Ignore the idiots

There are some very stupid people in the world.

Take, for instance, the missionaries who are currently being held in a Haitian jail for the attempted kidnapping of 33 children abandoned or orphaned in the wake of the earthquake. They claim they had the correct papers and had set up a place in the Dominican Republic to take the children until their relatives could be found or someone could adopt them.

They only forgot one thing. To take children out of a country, you have to have the correct papers from that country.

The missionaries, most of whom are from two Idaho churches, were trying to do a good thing — take care of the children and get them to safety. I highly doubt they were really trying to kidnap the kids.

My mother will probably laugh at me for trying to lecture someone about having common sense, but these people need a serious dose of it.

Foreigners coming into a country after a devastating event, taking children and sending them to another country — without proper documentation? These kids don’t have family or anyone else who would notice them missing — or be able to find them if the group really did have nefarious intentions. If you were the Haitian government, what would it look like to you?

Eight of the 10 missionaries in jail slipped a letter to an NBC journalist saying they feared for their lives. That may or may not be an overreaction to the situation, but it’s not a good one to be in, especially for the missionary who just turned 18.

But the bad news doesn’t stop there. Edwin Coq, the group’s former Haitian-provided defense attorney, has said eight of the group weren’t knowingly involved with something illegal but that group leader Laura Silsby knew they didn’t have permission to take the children to the Dominican Republic.

Okay, they didn’t know. But why on earth wouldn’t you inform yourself? Haiti really isn’t the place you want to be stuck in jail, especially now. Not knowing everything about a situation you’re involved in is just stupid.

As for Silsby, taking the children and knowing they didn’t have the right documents was monumentally stupid. Why would she risk getting caught? Or risk U.S./Haitian relations if they did get the kids across and the government found out later? She should have taken the time to work out the situation.

And the fun doesn’t stop there. Coq was fired after allegedly taking bribes. He demanded $60,000 from the families of the missionaries and supposedly tried to bribe their way out of jail.

He says the money was his fee (an awfully hefty fee, if you ask me) and that he didn’t try to bribe anyone. But why would you even put yourself in a situation in which you could be accused of something like that?

The whole situation is a complete mess. In a time when everyone should be doing everything they can to help victims of the disaster, money, time and attention are instead going to a bunch of idiots.


E-mail: hanns@indiana.edu