A Murder in Haiti

It is with deep sorrow that I write this, but the truth must be told. One of our Haitian employees, I will leave his name out for fear of reprisal, sent me the following e-mail a short time ago.
Please forgive the english, it is broken, but he's written this e-mail the best he could.

I am so sorry, my friend.

Was this a random murder? Or was it staged by our competition there? Can you imagine anyone torturing a person like that? May God have mercy on their souls.

Just before this murder, while I was aboard our ship (Son Worshipper) waiting in Haiti for word from the government about our contract, another crisis occurred.

An ill- equipped boat, about 22' long, loaded with several Haitian Coast Guard personnel, pulled along side our boat. All were armed with weapons, which were supplied by the US Government. They boarded our vessel and seized our weapons that were locked in our gun locker. They held us at gunpoint and informed us that they were ordered there by the commander of the Coast Guard to seize both of our ships and crew and take us to Port-au-Prince. You have to imagine what it was like to have un-trained people pointing automatic weapons, loaded, at you. We were fearful for our lives at this point. They got a call from their commander to get us ready to move out to Port-au-Prince. They told us we would have to take their boat, along with M/V Diamond, the 105' ship, in tow with M/V Son Worshipper, the 90' ship. We tried to make them realize that the smaller boat could not take that kind of load in tow for such a long trip, and that we also did not have enough fuel aboard for the trip. The did not care about that, all they knew was they were sent there to bring us back. We told them we would run out of fuel half way through the trip and be adrift with a chance of crashing into a reef, but apparently they could not understand that concept. They had guns pointed at us.

I snuck up to the bow of the boat with the cell phone and called home, and told my wife Kathy what was happening. I told her to call everyone we knew, as well as the US Embassy, Senator Susan Collins and anyone else that may be able to help us. It was a Saturday.

After a short time the Haitian Coast Guard aboard received a call from their commander. I received a call from a US Army Major attached to the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince. I explained the situation to him, and was told that he was off for the day, but would see what he could do. I think I got his attention when I told him what the headlines may say soon, "American Bodies Found" after hitting reef in Haiti, forced at gunpoint by armed Haitian Coast Guard.
He said he'd call me right back, that is, if I wasn't shot first.
After an hour or so, he called back and asked to talk to the Haitian that was in charge of the boarding party. By the way, they did not have any documentation, nothing to authorize this seizure, just guns. The head guy got on the phone with the major, and I listened one-sidedly, to what was said. He told the major he was sent by his commander to seize our ships and crew and return to Port-au-Prince. After a short time, I noticed a concerned look on his face. I do not know what the major said, but it was something that concerned this guy.

After several hours of this, I got a call from the Haitian Coast Guard Commander. He told me he was ordered by the Minister of Culture to seize us. Now, this is strange, as I had a meeting set up with the Minister of Culture, and a very high placed government official a few days after this boarding. There was no paperwork about the seizure, so, what was happening? Who really sent them? And why? Too many questions and no answers. The Haitian Coast Guard stayed through the night and departed the next morning. They returned our weapons.
I had contacted the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince many times prior to this to keep them advised of our situation, about just waiting on the Haitian government to approve our contract. What is extremely odd is, at first, they stayed in contact with us quite often. Then, it stopped. They just ignored us completely and even ignored our senators' people who called them and asked them to assist us. The embassy never even returned their calls. What is that about? Why? Isn't one of the reasons we have the embassy is to assist US citizens? Then why did they ignore us?

A week later a very high ranking Haitian official came to the boat. He said we would get our contract, but we needed to have him lobby for us. We needed to give him the money and he would make sure that the President and Prime Minister of Haiti would make sure our contract was issued. This came from a man who is very close to the top in Haiti.

We have had murders, guns pointed at us, been threatened by the government, and even more than I could possibly write here. We tried to do our very best there. We built a dock to help the locals, brought in food and clothes, paid to rebuild the church, built a few houses for people, gave money, paid for many children to go to school, supplied medicine and medical treatment, stopped people from stealing Haiti's treasures, and waited to get a legal contract to work there and share our rewards.

Now, we are forced to leave Haiti, after investing millions of dollars and we leave many friends. Corruption and murder is too much to handle. I pray Haiti realizes what it has done before it's too late, and pray also that the US Embassy starts doing it's intended job.