubt many of these have the proper paperwork to leave Haiti or to be in the USA.

16 posted on 02/03/2010 7:29:31 PM PST by Mister Da (The mark of a wise man is not what he knows, but what he knows he doesn't know!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: topfile

All this info has been appearing on various other sources. I just wanted to pull it together on FR because I was alarmed at the number of people here who were jumping to defend this group without knowing anything about them.

Here’s a new update from GetReligion.org that neatly pulls together the currently available information about the two Haitian pastors who supposedly helped Silsby assemble the group of children. Neither appears to be in Haiti right now. One definitely lives in Atlanta and wasn’t in Haiti when Silsby & Co. tried to cross the border with the children. The other apparently actually does run an orphanage in Haiti and has a home there, but a woman answering the door at this home says he’s in Miami and that he doesn’t know anything about this group of Americans.

“One Haitian pastor found, but another missing”
http://www.getreligion.org/?p=25972


17 posted on 02/03/2010 7:31:02 PM PST by GovernmentShrinker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: Mister Da

Define trafficking. Unauthorized removal of a child across national borders IS trafficking, and there’s no question whatsoever that this group attempted to do that with 33 children. Were they planning to sell them as sex slaves or domestic servants? Almost certainly not. Did they grossly mislead the children’s parents as to what sort of place they were planning to take the children to? Almost certainly yes. Did they have any plausible plan in place to care for the children? No, they were soliciting volunteers via websites for stints as short as 2 weeks to come down and help take care of the children — this is EXACTLY how pedophiles get access to children. The list goes on and on. The bulk of the evidence points to personal profit as the chief motivation for this whole escapade — the “plan” to build an orphanage/adoption mall in the Dominican Republic, and its outcropping, the impulsive post-earthquake move to run over to Haiti and scoop up a bunch of kids and take them to the DR.

And the NYT was actually quite late to the party on this one. Many other media sources, including Fox and mainstream Idaho media outlets were way ahead of the NYT. BBC was ruthless. The best work came from a couple of adult adoptee blogs, since they were already very familiar with the topic of international “orphans” and international adoptions before this story broke.


18 posted on 02/03/2010 8:12:57 PM PST by GovernmentShrinker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: GovernmentShrinker

Thanks for the links and research on this. I knew something sounded fishy.


19 posted on 02/03/2010 8:14:46 PM PST by bamahead (Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master. -- Sallust)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Mister Da
This is one of the smartest women in the world?!

By who's standards? Whomever claims this has some mighty low standards. Maybe they meant one of the smartest liberals in the world, which means her IQ could be anywhere from room temperature to days in a month!

20 posted on 02/03/2010 8:53:40 PM PST by SlightOfTongue
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-31 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson