From the Baptist Press News:
'Radically different' story about Baptists in Haiti emerges
Posted on May 18, 2010 | by Michael Foust
'EDITOR'S NOTE: The following story is based on interviews with Paul Thompson, one of the 10 Baptists held in prison in Haiti.
TWIN FALLS, Idaho (BP)--Paul Thompson reads the media accounts describing the journey of he and nine other jailed Baptist volunteers in Haiti who are all now free, and scratches his head. He was there. What he reads is not what he experienced."
"The story Thompson tells is far different from what has been described repeatedly in most media accounts.
"It's radically different," Thompson said.
For instance:
-- The 10 Americans did not, as has been alleged in some accounts, go through the streets of Port-au-Prince passing out flyers and going door-to-door looking for children, Thompson said. Instead, the 33 children they were trying to take across the border in a medium-sized bus came from two orphanages, and orphanage workers told them that none of the children had parents.
-- The group was told multiple times before they got to the border that their documentation and paperwork -- the source of the controversy -- was sufficient, Thompson said. A Haitian child services official said as much, as did a Haitian policeman and an orphanage director who has extensive experience transferring orphans from Haiti to the Dominican Republic.
-- The 10 Baptists were arrested in Port-au-Prince, and not at the border. They thought they would go free until UNICEF -- a United Nations agency -- got involved and pressed charges, Thompson says.
-- They were arrested on Jan. 30, and not Jan. 29 as has been reported repeatedly."
Its a very long article, they have had a long time to write it.