Silsby update: And then there was one... or even more

Several readers have contacted me to ask my thoughts about the latest developments in the ongoing saga involving jailed missionary Laura Silsby in Haiti. I posted my Special Report on this affair last week, which contained allegations that Silsby's team was being offered help by certain Dominicans and Haitian helpers to cross the Dominican border with children they planned to pick up, possibly in exchange for money. I have more to share about those allegations, and what I've been able to learn.

As Silsby-watchers know, Haitian Judge Bernard Saint-Vil is still detaining Silsby today, but released her best friend Charisa Coulter yesterday. He did that only after holding closed sessions to re-question Silsby and two Dominican real estate agents Jose Hidalgo and his partner Rob Chenvert, and another individual about their knowledge and version of events. When asked why he won't release Silsby, the judge told a reporter he has discovered 'discrepancies' in Silsby's accounts, and is reviewing certain documents. To even a casual reader, that means something isn't adding up.

Judge Sainvil was also reportedly looking more deeply into the possible role of a US-based Haitian pastor, Jean Sainvil and another man from the border town of Ouanaminthe. That is where Silsby visited an orphanage in December 2009 - a pre-planning trip of sorts where she gave out presents to children there.

As I wrote in my report, Pastor Sainvil claims he met Silsby for the first time on or around January 27, which, if that's true, was immediately after her Petion Ville run-in with the police and her Dominican consular warning. (In my earlier report, I note that New Lifers who were on the bus 24-7 with Silsby that week make no mention of a mid-week dash to the border and back. They do admit their group made stops at various orphanages and government buildings, where Laura, they thought, was picking up more documents for her project. So I have yet to confirm if Silsby really made that trip.)

My point here is simply to point out that the meeting with Pastor Sainvil was not a random event; he is affiliated with the Ouanaminthe orphanage and was likely introduced by Pastor Daniel or someone there. He may have known of Silsby's orphanage plans before the day they met in January since she was there in December and apparently got in touch with Sainvil in January.

Sainvil has told reporters he met Silsby and identified himself as an 'advisor' to the New Life Children's Refuge, implying he was or is a strong supporter of their mission. He claims he personally identified and went to find the 33 children from the rubble-filled Citron slum, and the mountain town of Calabas, just outside Port-au-Prince, that the Silsby group picked up. Sainvil claims he secured written permission from parents willing to turn over their chidren in hopes that they would have a better life, and many media reports have confirmed that at least some parents did do just that. Other parents were completely distraught after learning that Silsby's group might have been eyeing international adoptions in the future, and reportedly feel profoundly deceived.

Of all the statements made by different parties in L'affaire Silsby, the one statement I find easiest to believe is one made by Jean Sainvil to reporters, after he returned home to Atlanta. He hopped a med evac flight out, claiming illness, which might have been true, if you believe the following statement. Sainvil told reporters none of Silsby's trouble would have happened if only he'd still been with her at the border. He'd been too ill. He was on the phone trying to deal with the situation when his cell phone battery died. After that, the situation quickly fell apart. That's because Silsby didn't actually have documents to show border officials. She might have had a list of children and letters from parents saying she could take them -- it's not even clear she showed those -- but it wasn't the 'permission' from Dominican officials she told me she was getting when we met a week earlier.

The reason I'm inclined to believe Sainvil is because he's quite matter of fact about stating what many people in Haiti know is the greatest truth: money talks, especially in extremely poor Haiti. So do connections at the border. I spent many years working and reporting in Haiti in the late 1980s and 1990s, and covered military and police corrupton. I saw plenty of evidence of money trumping law. There isn't a Haitian I know who wouldn't just shrug and say, Mais oui. Or course it happens. People don't get paid enough. They're vulnerable to corruption.. Sainvil didn't think he would have any problem convincing a border official to let a bus with American Baptists and Haitian orphans across because, for a price, people are willing to look the other way.

For the record, I haven't spoken to either Pastor Sainvil or Pastor Daniel. But I hope to soon.

None of this dismisses the probability that Silsby, determined to carry out her mission, tried to work her connections on the Dominican Republic side. Whether there was any connection between the Haitian go-betweens and any Dominicans is another question mark.


More Denials, and More Clues...

I've done some additional sleuthing and recently contacted a woman lawyer who bears the same name as a former state district attorney that Puello alleges was helping Laura Silby to get 'permission' to bring children into Haiti. She lives in the Dominican Republic and is a well known member of a political party there. When I contacted her by phone to discuss Puello's allegations, she initially claimed no knowledge of an American or missionary jailed in Haiti named Laura Silsby. When I explained how I'd gotten her name, she drew a blank about Jorge Puello.

But upon further probing, she acknowledged that she had met an American woman with red hair "who might have been" Laura Silsby at the Dominican state agency last September where she worked. (She's since taken a leave to run for political office). That's where Silsby allegedly applied to register her orphanage and get permission. The state agency is located in San Cristobal - rather far from where Silsby was setting up her orphanage in Cabarete. The lawyer says the American woman was a single woman who was told by officials there that she would need permission from parents of any Haitian children who were not orphans if she wanted to bring them over. She claims she doesn't know if Silsby pursued her paperwork or its status.

When I asked this lawyer, point blank, if she had helped or been asked to help Laura Silsby secure permission to help her cross the Dominican border, she claimed no knowledge. When I asked her if she had ever been contacted by a man named Jorge Torres Puello, she denied it. (Puello claims he spoke with her on the telephone). When I asked if she'd told Mr. Puello in a telephone call to tell Silsby to just come to the border, and asked him if he had some 150,000 pesos ($12,000) that was being asked, she claimed no memory of the conversation. She did acknowledge reading the newpapers and knowing a bit about the Silsby news, like most Dominicans.

Nor did she have any knowledge or ideas about a 'general' who might have been helping Silsby - again, per allegations made by Puello. (Note: Silsby herself told me she was being helped by a Dominican 'minister' and had 'connections' in the DR, which is why I was interested in pursuing Puello's allegations. All along I've thought that others were helping Silsby, including other Americans who had stayed back at the ex-hotel and were readying it as an orphanage).

In my report, I revealed that a State Department report mentions a Dominican woman lawyer and former state district attorney who was fired from her office in 2007 when her subordinate was found guilty of trafficking - of helping people illegally cross the border. I did not discuss that report with the woman I interviewed last week. I first wanted to check back in with Mr. Puello to hear what he made of blank denials of his statements, and to make sure I had the right woman. It was already a rather delicate conversation. The State Department report does not allege this state district attorney was trafficking, but the connection did raise a red flag - at least to me. First Puello, now another lawyer with some past link to someone trafficking? How much murkier can this affair get?

For the record, Mr. Puello did not know then what I'd learned about the woman lawyer or her employment history. But his reaction was predictable. "She's not going to tell you the truth," he told me over the phone (and I'm paraphrasing). "It's my word or hers. What is my motivation for telling you about her? I have nothing to lose at this point. I'm telling you because it's true. These people were supposed to help Laura and then something happened. I know that Laura was supposed to get a document at the border."

He also noted that his source, the lady lawyer, hadn't completely denied meeting Silsby, and had, in fact, admitted likely contact. "Dig deeper," he said, while warning me, "But be careful. There's people who aren't going to be happy about the truth."

Indeed.

What about the 'general?'

In my report, I wrote that Puello claimed a general -- a Dominican military official - was allegedly helping Silsby with the border issue. She had told me personally that a Domincan 'minister' was helping her, and implied it was someone with some authority. I later wondered if her 'minister' was the US can-do Pastor Sainvil. Maybe what went wrong is really what Sainvil says -- that he got sick, leaving Silsby without her 'minister' to talk or negotiate their way across the border.

The easiest explanation in this still very oblique debacle is that, for God, or maybe for money to pay off debts, Laura Silsby was determined against sage advice to bring a lot of Haitian kids to stay at her Dominican Republic orphanage. She knew the Haitian governmen was cracking down on what had just been a more open border in the days after the earthquake, when other missionary types were grabbing orphans and flying them out to the US on private charter planes. They had connections, but not always complete paperwork either. She knew enough to know she didn't have the paperwork, and she knew it could take years for parents to adopt children from Haiti. She'd talked to one couple who had been waiting five years to bring their adoptive children home to the US. She didn't want to wait.

When I talked to her in Santo Domingo on the eve of her trip into Haiti, she planned to go into Haiti at the crack of dawn on Monday and be back across the border that same night with her busload of children. When I suggested she contact the proper authorities, she responded by saying that she'd never be given the children, because her orphan project was new -- they'd be given to more established orphanages. In other words, she knew the traditional legal route would be difficult and unlikely. So I'm inclined to think she did what many in Haiti do to avoid bureaucratic red tape and delays: they cut corners, they work personal connections.

The big question is still open -- the one Judge Saint-Vil has asked: Why did Silsby and her group continue on their quest, when she was warned before embarking, then warned away, then stopped by a policeman, then warned again by the Dominican consul? So she knew and in the face of rather high odds, she persisted. Why?

Others have wondered aloud if Sainvil didn't have more of a role to play in the overall project. Was he getting paid to help Silsby? If money - money paid to adopt children -- is the motive for this long, strange trip in Haiti, then a lot more of this story makes sense.

The odd connections to suspected traffickers - to seemingly random individuals like Jorge Puello who felt moved to help Silsby, he says, or this new woman lawyer who's also strangely tarred with a trafficking brush - it all seems too odd to be coincidence. But it certainly doesn't add up neatly. Who's not telling the full truth? Is it Puello or the lady lawyer? Is it Pastor Sainvil or the New Lifers who feel betrayed now by Silsby?

Somewhere, there's a story in which these things do make sense, because they occurred. Could it be the story that is the ugliest? The one that suggests Silsby got hooked up with traffickers, wittingly or unwittingly, because those are the people who know how to quietly move other people across borders? Because she, like others, was motivated by money?

I still want to hope not.

I do wonder what's been said in Judge Saint-Vil's closed chambers.

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