jeudi 18 février 2010

Les Maires du Nord procèdent à la fermeture des écoles!


Par Gérard Maxineau

 

L'Association des Maires du Nord (AMNO) a décidé de procéder à la fermeture des établissements scolaires dans le département, suite à un glissement de terrain qui s'est produit lundi dernier dans une école dans la deuxième ville du pays faisant quatre morts parmi les élèves.

Les maires du Nord réclament une expertise des bâtiments abritant les écoles, avant toute possibilité de rouvrir les écoles dans la région.

Une décision très mal vue par les directeurs d'écoles du département... Eux qui avaient fixé, de concert avec le Directeur Départemental de l'Éducation Nationale, Me Hilaire Théodore la réouverture des classes au 18 Janvier, soit six jours après le violent séisme ayant causé la mort d'environ 300.000 personnes en Haïti.

Soulignons au lendemain du drame de ce lundi, des milliers de Capois ont participé mardi et mercredi à une série de marches religieuses pour implorer la protection divine contre les risques d'un tremblement de terre.

"Les risques d'un puissant séisme pouvant sérieusement frapper la région du Nord existent" a clairement expliqué le week-end écoulé l'ingénieur Claude Prepetit, sismologue qui animaient en pleine place publique, une conférence débat. Initiative conjointe de Fonda-Tropic et de la Municipalité capoise.

La ville du Cap est traversée par une faille.

(A suivre)

Gérard Maxineau
gedemax@yahoo.fr
(509)3784-1294 

 __________________

 

Gérard MAXINEAU
gedemax@yahoo.fr
Journaliste:
Radio Cap-Haïtien
Radio Kiskéya, correspondant
Journal Le Matin, correspondant
Réseau Citadelle, rédacteur
Cellphone: (509) 3784-1294


Bulletin météo du jeudi 18 février 2010.


Valable jusqu'au 20 février 2010

Situation synoptique dans la Caraïbe et sur l'Atlantique
L'axe du front froid est entrain de traverser Haïti ce matin. De la pluie isolée légère à modérée est encore attendue sur certains de nos départements aujourd'hui.

Prévisions pour Haïti
- Temps nuageux avec des périodes couvertes notamment dans la région
nord du pays aujourd'hui ;
- Températures agréables au cours de la journée comme en soirée;
- Pluie sectorielle modérée encore attendue aujourd'hui notamment dans le Nord-ouest, le Nord, le Nord-est, l'Artibonite, l'Ouest et le Centre.
Prévisions pour Port-au-Prince et environs
· Passages nuageux au cours de la journée et en début de soirée;
· Tº. max. : 30ºC ; Tº min: 19ºC ;
· Pluie isolée encore possible cet après-midi.

Lever & coucher du soleil pour Port-au-Prince
Aujourd'hui 18 fév.
Lever : 06h 15 mn
Coucher : 05h 51 mn

Jeudi 19 fév.
Lever : 06h 15 mn
Coucher : 05h 52 mn

Vendredi 20 fév.
Lever : 06h 14 mn
Coucher : 05h 52 mn

Jacquet Jackson, Prévisionniste au CNM

Bulletin météo marine du jeudi 18 février 2010
Valable jusqu'au 19 février 2010

Prévisions maritimes:
Zone côtière nord :
Jeudi & vendredi
* Vent du secteur sud-ouest : 15 nœuds aujourd'hui, devenant nord,
nord-est vendredi ;
* Hauteur des vagues: 5 à 10 pieds ;
* Pluie isolée encore prévue aujourd'hui ;
* Mer plus ou moins agitée à agitée ;
* Les voiliers doivent prendre des précautions en mer.

Golfe de la Gonâve :
Jeudi & vendredi
* Vent du secteur nord-est est: 10-15 nœuds ;
* Hauteur des vagues : 5 à 6 pieds ;
* Mer plus ou moins agitée.

Zone côtière sud :
Jeudi & vendredi
* Vent du secteur nord-est à est : 10-15 nœuds ;
* Hauteur des vagues : 5 à 6 pieds,
* Mer plus ou moins agitée.

Jacquet Jackson, Prévisionniste au CNM

mercredi 17 février 2010

Bulletin météo du mardi 16 fév 2010 - jusqu'au 18 février 2010.


Valable jusqu'au 18 février 2010

Situation synoptique dans la Caraïbe et sur l'Atlantique
L'axe d'un nouveau front froid est localisé sur la portion ouest cubaine ce matin. Il sera dans le passage du vent demain. Quelques activités de pluie sont associées à ce front.

Prévisions pour Haïti
- Temps ensoleillé ce matin ;
- Périodes nuageuses en fin de journée et en début de soirée;
- Températures clémentes durant la journée et agréables en soirée;
- Chance de pluie isolée ce soir et demain notamment dans le Nord-ouest, le Nord, l'Artibonite, l'Ouest et le Centre.

Prévisions pour Port-au-Prince et environs
· Temps clément ce matin ;
· Passages nuageux en fin d'après-midi et en début de soirée;
· Tº. max. : 32ºC ; Tº min: 20ºC ;
· Possibilité de pluie sectorielle légère à modérée ce soir et mercredi.

Lever & coucher du soleil pour Port-au-Prince
Aujourd'hui 16 fév.
Lever : 06h 16 mn
Coucher : 05h 50 mn

Mardi 17 fév.
Lever : 06h 16 mn
Coucher : 05h 51 mn

Mercredi 18 fév.
Lever : 06h 15 mn
Coucher : 05h 51 mn

Jacquet Jackson, Prévisionniste au CNM


Bulletin météo marine du mardi 16 février 2010
Valable jusqu'au 17 février 2010

Prévisions maritimes:
Zone côtière nord :
Mardi & mercredi
* Vent du secteur sud sud-ouest : 10-15 nœuds ;
* Hauteur des vagues: 5 à 6 pieds ;
* Pluie isolée prévue ce soir et demain
* Mer plus ou moins agitée ;
* Les voiliers doivent prendre des précautions en mer.

Golfe de la Gonâve :
Landi & Mardi
* Vent du secteur est sud-est: 10-15 nœuds ;
* Hauteur des vagues : 6 pieds ;
* Mer plus ou moins agitée.

Zone côtière sud :
Lundi & Mardi
* Vent du secteur est sud-est: 10-15 nœuds ;
* Hauteur des vagues : 6 pieds,
* Mer plus ou moins agitée.

Jacquet Jackson, Prévisionniste au CNM

Sarkozy: "Aux Haïtiens de définir un véritable projet national

(Sarkozy: "Aux Haïtiens de définir un véritable projet national")

Le président français Nicolas Sarkozy a estimé mercredi que c'était

Le président français Nicolas Sarkozy a estimé mercredi que c'était "d'abord aux Haïtiens de définir un véritable projet national et ensuite de le conduire", lors d'une allocution à l'ambassade de France à Port-au-Prince, où il se trouve pour une courte visite. (© AFP Thony Belizaire)


PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) - Le président français Nicolas Sarkozy a estimé mercredi que c'était "d'abord aux Haïtiens de définir un véritable projet national et ensuite de le conduire", lors d'une allocution à l'ambassade de France à Port-au-Prince, où il se trouve pour une courte visite.

"C'est d'abord aux Haïtiens et à eux seuls de définir un véritable projet national et ensuite de le conduire, parce que c'est de leur pays et de leur avenir qu'il s'agit", a dit M. Sarkozy qui s'adressait notamment à des équipes de secouristes françaises, venues en aide aux sinistrés du tremblement de terre du 12 janvier qui a fait au moins 217.000 morts.

"Je suis venu dire au peuple haïtien et à ses dirigeants que la France, qui était la première sur le terrain après la catastrophe, restera solidement à leurs côtés pour les aider à se relever et à ouvrir une nouvelle page heureuse de leur histoire. La France sera à la hauteur de ses responsabilités, de son histoire partagée et de son amitié avec Haïti", a ajouté M. Sarkozy, qui a été accueilli par son homologue haïtien René Préval à son arrivée à l'aéroport de Port-au-Prince.

Pour le président français, le premier à se rendre en Haïti, "il ne s'agit pas de tourner le dos au passé, celui d'une histoire commune riche mais aussi douloureuse ", en allusion à la colonisation française du pays, indépendant depuis 1804.

"Ne nous voilons pas la face. Notre présence ici n'a pas laissé que de bons souvenirs. Les blessures de la colonisation et, peut-être pire encore, les conditions de la séparation ont laissé des traces qui sont encore vives dans la mémoire des Haïtiens", a lancé M. Sarkozy.

Interrogé sur le sujet de la colonisation d'Haïti par la France, René Préval avait dit, avant de recevoir M. Sarkozy: "L'Histoire c'est l'Histoire, les colonisations ont été un phénomène mondial depuis l'indépendance. Nous avons surmonté politiquement et psychologiquement cette période difficile de notre histoire".

Selon l'Elysée, la colonisation française a "surexploité" Haïti. La relation entre la France et Haïti est "compliquée, entre amour et récriminations", ajoute la présidence française.

La France a accepté l'indépendance en Haïti en 1804 à la condition qu'Haitï verse 150 millions de francs or destinés à indemniser les colons. Haïti a fini de verser cette somme en 1885.

© 2010 AFP

lundi 15 février 2010

Flash! Au moins un mort dans l'effondrement d'une école primaire au Cap-Haitien.

Au moins un mort et plusieurs blessés dans l'effondrement d'une école primaire au Cap-Haitien. Pascale Toussaint, la fille et unique enfant de Docteur Toussaint, un pédiatre bien connu, aurait trouvé la mort ce lundi 15 février 2010.


RESEAU CITADELLE suit de prêt l'évolution de la situation.


Cyrus Sibert.



Cap-Haitien : effondrement d’une école primaire.

(Cap-Haitien : effondrement d'une école primaire.)

Par : Cyrus Sibert, souvenirfm@yahoo.fr

Le Ré.Cit.- Réseau Citadelle, Cap-Haïtien, Haïti..

www.reseaucitadelle.blogspot.com

Avec la pluie de trois jours dans la cité capoise, la roche s'est détachée provoquant l'effondrement de l'établissement scolaire considéré comme une école qui applique le programme français au Cap-Haitien. D'autres pensent aux effets cumulatifs des secousses et de la pluie. Aucun mort n'a été signalé ! La police Nationale et la MINUSTAH s'active à évacuer les enfants.

Nous suivons avec attention l'évolution de la situation. Cet événement risque de plonger les parents dans l'incertitude. Les établissements scolaires timidement réouverts depuis une semaine risquent de constater un arrêt brusque des activités.

Il y a actuellement une situation de panique dans la ville. Certains parents angoissés cherchent à retrouver leur enfant dans l'attente du pire. Les bureaux de l'administration publique ont dû renvoyer les fonctionnaires.

Au soir du 14 février 2010, pour la Saint-Valentin, les capois avaient droit à une secousse. Un tremblement de terre de faible intensité qui n'a pas moins troublé les esprits. Sur le site Earthquake du gouvernement américain, on peut observer des mouvements de Porto-Rico, Ils Caimans et République Dominicaine. De faibles secousses qui ne viennent pas du Sud d'Haïti. Ce qui augmente la pression sur les esprits : la plaque Septentrionale, est-elle en mouvement ? Ces petites secousses annoncent elles un séisme de haute intensité ?

Nous rappelons que le Géologue Haïtien Claude Prepetit s'était référé à deux faibles secousses en septembre 2009, pour démontrer la destruction éventuelle de la Capitale. Moins d'un mois après, soit le 12 janvier 2010, Port-au-Prince est sous les décombres.

Jusqu'à présent les appels incessants de la part des citoyens pour une fermeture immédiate des chantiers de construction en béton et une inspection stricte et complète des établissements scolaires et administratifs qui abritent des centaines d'étudiants sont restés sans suivi. De plus, du coté des autorités, aucune mesure sérieuse n'a été envisagée et adoptée en ce sens. L'irresponsabilité et la corruption ont toujours droit de cité. La mauvaise gouvernance et les bétons constituent deux épées de Damoclès suspendues sur la tête des citoyens haïtiens. Reconstruire c'est d'abord et surtout le règne d'un système juridique qui assure que les règles de droit et les normes de construction sont respectées à la lettre.

RESEAU CITADELLE (Ré.Cit.), le 15 février 2010, 13hres 23.


Canadian retiree sees paradise in Haiti

By Michael P Mayko, STAFF WRITER

Published: 01:27 p.m., Tuesday, February 9, 2010
CAP-HAITIEN, HAITI -- Liam Pigott is a 72-retired real estate broker and appraiser from Canada who believes he has found paradise here.

"I can live here on $400 a month," says the retiree, "and that covers everything."

Except running water. The two-room apartment he shares with his girlfriend, Yolene Mondesire, has none. So they buy bottled water from street vendors.

And no bathroom. He has what would be akin to a porta potty on his balcony.

And no television. He travels to the Hotel du Roi Christophe, about a 15-minute walk through crowded, poverty-ridden streets, to watch 20-minute bursts of CNN Headline News before the channel disappears for an hour or so.

And sporadic electricity. "Our meter broke down three weeks ago," he said. "They promise they will repair it."

Outside the electrical line running to his apartment is a tangle of wires pulling in every direction.

"People climb up the pole and hook into it," he says kindly avoiding the word stealing. "Some of them get electrocuted."

Pigott, who dresses in Hawaiian-type shirts, first sailed to Haiti from Canada in 1994. He began staying here for five months at a time in 1996 to avoid the cold Canadian winters.

"I like the weather. I like the people. I like the predictability of life," he says.

Some days are not so predicable. Things turned dicey for him in February 2004 when the Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front seized the Cap-Haitien airport, killing security guards and police as Pigott and others tried to flee on a Miami-bound plane.

"It was terrible," he recalls. "You had to run crunch-down to avoid being shot. Airport police had locked the doors and were changing into their civilian clothes to avoid being recognized."

Several didn't complete the life saving change of clothes.

"The rebels burned down the airport and the jail," he said recalling his escape.
When things settled down he came back. He has a house in nearby Labadee as well as the two-room apartment that he rents for $200 a year in Cap-Haitien.

On a hot, humid December afternoon, Pigott and Mondesire offer a walking tour of downtown Cap-Haitien. In front of nearly every street is a flea market buzzing with hundreds of people. Nearly every home is in need of repairs (Liam's tin roof occasionally drips water during a heavy rain).

Robes, sport jackets and dresses hang from nails banged into the side of buildings.

"They come in bales from Miami," Pigott said of the clothes. "People bid on portions of the bales and then resell them."

He proudly displays a polyester Hawaiian type shirt.

"I got three of these for 20 Haitian dollars (about $2.50)," he said. "I wouldn't know where to buy a new pair of pants or shirt,"

He spots a woman who frequently makes the rounds. Her outstretched arms are filled with belts.

"That's the belt woman," he said.

But clothes aren't the only thing for sale. A heavy set woman sits in a lawn chair behind a blanket filled with prescription glasses.

"I can buy a designer frame for $1.50," Pigott says. "When I go to Canada I get the lenses."

Another man has a wheel barrow filled with health and beauty aids as well as prescription drugs. Pick through the dust covered pile and there's everything from body wash to toothpaste and Amoxicillin to Viagra.

"I can buy 10 tablets of penicillin for $1.20," Pigott said. "It works just as well as what you might spend $20 on."

But the house outside which the wheel barrow rests is missing most of its second-floor front yet still houses a family.

"As you can see," Pigott says, "there are no housing inspectors in Haiti."

Nor is there a functioning highway department.

All but one road in this Haiti's second largest city is in need of pothole filling or, better yet, asphalt paving. Sludge shoveled out of the storm sewers and piles of garbage soon to be burned block intersections and travel lanes.

Along the street, Pigott points to something called a Tap-Tap. These are converted vans, pick-up trucks and sports utility vehicles mostly in auto auctions and shipped from the U.S. Many are colorfully painted with religious slogans and lined with benches or wooden planks. Hanging on the rear are two teenage boys. Their job is to tap on the roof twice for the vehicle to stop and pick up or let off passengers. The passengers sit crunched inside, children atop their siblings' or parents' lap.

These, along with motor scooters and taxis, most of which look like the losing entrant in a Demolition Derby, are privately owned and provide most of the public transportation in the city.

On one street is a truck from Connecticut still bearing the New Britain Heating and Cooling lettering on the front. On another street sits a refurbished WCBS-TV Channel 2 news truck from New York.

Pigott points out a wooden door blocking the entrance to an alley between two buildings.

"That's the public rest room," he says.

A woman walks out. Second later she is followed by another woman who throws a pot of urine onto the street.

"Guys go anywhere," he says. "Usually against poles."

Finally, Pigott reaches the market, a former factory building whose inside has been gutted. It spans nearly two football fields and is lined wall-to-wall with merchants selling virtually everything -- live chickens, butchered chickens, electronic equipment, furniture, charcoal and charcoal cooking pots, clothes, shoes.

"Everything you need is here," he said.

And the flies ambling across uncovered, uncooked meat?

"Just make sure you wash it good," he said.

For children in the streets of Cap-Haitien, everyday life is perilous.

(For children in the streets of Cap-Haitien, everyday life is perilous)

Published: 11:42 a.m., Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Gallery
 
This story originally appeared in the Sunday, January 31 print edition of the Connecticut Post. Click here to subscribe.
 
CAP-HAÏTIEN, Haiti -- Their voices crack and the tears flow as vivid, humiliating memories return.
 
For Jackson, now 22, begging for food, clothing and medical care was a demeaning experience.
 
For Wilno, now 24, relief from that shame was found in daily whiffs of paint thinner.
For teenagers Gisman, Rodlin and Jimmy, cleaning windshields, being beaten by police and sleeping on rooftops with an eye open for assailants are not just memories. They are part of daily life.
 
Here in Haiti's second largest city, there are more than 5,000 homeless children whose everyday lives depend on the good will of merchants, missionaries and United Nations employees. Unemployment here was at least 85 percent in December, even before the earthquake that toppled the capital city of Port-au-Prince and shattered this already-impoverished country.
 
"You find these kids in front of every single business, restaurant, bar ... begging, selling phone cards, washing car windows. It's not a funny a picture seeing a bunch of dirty kids living on the street when they should be in school," said Bell Angelot, a politician, professor and administrator of his own school. "It's not a picture Haiti can sell."
 
These are the boys who looked for hope in Douglas Perlitz's Project Pierre Toussaint.
Daytime is a little easier for these kids. The streets are jammed with people, many trying to make a day's wage by selling used clothing, homemade charcoal, even fresh popcorn, in front of their apartments. Missionaries and charity workers are easy targets for those seeking help.
 
"I came from a very poor family," Jackson said. "My father would beg on the street. My mother used me to beg on the street so we could pay our rent. The situation back then made it very difficult to survive. Now the situation is worse."
 
Once dusk arrives, the streets become scary. Gangs replace the merchants. Turf wars erupt, often with bloody endings.
 
"If there were problems, we'd get the blame, and the police would beat the hell out of us," said Jackson.
 
Gisman tries to make money cleaning car windows. He works on "tap-taps" -- pickup trucks fitted with benches that serve as taxis. Gisman's job from early in the morning to late at night is to hang onto the back of the vehicle and tap twice on the roof so the driver knows when to stop and either let off or pick up passengers. The pay is about 60 cents a day.
 
At night, like others, he tries to avoid the gangs of bigger, stronger kids who want what little he has.
 
At one time, Cap-Haïtien had at least four agencies helping street kids, according to Louis Petit-Frère, an inspector with the Institut du Bien Etre Social et de Recherches.
Now he's only aware of his.
 
Petit-Frère's job is similar to that of a social worker at the Connecticut's Department of Children and Families. Except he has at least 2,500 clients and no equipment to do his work.
 
He'd like to photograph his clients for case files, but he doesn't have a camera. He'd like to print out photos, but he has neither a computer nor a printer. He'd like a motor scooter so he could make more visits, but not only is there no money for it, he has no budget.
 
What he has is a stack of papers and a desk in a second-floor office that looks down upon a major thoroughfare. Open the window, and the room is filled with ear-splitting music, the honking of horns and screeching of tires. Close the window, and the room quickly becomes stifling hot. There's no air conditioning.
 
"My job takes me to jails, orphanages and on the streets," said Petit-Frère, a tall, lanky man in a white T-shirt, with close-cropped hair and a neatly trimmed mustache. "I work day and night."
 
All of that bothers Georgemain Prophète. "It's a concern to me that he has no money," said Prophète, who many believe to be the city's most powerful politician. "The minister of social affairs has to intervene. Kids need to be protected. But the political situation in Haiti hasn't improved as fast as I want it to."
 
Prophète, who once worked as an assistant manager at a Sears Auto Center in Massapequa, N.Y., and then as a customs officer in Haiti, was appointed by President Rene Garcia Preval to a four-year term as delegate of the northern region of Haiti. He reports directly to the minister of the interior.
 
"It's most fascinating to be in charge of an area and not be able to do anything," Prophète said. "My job is to fix problems. It's very frustrating when you can't fix any problems."
 
Angelot, the professor, feels the frustration. He once had Prophète's job.
 
"It's not just a question of a lack of money," Angelot said." We live in a society with a lack of economy and political instability. This country is disorganized."
 
So why isn't the United Nations, which has a big presence in Haiti, taking more of a role, particularly with regard to children?
 
"I'm not in a position to respond," said Nuzhat Ahmad, a Pakistani who heads the U.N.'s regional office in Cap-Haïtien. "Every country has a problem with street children. It's up to Haitian authorities to address that issue."
 
That tosses it back to Petit-Frère's agency which has no budget. Or to the nearly non-existent public school system, which Angelot said doesn't have the money to educate 500,000 kids.
 
In the meantime, children fend for themselves on the street.
 
Like the little boy, dressed in a blue shirt and cut-off shorts, who every day sits cross-legged on a plastic tablecloth, leaning against a wall, hoping to hear money clanking on his metal plate. He seems to stare aimlessly as hundreds of people pass him on their way to the Justinien Hospital. He looks to be about 6 years old, but a nearby woman claims he is 11.
 
The boy is blind.
 
The plate in front of him is empty.

Will 'sex tourism' laws apply in this case?

Published: 11:43 a.m., Tuesday, February 9, 2010

This story originally appeared in the Sunday, January 31 print edition of the Connecticut Post. Click here to subscribe.
 
The man who had seemingly worked tirelessly to help desperate orphans through a charity in Haiti had been charged with sexually preying on those same boys.
 
This is not the case against Douglas Perlitz. Rather, it is a description of charges filed by Canadian law enforcement officials last October against John Duarte, a former Roman Catholic priest who worked as a missionary for Hearts Together for Haiti. He is accused of plying teenage boys in Port-au-Prince with gifts in exchange for sex.
 
And there's more. In December, Armand Huard, once praised in Canada as a "Father Teresa," and Denis Rochefort were sentenced by a Canadian judge to three and two years in prison, respectively. The pair admitted sexually abusing young Haitian boys while volunteering at an orphanage in Les Cayes, just outside Port-au-Prince.
 
In 2007, 108 Sri Lanka soldiers assigned to the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti were sent home for buying sex from young girls.
 
Haiti has been the backdrop for five recent sex-crime cases involving foreigners who engaged in charitable or religious work. Haiti and other Third World countries with only embryonic social services and an overwhelming need for charitable missions have proven to be a fertile ground for abuse.
"Pedophiles come here because they know a lot is tolerated that would not be tolerated in our countries," said Liam Pigott, a Canadian retiree who lives part of the year in Haiti.
 
The United States now is attempting to apply to cases such as Perlitz's a fairly recent law aimed at "sex tourism." Perlitz has been charged under the law, signed by President George W. Bush in 2003, designed to crack down on those who travel abroad, typically to Third World countries, to engage in sex with minors.
"Sex tourism victims are particularly vulnerable to predators who lure them with the most basic human needs, then rob them of their innocence," said John Morton, U.S. Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary for immigration and custom enforcement, following Perlitz's arrest.
 
Perlitz's lawyers have challenged the indictment. David Grudberg and William F. Dow III said the indictment falls short of meeting a key requirement of the sex-tourism statute -- specifying the date their client traveled to Haiti and allegedly engaged in illegal sexual conduct.
"The omission of more detailed allegations about the defendant's alleged foreign travel is more than a mere technicality, and instead strikes at the heart of the constitutional indictment requirement," they claim in their 27-page motion to dismiss the charges. "Likewise there is no way to tell from the indictment whether those counts are multiplicitous -- improperly charging a single offense in multiple counts."
They point out that Perlitz, while a U.S. citizen, was hardly a "tourist," having lived for 11 years in Haiti.
"It is quite possible that months or even years could have passed between any foreign travel and the sexual misconduct alleged in the indictment," the defense maintains.
 
As of September 2009, the Justice Department had arrested 67 people under the travel law, which carries a maximum federal prison term of 30 years. The foreign travel law is just a subsection of a larger federal statute that encompasses all travel to engage in illicit sexual conduct.
 
Perlitz is not the first Connecticut case being prosecuted under the travel law by Assistant U.S. Attorney Krishna Patel.
 
Edgardo Sensi, a 53-year-old former vice president for a travel company based in Stuart, Fla., is accused of traveling to Fairfield County to have sex with an 8-year-old and to Nicaragua to have sex with a 4-year-old. He is awaiting trial.
 
Prosecuting American citizens who commit these crimes in foreign countries presents challenges, said Drew Oosterbaan, chief of the U.S. Justice Department's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section in Washington, D.C.
"Evidence can be problematic," said Oosterbaan. "It is not always collected in a way that makes it admissible in an American court."
 
There's the possibility that witnesses or victims in impoverished countries might change their stories for money. In those cases, Oosterbaan said, U.S. investigators may work with their foreign counterparts to help prosecute that crime in the country where it occurred. In instances where individuals have assisted offenders by arranging travel, prosecutors can bring conspiracy cases in the U.S. against foreigners.
 
Then there's maintaining and protecting the security and location of child witnesses.
"They have to remain available, not just to the prosecution, but also the defense," Oosterbaan said. That means the Justice Department has to be aware of where a witness is going and when.
 
The first man prosecuted in the United States under the law was retired Army Sgt. Michael Clark, then 70, who traveled to Cambodia and was accused of paying two young boys for sex.
 
Clark's lawyers attacked the constitutionality of the law, claiming the law enforcement arm of the U.S. could not extend into a foreign country. But in a split vote, judges on the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals rejected that claim. Clark was sentenced to eight years and one month in prison.
 
-- Michael P. Mayko

LA REFONDATION D’UNE NATION. (By J.C. Bajeux - promoteur du deuil national)

Par Jean-Claude Bajeux
Directeur Exécutif du CEDH

Il faut prendre au sérieux le silence qui a fait suite à l’énorme vibration d’un séisme sans nom qui a secoué le pays jusqu’a la moelle et bien au delà encore. On le dit de toutes parts. Il y a eu « avant le 12 janvier 2010 ». Il y aura « après le 12 ». Et Laennec Hurbon n’hésite pas à titrer le cahier du journal le Monde «Haïti, l’année zéro».
Haïti, ce pays que nous cherchons en vain par monts et par vaux, ou perdus dans le silence des bibliothèques et les échos des salles de concert, ce pays qui n’a jamais voulu dire oui et non d’une manière claire, a toujours été hanté et habité par les démons de l’autocratisme. Une hésitation au cœur de son âme profonde n’a pas permis de faire des options fondamentales qui distinguent les nations de pointe, ceux qui donnent le ton sur ceux qui marquent le pas, ceux qui ne cessent de définir leur identité et de parfaire le contrat qui les tient ensemble, ceux qui choisissent le droit, la liberté et le développement.
Quand on est parti en guerre contre l’esclavage dans sa négation de la condition humaine et hantise du profit sur base de travail gratuit, le mouvement historique qui en découle et aboutit à l’indépendance devrait inévitablement être une affirmation de la liberté des êtres humains, de leur droit à vivre libres et égaux, dans une communauté de droit. Comment se fait-il donc que cette vision qui constitue une révolution radicale dans un système féroce et brutal, se traduit par la suite dans une société post-coloniale reproduisant le même type de pouvoir mêlant des caractères venant à la fois des traditions africaines et des cours européennes ?
Il était donc clair, du moins pour nous qui regardons deux cents ans plus tard, naître et se développer cet état, que dès les premières minutes de l’indépendance, il fallait proclamer le néant de tout discours qui admettrait une inégalité des groupes humains, une inégalité des personnes sur des bases raciales et qu’ il fallait proclamer la volonté de créer une société d’où serait bannis tout discours et toute vision contaminés par le credo de l’esclavage.
Et cela, c’était Haïti. Un état qui pour naître et fonctionner devait s’interdire toute affirmation d’inégalité des citoyens qui serait basée sur un racisme conscient ou non. Une position radicale qui a été le moteur de la guerre de l’indépendance et sans laquelle cet état n’aurait pas pu naître. Cette exigence traverse les épisodes divers de la guerre de l’indépendance, elle s’impose à tous les acteurs. Elle fait de tout Haitien, quel qu’il soit, un soldat de la liberté. Elle est l’âme du « serment des ancêtres ».
Tel est le message à présenter, défendre et diffuser dans le monde entier pendant deux cents ans. Il ne fallait pas surtout pas le mettre au rancart. Il ne fallait pas le laisser au grenier. Il ne fallait pas laisser déborder dans la rue et dans la vie courante les billevesées d’un racisme primaire et des exclusions réciproques des enfants d’une même famille, sans quoi on se retrouverait, et on s’est retrouvé, dans des compétitions minables et sordides et, finalement, dans la folie meurtrière d’un pouvoir sanglant et stérile qui a duré 29 ans et épuisé l’Etat.

Or, dans cette société métissée qui, par définition, ne pouvait, sans se nier elle-même , être hantée par le racisme, le poison était bien là, actif et nocif, secrétant une biologie mystique et mythique. Ceci n’a pas d’excuses et ne souffre même pas la discussion. Et l’on attend encore, depuis l’indépendance, l’expression d’une politique publique de lutte contre ce poison, une volonté et une politique publiques pour l’éradication de ces préjugés racistes, une politique qu’exprimaient Anténor Firmin et Jean-Price Mars et qui aurait permis à tout citoyen d’être affranchi du moindre sentiment d’indignité.
La race est-elle une prison ? Certainement pas. Ce sont des croyances batardes, diffusées par des intérêts puissants qui bâtissent cette sorte de prison. Ils les véhiculent, jusqu’au sein des familles supposées décolonisées, provoquant des névroses, obsédantes, des complexes d’infériorité que l’on porte comme des carcans et des démangeaisons qui poussent à des crimes qui resteront impunis. Il faut reconnaître et avouer la place de ce facteur comme une première explication de nos retards dans l’organisation du pays. Dans un processus de refondation, il faudra inventorier les méfaits d’une telle métastase et inventer une nouvelle base d’un programme de vie commune délivré des effets pathogènes des élucubrations de Gobineau, face à la rutilante diversité des êtres humains.
La deuxième barrière qui a empêché la constitution d’une nation capable d’assurer le « bonheur » des citoyens et d’assurer pour tout le monde l’accès aux libertés démocratiques, c’est le mutisme de la majorité d’une population, dans son non-accès à l’écriture, c’est en fait l’incapacité de s’expliquer et de communiquer, c’est l’incapacité de confier à l’écriture les archives de la nation et les trésors du savoir. Après deux cents ans, le monde du savoir technique, l’univers des technologies dans leurs langages divers, l’amplification de la mémoire liée à l’écriture restent fermés à la moitié de nos enfants.


Ceci n’est pas seulement la négation du progrès, c’est, de fait, la destruction d’un trésor. Le serment des ancêtres supposait un devoir de révolution : l’union de tous et le savoir pour tous, sans délai et sans bavardage. L’accès de tous les enfants au maniement des deux langues est en même temps l’ouverture au savoir, donc l’accès à la liberté. Le fait qu’il n’existe pas encore à l’usage d’une éducation nationale offerte à tous les enfants sans exception, une méthode pédagogique d’accès au maniement des deux langues, est littéralement invraisemblable. De même que les promesses concernant les libertés démocratiques étaient restées lettre morte. On pouvait s’offrir le luxe de fusiller ceux s’agitaient pour les réclamer comme un Félix Darfour, le 2 septembre 1822 ou les trois frères Coicou, le 15 mars 1908, sans oublier Capois-la-Mort, fusillé à Terrier-Rouge en 1806 deux ans après Vertières.. Ce n’est qu’en 1987 qu’une Constitution pouvait finalement reconnaître les droits des citoyennes et des citoyens et imposer le respect de leurs libertés.

De même la décision du ministre Bernard concernant le rôle et l’usage des deux langues dans l’enseignement, a attendu le même espace de temps pour être formulée. De même que dans la vie publique, où nous avons, en fait, toujours empêché que les libertés démocratiques soient la règle, nous sommes restés sourds au discours démocratique, nous avons failli dans l’obligation de mettre tous nos enfants à l’école, sans exception, et à tout prix.

Si Haïti veut encore exister, c’est à condition d’interdire et de combattre sans répit l’apparition de catégories raciales, donc racistes, dans la vie et deuxièmement de mobiliser tous les efforts pour que tous les enfants aillent à l’école. Ce sont là deux conditions non négociables de toute refondation de la nation. C’est un serment qui doit s’imposer à la neuvième génération d’après l’indépendance. Et c’est pourquoi, il ne suffit par de parler de reconstruction car ce serait vouloir répéter les mêmes erreurs, nous imposer de nouveau les chaînes de l’inégalité, les sottises dangereuses du racisme et le mutisme de l’ignorance. Cela doit être clair et cela a des conséquences immédiates dans le système et le contenu de l’éducation, dans la réalité des relations entre citoyens et dans les lois de l‘Etat nouveau. C’est un serment qui s’impose maintenant.

Jean-Claude Bajeux
10 février 2010

dimanche 14 février 2010

Bulletin météo du dimanche 14 février 2010

Valable jusqu’au 16 février 2010

Situation synoptique dans la Caraïbe et sur l’Atlantique
L’axe d’un faible front froid mettra ce soir et demain pour traverser l’ile d’Haïti. Aucune convection active n’accompagne le système. Cependant, de la pluie isolée faible et une baisse sensible des températures restent possibles sur une bonne partie des régions nord, la grand’ anse et les nippe, le centre et l’ouest d’Haïti aujourd’hui.

Prévisions pour Haïti
- Temps ensoleillé ce matin ;
- Passages nuageux en fin de journée ;
- Températures clémentes durant la journée et agréables en soirée;
- Possibilité de pluie isolée légère ce soir dans le nord , le nord-ouest, l’ouest et le centre .

Prévisions pour Port-au-Prince et environs
· Temps clément ce matin ;
· Passages nuageux en après-midi ;
· Tº. max. : 31ºC ; Tº min: 20ºC ;
· Chance de pluie isolée légère ce soir.

Lever & coucher du soleil pour Port-au-Prince
Aujourd’hui 14 fév.
Lever : 06h 17 mn
Coucher : 05h 50 mn

Lundi 15 fév.
Lever : 06h 17 mn
Coucher : 05h 50 mn

Mardi 16 fév.
Lever : 06h 16 mn
Coucher : 05h 50 mn

Esterlin Marcelin, Prévisionniste au CNM


Bulletin météo marine du dimanche 14 février 2010
Valable jusqu’au 15 février 2010

Prévisions maritimes:
Zone côtière nord :
Dimanche & lundi
* Vent du secteur est: 10-15 nœuds ;
* Hauteur des vagues: 4 pieds;
* Mer peu agitée mais plus agitée au large.

Golfe de la Gonâve :
Dimanche & lundi
* Vent du secteur est : 10-15 nœuds ;
* Hauteur des vagues : 4 à 5 pieds ;
* Mer peu agitée.

Zone côtière sud :
Dimanche & lundi
* Vent du secteur est : 10-15 nœuds ;
* Hauteur des vagues : 3 à 5 pieds,
* Mer peu agitée.

Esterlin Marcelin, Prévisionniste au CNM

samedi 13 février 2010

Déclaration de la Maison Blanche au sujet d'Haïti, À l'occasion de la journée nationale de deuil.

COMMUNIQUE DE PRESSE

Ambassade des Etats-Unis d’Amérique
Bureau des Affaires Publiques

Tabarre 41, Boulevard 15 octobre
Port-au-Prince, Haïti
Tél: 2229-8351 / 2229-8903

Le 12 février 2010
No. 2010/10

Déclaration de la Maison Blanche au sujet d'Haïti

À l'occasion de la journée nationale de deuil que le peuple d'Haïti observe à la mémoire des victimes du tremblement de terre catastrophique survenu il y a un mois, les États-Unis réaffirment leur solidarité envers leurs amis haïtiens alors qu'ils entreprennent de se relever et de reconstruire. Nos pensées et nos prières continuent également d'aller vers les Haïtiens-Américains à travers notre pays qui ont perdu tant de proches et d'amis.

Nous exprimons notre gratitude aux nombreux Américains qui ont réagi avec tant de rapidité et de compassion en vue d'appuyer les secours dirigés par le gouvernement haïtien et soutenus par les Nations unies ainsi que par un grand nombre de pays et d'organisations non gouvernementales du monde entier.

Dans le cadre de la réaction menée par des civils des États-Unis, des équipes de recherche et de sauvetage ont tiré des survivants des décombres. Des médecins, des infirmiers et des ambulanciers paramédicaux bénévoles continuent de prodiguer des traitements médicaux vitaux. De leur côté, après avoir rouvert l'aéroport principal et le port afin de permettre l'arrivée d'une aide humanitaire internationale massive, nos hommes et femmes militaires prêtent main-forte à la distribution urgente de vivres, d'eau, de médicaments et d'abris en attendant que ces fonctions puissent être reprises par l'opération civile en expansion rapide et par les Nations unies en Haïti. Les Américains ont, de plus, versé des dizaines de millions de dollars d'aide, le Congrès a pris des mesures rapides et le gouvernement des États-Unis apporte à Haïti une assistance immédiate importante. Aucune opération de secours d'urgence de cette ampleur et de cette complexité n'est exempte de difficultés et d'écueils, mais en coopération avec les pouvoirs publics haïtiens et nos nombreux partenaires, nous avons contribué à sauver un nombre incalculable de vies et à éviter une catastrophe encore plus grave.

Néanmoins, la situation demeure terrible. Même avant le séisme, Haïti était l'État le plus pauvre des Amériques. À l'heure actuelle, les besoins en nourriture, en abris, en fournitures médicales et en sécurité de base sont énormes, et la saison des pluies qui approche posera de nouveaux défis. Pour ce qui est de l'infrastructure, qui a été détruite en quelques minutes, il faudra des années pour la reconstruire. Guidés par le plan d'action pour la coopération et la coordination élaboré par le gouvernement d'Haïti, les États-Unis aideront leurs partenaires haïtiens à effectuer la transition de l'aide d'urgence au relèvement et à la reconstruction à long terme. L'appel continu des Nations unies à des renforts en casques bleus et en policiers, ainsi que la conférence des donateurs qui se tiendra le mois prochain aux Nations unies, présentent d'importantes occasions aux pays du monde entier d'aider Haïti à se redresser et à reconstruire.

Au milieu de souffrances inimaginables, le peuple d'Haïti a été, par sa foi, par la force de son esprit et par sa détermination à reconstruire, une source d'inspiration pour le monde. Au cours des mois et des années difficiles à venir, il pourra compter sur l'amitié et sur le partenariat durables des États-Unis d'Amérique.

Haiti : Urgent ! Vide politique à combler


par Jean-Frédéric Légaré-Tremblay
Article publié sur L'actualité.com, édition du 28 Janvier 2010

Pourquoi avoir peur que des pays veuillent coloniser Haïti ? demande l'ex-homme politique et diplomate Gérard Latulippe. « Le pays n'existe plus, il est en friche ! » Comblons le vide avant que les gangs armés en prennent le contrôle.

« Je ne vois aucune autre voie que la mise sous tutelle d'Haïti », soutient Gérard Latulippe, directeur pour ce pays au National Democratic Institute, organisme américain non gouvernemental qui se consacre au renforcement des institutions démocratiques dans le monde. Cet ancien ministre libéral dans le gouvernement du Québec, qui fut aussi délégué général du Québec à Mexico et à Bruxelles, se trouvait en Haïti lors du séisme. Selon lui, le vide politique qui s'y est installé est un problème colossal et la communauté internationale devra s'y attaquer rapidement.

L'actualité l'a joint après son rapatriement à Montréal.

Quels dangers soulève le vide politique actuel ?

Le premier est que les gangs armés fassent de nouveau la loi dans certains quartiers de Port-au-Prince, comme c'était le cas pendant de nombreuses années. L'ancien président Jean-Bertrand Aristide, en exil en Afrique du Sud, a d'ailleurs manifesté son intention de retourner en Haïti. Ça donne froid dans le dos, parce qu'il a un ascendant important sur les « chimères », ses militants armés. Il y a aussi les « organisations populaires », qui forment son réservoir de partisans et qui contrôlent un peu le pays. Il ne faut pas négliger Aristide : même à distance, il a de l'influence sur une partie de la population. Malgré la dévastation, il risque d'y avoir des luttes pour la prise d'une forme de pouvoir réel – pas nécessairement institutionnel - dans le pays. La corruption est un autre problème. Haïti était déjà un des pays les plus corrompus au monde. J'ai vécu les ouragans et les inondations de 2008, et on voyait très clairement que l'aide était détournée. Enfin, le pays est tellement au centre de l'attention internationale qu'il peut devenir la proie de manipulations et de luttes entre les pays. Le Venezuela a été parmi les premiers à critiquer les États-Unis, lesquels, selon lui, utilisent l'aide humanitaire pour occuper le pays. Ce n'est pas le temps d'utiliser un pays mourant pour faire des guerres de pouvoir entre les nations !

Que peut faire la communauté internationale ?

Il est urgent de combler ce vide politique et je ne vois aucune autre voie que la mise sous tutelle d'Haïti par la communauté internationale, avec la participation impérative des Haïtiens. Ça implique que pendant la reconstruction des institutions politiques, les décisions soient prises par un groupe de personnes nommées par le Conseil de sécurité de l'ONU, qui a la charge de diriger le pays. Une sorte de gouvernement transitoire formé grâce à une éventuelle résolution de l'ONU. L'actuelle Mission des Nations unies pour la stabilisation en Haïti, la Minustah, ne peut pas gouverner le pays ; son mandat est limité.

Les craintes d'une forme de colonialisme pratiquée par les pays étrangers ne sont pas fondées, selon vous ?

Ce sont des mots dangereux dans la situation actuelle. C'est de la manipulation politique. Car pourquoi coloniser Haïti ? Pour lui soutirer ses ressources naturelles ? De la main-d'œuvre à bon marché ? Le pays n'existe plus, il est en friche ! Il n'y a aucun avantage à coloniser Haïti. La communauté internationale est frileuse quand il s'agit d'imposer une gouvernance, parce que ça va à l'encontre de la souveraineté des États. Il y a un devoir d'ingérence sur le plan humanitaire et il y a un droit d'ingérence dans d'autres cas très limités - les génocides, par exemple. Mais dans le cas d'Haïti, il y a un vide juridique sur le droit d'ingérence. C'est tout un débat. Mais il ne faut pas être frileux.

Source : http://www.lactualite.com/monde/urgent-vide-politique-combler


NOTE DE PRESSE DU P.S.C.H.


Le 14 Janvier 2010

Jour de deuil National

Haïti a été dévastée. C'est une catastrophe aux proportions bibliques qui nous a frappe. Je n'ai pu m'empêcher de verser mes larmes à flots. Et la tragédie ne fait que commencer. Lorsque les cadavres entreront en putréfaction et que les germes gagneront l'air nous ferons certainement face a une catastrophe naturelle qui viendra nous unir dans la détresse. Face aux grands Hommes et femmes qui sont ensevelis par les sépultures de la terre sans hommage de la postérité qu'ils reposent en paix, sachant qu'entre la terre qui tremblait et le choc qui les a emportés il y place pour la miséricorde divine. Prenons notre ferme courage et avec l'aide de la communauté internationale commençons à reconstruire ce qui peut l'être. Et tous ce qui calfeutres sous le lâche couvert de leur racisme disent pour ne pas aider que nous avions signe un pacte avec le diable je prie Dieu qu'ils ne vivent pareilles calamites. Que dieu protège Haïti et toutes ses " saintanises "et " ses ti jos"

Gregoire Eugene M.D.
egreguy@aol.com

Texte Exclusif sur Eveque Miot.


Le départ de Monseigneur Joseph Serge Miot, Archevêque de Port-au-Prince, pour la maison du Père est un coup dur pour l'Église Catholique d'Haiti et pour ses frères et sœurs pauvres d'Haiti. Né le 23 novembre 1946 à Jérémie, chef-lieu du département de la Grande-Anse, Mgr Miot avait fait ses études au Grand Séminaire Notre-Dame de Port-au-Prince puis à Rome. Il avait été ordonné prêtre le 4 juillet 1975. Le Pape Jean-Paul II l'avait nommé évêque coadjuteur de Port-au-Prince le 29 juillet 1997, aux côtés de l'Archevêque Mgr François Marie-Wolff Ligondé.

Monseigneur Miot, ce fils de Jérémie était un grand cadeau pour l'Église Catholique et pour ses frères et sœurs pauvres d'Haiti. Mgr Miot avait souvent dénoncé l'immense pauvreté dans son pays. Depuis le 1er mars 2008, il était archevêque de ce vaste archidiocèse comprenant plus de 80 paroisses pour une population estimée à plus de 4 millions d'habitants, dont 60% de catholiques.


Monseigneur Miot était également un grand ami du Centre National de l'Apostolat Haitien à l'Étranger, un des lecteurs de notre bulletin hebdomadaire et un des orateurs de nos conventions. Qui peut oublier son entrevue accordée à Brother Tob tout de suite après sa nomination par le Saint Père Benoit XVI comme Archevêque de Port-au-Prince en Mars 2008?

L'Archevêque Miot était un frère et ami pour les prêtres de l'Archidiocèse de Port-au-Prince. Entre autre, il avait compris l'importance de vivre une relation fraternelle avec ces derniers car pour lui l'Église était "École et maison de communion" et par conséquent, cette communion et cette proximité devaient exister et être d'abord vécues entre et par l'évêque et son presbyterium. Certains prêtres de son archidiocèse l'appelèrent l'archevêque-frè re. Il se sentait donc comme un frère pour les prêtres de son archidiocèse et leur témoignaient toujours du respect.

De plus, Mgr Miot n'était pas une personne trop protocolaire. Ses portes étaient ouvertes à tout le monde, sans exception. Il a travaillé sans relâche pour l'avancement de son archidiocèse. La création de Télé Soleil représente une de ses grandes réalisations. Oui! Télé Soleil est en deuil et orphelin avec le triste départ de Monseigneur Miot. Selon le Père Jean Désinor, Directeur de Télé Soleil, "Monseigneur Miot ne ménageait ni temps ni santé pour aider chaque prêtre de son presbyterium à assumer pleinement son être sacerdotal en vue d'une pastorale plus authentique et plus efficace".

"Monseigneur Miot, nous vous disons un grand merci pour tout ce que vous avez fait pour notre Église, nous sommes surs que ce n'est pas pour rien que le Seigneur vous a appelé au cours de l'année du Prêtre pour venir célébrer avec lui dans son parvis céleste. Nous comptons beaucoup sur vos prières afin de nous aider à bâtir une communauté où règne la justice et une société plus équitable pour nos frères et sœurs pauvres d'Haiti. Monseigneur Miot, allez en Paix! Votre mission est terminée ici-bas. Nous savons combien vous avez aimé vos frères et sœurs pauvres. Votre départ combien douloureux nous pousse à méditer davantage sur notre existence et notre mission sur terre sachant que le Seigneur peut nous appeler à n'importe quel moment pour mettre fin à ce pèlerinage.

Son Excellence Monseigneur Sansaricq, en communion avec le personnel du Centre National, présente ses sincères condoléances aux évêques de la Conférence Épiscopale d'Haiti, aux prêtres de l'archidiocèse de Port-au-Prince, à la famille de Monseigneur Miot et au peuple de Dieu de l'archidiocèse de Port-au-Prince.

Frère Buteau.(Brother Tob)
Pour Le Centre National

vendredi 12 février 2010

Douglas Perlitz: Hero or sex predator? : A report of CONNECTICUT POST.

http://www.ctpost.com/default/article/Douglas-Perlitz-Hero-or-sex-predator-357455.php

Douglas Perlitz: Hero or sex predator?

Published: 11:42 a.m., Tuesday, February 9, 2010
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This story originally appeared in the Sunday, February 7 print edition of the Connecticut Post. Click here to subscribe.
 
CAP-HAÏTIEN, Haiti -- The lesson still is chalked on the blackboard in the deserted classroom. "Odette bought 19 pineapples," the French scrawl reads. Outside, knee-high prairie grass grows over the walkways. Rodents and insects scurry about the 10-acre compound, their only companions the roaming security guards with pump-action shotguns who are paid to discourage human intruders.
 
The Village is deserted now. But not long ago, a large iron gate would open here every morning, allowing 100 or so orphaned and abandoned boys to enter this refuge, a place to bathe and eat and learn, an escape from a life of beatings and hunger. The Village was one of three compounds that made up Project Pierre Toussaint, a program designed to give a future to boys who had none.
 
These days, the boys are back in the streets of this city of 180,000, Haiti's second-largest, living by their wits, begging for handouts, dodging thugs, sleeping in dirty alleyways and on flat roofs.
Douglas Perlitz is not here either. The Fairfield University graduate who founded this internationally recognized school for such boys sits in a prison cell awaiting trial in New Haven, accused of sexually abusing 18 of the very children he once was honored for helping.
He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
 
What happened at Project Pierre Toussaint?
 
A confidential Haitian police investigative report portrays, in shocking detail, how Perlitz may have preyed on even more students -- up to 29, investigators believe. Perlitz was warned not to continue taking children to his house for overnight stays, but former school employees told Hearst Connecticut Newspaper that a culture of silence grew out of the fear of wrecking the economically flourishing charity. A former friend of Perlitz's who shared a Cap-Haïtien apartment with him said that as far back as 1998, Perlitz was bringing young boys into his bedroom.
 
Project Pierre Toussaint probably would not have existed without the Rev. Paul Carrier, a charismatic Jesuit priest, close mentor to Perlitz and the longtime director of Fairfield University's Campus Ministry program. He has not been charged with any wrongdoing, but his role in setting up the charity that raised millions of dollars for Perlitz's programs -- and where that money went -- has aroused the interest of federal investigators.
 
And Perlitz might not be behind bars save for the work of Cyrus Sibert, a Haitian journalist who says he ignored threats and refused bribes to expose allegations that the boys of The Village were being abused.
 
In a land devastated by earthquakes and hurricanes, bloodied by despots and mercenaries, it might seem that what happened at Project Pierre Toussaint would be a footnote, at most, in Haiti's long history of despair.
 
Perhaps that is so. But this is also a riveting story of betrayal, all the more compelling because not everyone here agrees on who has done the betraying.
 
Nine boys -- several of whom are identified in Haitian police documents as victims of Perlitz -- said in interviews that they were never abused and defended him as a victim of a plot to seize control of the school.
 
Armed with evidence showing child pornography on Perlitz's computer, federal investigators dismiss those claims. They maintain those boys either are driven by a misplaced loyalty to Perlitz, or that Perlitz and his supporters may have bribed them to lie. Prosecutors, citing Western Union records, said in court documents they believe Perlitz wired money "to buy the silence" of former students.
 
The Haiti Fund, the charity that raised millions for Perlitz's project, is in disarray. Past and current board members -- prominent residents of Fairfield and Westchester counties -- are locked in a bitter dispute. Some ex-board members say Perlitz has been railroaded. At Fairfield University, where the Campus Ministry's efforts in Haiti have long been a source of immense pride, an internal investigation is under way to determine the school's financial relationship with Perlitz.
 
In June, Perlitz is scheduled to get his day in court.
 
If he is found guilty, the wonder may not be that he got away with it for so long, but that he was caught at all. Haiti could well be the perfect hunting ground for a serial child abuser. There is virtually no social safety net. Police often are seen as predators, not protectors. Even before the Jan. 12 earthquake, packs of orphans and abandoned boys roamed the street and mostly unsupervised nonprofits had to provide for basic human needs.
"It's the most impoverished country in the Western world," said the Rev. Ellince Martyr, pastor of a Cap-Haïtien religious order. "That explains why foreigners are welcomed with open arms here. When you are starving and there is a drought, they are like much-needed rain for the work they do. Who can read minds?"
It was a few moments before Fairfield University's fall 2006 convocation, and two men chatted outside the school's Bellarmine Hall. They shared a deep connection with the tiny country of Haiti.
One of them, Paul Farmer, was the featured speaker. A recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant," the slender Harvard physician had founded Partners in Health and built a health clinic in Cange, Haiti. The other, Douglas Perlitz, an honored university graduate, had met Farmer through his own ground-breaking work establishing programs for street boys in northern Haiti.
 
Later that day, Farmer told a rapt audience how Perlitz had taken a schoolboy's mother on a six-hour trip by car over rough terrain to Farmer's clinic in the central highlands so she could receive medical attention for AIDS symptoms. "I can still see the shocked look on Doug's face when we said, `Sure, we'll care for her,' " said Farmer, who today serves as the deputy U.N. envoy for rescue operations in the wake of Haiti's massive earthquake in January.
 
At the convocation, few were surprised at the accolades for Perlitz. After all, Perlitz's missionary zeal to aid poor Haitians seemed almost foreordained.
 
Perlitz was born June 23, 1970, and grew up in Barrington, Ill., a community of 10,000 northwest of Chicago that is among the wealthiest towns in the nation.
 
Religion was a cornerstone of his education. He attended Carmel Catholic High School in Mundelein, Ill., continuing his Catholic education at Fairfield University in 1988.
"I came to Fairfield studying communications so I could be the next voice of my beloved Denver Broncos," Perlitz told university students during his 2002 commencement address. "I left wondering how I would learn to speak Kekchi to the Maya Indians in Belize."
University classmates remember Perlitz as a "good athlete," "pretty nice guy" and member of the school's "God Squad."
"I know he was very involved in Campus Ministry," said Bill Murphy, a 1992 graduate who majored in English and now is a writer. "Oftentimes when you went to a campus party, you'd see the same students over and over again. I never recalled seeing Doug at one."
 
Perlitz traveled to Haiti in his junior year. Upon returning, he formed the Student Coalition for Haitian Refugees. He seemed eager to tell anyone who would listen that his time in Haiti changed his life profoundly.
"The Haitians are the poorest people, but are the happiest and most faithful in God," Perlitz was quoted as saying in a brochure commemorating his recognition in a student awards program.
After graduation, it was on to Belize, where Perlitz hoped to build orphanages, pave roads and plant crops as part of a two-year stint with the Jesuit International Corp. Instead, he became a teacher and counselor to 24 teenagers in Punta Gorda, a coastal town of 3,300 people.
 
By October 1994, he was back in the U.S., living in Massachusetts and working at Boston College on his master's in theology, which he completed in 1996. But his love for Haiti brought him back. By the next year, he was working as a pastoral minister at Sacre Coeur Hospital in Milot.
 
Jacques Philome Jeanty, who broadcasts a Sunday night talk show on Radio Kontak Inter addressing children's rights, recalled meeting Perlitz around that time.
"He was sleeping in the courtyard of the Hotel du Roi Christophe," Jeanty said.
 
Jeanty said they'd talk about ways to help the thousands of kids abandoned by their parents and forced to live and sleep on Cap-Haïtien's dangerous streets.
"I thought he was a serious man, a good man," said Jeanty, a 40-year-old with his goatee and hair neatly trimmed. "But I wondered how can the poor help the poor."
Nevertheless they became friends, and even shared an apartment until Jeanty began having concerns.
"Douglas was bringing children home to sleep," Jeanty said. "I told him not to. But he never stopped."
 
By 1997, Perlitz began looking for space to begin a program offering food, a change of clothes, some basic schooling and showers to homeless Cap-Haïtien boys. Connections through the Order of Malta, a Catholic organization providing medical and humanitarian aid, provided him with a grant that helped create Project Pierre Toussaint, named after a Haitian ex-slave who made a fortune in New York and shared it with orphans and the poor.
 
One of the first sites Perlitz used now houses a convent. He also used a large courtyard fronting the Sacre Coeur Church and the rectory of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a Roman Catholic missionary group founded in France.
 
The Oblates became so impressed with Perlitz's work that they rented him a two-story house in Bel Air two years later for $6,000 a year, with a stipulation that he build a $13,000 fence around the property to keep out homesteaders, vandals and trespassers. They also loaned him a large tract of landfill in Blue Hills -- about six miles away from their congregation -- where The Village was built.
 
Project Pierre Toussaint's Village at Blue Hills was well on its way to becoming a compound. It would grow to encompass eight buildings -- dormitories, classrooms, a dining hall and chapel, as well as athletic fields. And the Carinage intake facility in town handled kids who could transfer to The Village if they showed promise after six months.
 
By then, Perlitz needed more than handouts and grants from other religious organizations.
 
Back at Fairfield University was just the man who could help.
For 20 years, the Rev. Paul E. Carrier, S.J., was an institution at Fairfield University, first as an instructor for two years and later serving 18 years as chaplain and director of the school's Campus Ministry. A charismatic speaker, he was a powerful advocate for ministry programs and social missions abroad -- Haiti, in particular.
"He was a sweater guy," said Paul Kendrick, a 1972 Fairfield University graduate who, as an alumnus, came to know Carrier. "He didn't look like a priest. He looked like a regular guy -- someone you could talk to and confide in."
 
Michael Nowacki, a parishioner at St. Thomas More Church in Darien, called Carrier "one of the most dynamic homilists I ever heard."
"He could take scripture and weave it with poetry and literature into a dynamic message," Nowacki said.
 
Carrier had been a mentor to Perlitz during his student days and remained close with him afterward. In 1999, Carrier set about the task of financing Perlitz's Haiti project beyond the collections that were taken up after services at Fairfield University's Masses in the Egan Chapel.
 
He assisted in establishing the Haiti Fund, a nonprofit organization, and over the next several years helped recruit a roster of well-connected board members active in Catholic circles in Westchester and Fairfield counties. Among them: attorneys Philip Allen Lacovara and Thomas Tisdale; wealthy benefactor Hope Carter; and Suzanne McAvoy, Cathy Lozier and Deborah Picarazzi, all Fairfield University employees at that time.
 
Carrier visited Project Pierre Toussaint monthly, often leading groups of students for volunteer missions. He vacationed with Perlitz in the Bahamas, Project Pierre Toussaint staffers said. When CNN needed a guest to explain the impact of political upheaval in Haiti, the network's reporters turned to the Jesuit priest.
 
Project Pierre Toussaint grew. Its reputation blossomed and donations poured in, bolstered by events like the February 2002 visit from Bishop William E. Lori of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport.
 
While at The Village, a student "rushed up and nervously put a religious medal on a string over my head and said a prayer over me," Lori wrote of his visit.
 
There were news stories and radio interviews like the one Perlitz gave to Chicago Public Radio promoting the project.
 
The publicity prompted groups like Farmers to Farmers, Trees for the Future and veterinarians promoting rabbit farming to set up programs in The Village. Classes were offered in farming, roofing, concrete-block making and mechanics.
 
Perlitz's school had acquired an international reputation by 2005. But it also had provoked whispers and rumors in Cap-Haïtien.
Students began writing graffiti on the tall concrete block walls surrounding the Carinage Intake Center regarding how some boys went home with Perlitz and what happened when they did. Each time staff painted over it, more would reappear.
 
The stories found their way to Cyrus Sibert, a street-smart investigative reporter in Cap-Haïtien who had shown a penchant for chasing down leads and taking on authority figures in his blogs and radio reports. An affable father of three who speaks Creole and English, Sibert had uncovered corruption in the local police department involving a kidnapping ring.
 
While attending a cultural festival in a Cap-Haïtien park, Sibert was approached by an acquaintance who told him an American helping street boys also was abusing them.
 
Before long, Sibert began doing legwork on the allegations he was hearing. He spoke with boys. He interviewed Project Pierre Toussaint employees, many of whom were reluctant to talk, Sibert said.
" `We don't want to lose our jobs.' " Sibert said he was told by workers. " `The kids will be back on the streets fending for themselves. The project will be closed.' "
 
Joseph Excellent is a gaunt, 46-year-old man who taught math, grammar, reading and science at Project Pierre Toussaint for almost nine years.
 
Earning a salary in a city where unemployment nears 85 percent and most people live on less than $1 a day was a godsend. As a teacher with Project Pierre Toussaint, his salary started at $45 a month in 2000 and grew to $100 in 2008.
 
Excellent said, "The kids believed so much in Doug -- that he would take them to another level in life."
But too often, he claimed, Perlitz was taking them to his bedroom. "Doug did not have to answer to anyone," he said.
Sibert broke his first story on Aug. 19, 2007.
 
Around that time, Louis Petit-Frère, an investigator with the Institut du Bien Etre Social de Recherches, whose responsibilities are similar to Connecticut's Department of Children and Families, recalled finding several anonymous notes posted on his door when he arrived at work.
 
Petit-Frère described the notes as "saying sick things...that boys were staying with Douglas in the evening, he was promising things" in exchange for sex.
"Since nobody signed them, I was put into a situation where I could not do anything," Petit-Frère said. "I knew Justice wouldn't begin an investigation based on anonymous notes posted on doors and walls."
 
Still, Petit-Frère confronted Perlitz.
"He denied the rumors," Petit-Frère said. Faced with managing thousands of other cases and no budget to mount an investigation, he dropped the matter.
 
In Haiti, there is no real government structure for preventing child abuse.
 
A U.N. official in Haiti who spoke on the condition he not be identified said the juvenile justice system in Cap-Haïtien is rudimentary, with no juvenile court or juvenile detention center and few social workers.
"There's a complete lack of everything," he said. "It's unclear as to how many orphanages are operating. There are no legal papers. It's difficult to assess."
 
He suspects a number of young children have been taken abroad. "Trafficking is a serious problem, but its very difficult to quantify," he said. "The government is completely dysfunctional."
 
Furthermore, the proliferation of orphans and street children has created an environment where the youngsters are almost disposable, said Jeanty, the radio host.
"Kids have no rights in Haiti," he said. "If they are abused, they just accept the situation."
 
At Project Pierre Toussaint, an invisible but unmistakable caste system had taken root, employees said. There were Perlitz's favorites, who could avoid discipline and expect gifts, treats, outings and sleepovers at the school founder's house. And then there were the rest of the boys. Some of the latter group began acting out their frustrations. They would taunt Perlitz's favorites, calling them "Madame Douglas."
 
The staff was having difficulty controlling things, said Margaret Joseph, whom Perlitz hired in 2000 as Project Pierre Toussaint's social worker. "When employee meetings were scheduled in Doug's house, we would always notice kids being there," Joseph said through a translator. "Maids and gardeners told me kids were sleeping in his room."
 
Staffers suggested to Perlitz that he keep his distance from the boys.
"He'd say it was a good idea, but he never changed," Joseph said.
Perlitz acknowledged to federal agents that he "permitted children to stay overnight in his room with him but he denied any sexual contact with these children," according to a court document filed by the prosecution.
 
Kendrick, the Fairfield University graduate who had become an advocate for sex-abuse victims, visited Project Pierre Toussaint. At first an admirer of Perlitz's work, Kendrick became alarmed when he saw Perlitz associating with a former priest who had moved to Haiti after being defrocked for allegedly abusing minors in the U.S.
 
And Cyrus Sibert kept digging.
 
As he continued to investigate Perlitz, Sibert began releasing more and more details in his reports.
 
Then, no longer was it only the employees or victims' relatives urging him to stop with his stories of abuse at Project Pierre Toussaint. Merchants who depended on the missionaries, visitors and professionals the school attracted were also angry, he said.
"They were making a lot of money off this," Sibert said. "Rich, responsible people are very mad at me."
 
Without Sibert's persistent reporting, the stories about Perlitz would have been ignored, said Georgemain Prophète, delegate to the north section and the most powerful politician in Cap-Haïtien.
 
Haiti's bare-bones social service agencies have neither the resources, experience nor inclination to investigate such allegations.
"Cyrus by himself saw what we didn't see," said Prophète. "He did what we didn't do."
 
In October 2007, prodded by Sibert's radio reports, Inspector Jean Myrthil Joseph of the Haitian National Police in Port-au-Prince, with the assistance of United Nations investigators specializing in sex crimes cases, began looking into the allegations against Perlitz.
 
The investigators spoke with Sibert and Jeanty, and over the next months interviewed more than a dozen people, including several boys who said they had sex with Perlitz.
 
A copy of the 30-page Haitian National Police investigative report was shown to Hearst Connecticut Newspapers. Among the accounts it contained:
 
• A boy claimed Perlitz climbed into his bed during a 1999 visit at the Project Pierre Toussaint founder's home. He told police Perlitz laid on top of him and began kissing him. He claimed Perlitz rubbed against him until ejaculating. This accuser identified others he claimed were abused by Perlitz.
 
• Another boy, incarcerated for stealing, told a similar story: Perlitz invited him to watch a movie and sleep over. The boy awoke to Perlitz caressing and kissing his body. While he shunned Perlitz's offer to perform oral sex, he did allow Perlitz to masturbate him. The boy agreed to masturbate Perlitz.
 
• A third boy told of falling asleep in Perlitz's home only to be awakened by Perlitz performing oral sex on him. The boy told police he found a magazine displaying graphic homosexual behavior that was autographed to Perlitz. The magazine was given to a Village staffer, who confronted Perlitz, only to be told it meant nothing.
 
• Three students were treated on several occasions for cuts and bruises on their penises, but police could not confirm that the injuries resulted from sexual abuse.
 
• Others told police one boy was admitted to the hospital after being sodomized by Perlitz.
 
Dr. Jean-Gracia Coq, medical director of the Justinien Hospital, which rests high on a hill and spans more than a block on 17th Street, remembered the boy who was admitted in 2005 because of rectal bleeding. Dr. Joseph Jean Lenic, a resident at the time, also recalled the boy "with blood coming out of his anus."
"The resident treating him thought it was typhoid," Lenic said. A digital probe of the boy's rectum was performed, but no definitive evidence of forced sexual penetration was found. "We didn't have the equipment to do a more extensive examination," he said.
More information could not be provided because the hospital discards records for lack of space, Coq said. "I am trying to reform the system of archiving."
 
Word of the alleged abuses filtered back to America. The Project Pierre Toussaint leadership and staff were confronted by the Haiti Fund board in November of 2007. A lawyer, Richard Markart, was hired to oversee an investigation. Perlitz denied the accusation, and the inquiry was dropped -- until April of the following year.
 
That's when an employee of Project Pierre Toussaint interviewed an alleged victim of abuse and advised the board of that information. The board hired a private investigation firm from Port-au-Prince to interview staff and students. Perlitz was placed on leave in May 2008.
 
This split the Haiti Fund's board between members who supported Perlitz and those who wanted an independent investigation.
Carrier, once the chairman, was told to resign by his order, the Society of Jesus, New England Province of Jesuits, in early May.
 
Later, Michael McCooey, who was a significant donor to the Haiti Fund, as was his mother, became chairman.
 
Perlitz loyalists departed. Hope Carter, the widow of a wealthy insurance company executive and an influential member with ties to the Order of Malta, stepped down in mid-June. A month later, Debbie Picarazzi and Cathy Lozier resigned, upset over the way the board was handling the investigation. Suzanne MacAvoy, a respected nursing professor, was voted off. All three were Fairfield University employees at the time.
 
Carter, Lozier and MacAvoy declined requests for interviews.
In June 2008, McCooey traveled to Haiti to visit the school. While there, the Haitian National Police advised him of its findings.
 
In an Aug. 30, 2008, letter to the fund's 1,300 donors, McCooey announced the hiring of Saba Hamilton, a former senior director for CARE and county director for Catholic Relief Services, as the interim director.
"On behalf of the Board and all of those associated with Project Pierre Toussaint, I wish to assure you that the Haiti Fund remains committed to continuing the vital work of caring for the street children of Cap-Haïtien and to building on the program's ten years of positive accomplishments," he wrote. "We are pleased to inform you that books and supplies have already been ordered and that school will start on Sept. 10, 2008. Because of your caring, over 300 street children in Cap-Haïtien will be off the streets and in classrooms."
 
Or so he thought.
 
A week later, another letter was mailed to the Project Pierre Toussaint support community. This one blasted McCooey, the new board and what the letter's signers declared were trumped-up allegations against Perlitz brought about by greed, bribes, corruption and dehumanizing poverty. It was signed by 12 people, including Carrier, Carter, Lozier, MacAvoy and Picarazzi, as well as Thomas and Jeanie Tisdale and Philip and Madeline Lacovara.
"Business leaders and friends of the Project in Cap-Haïtien believe that the culture of poverty and financial incentives are at the root of pressuring the kids to speak against Doug," the letter read. "Projects with foreign backing are seen as opportunities for financial exploitation and the Haitian staff members involved in this smear campaign are hoping to receive financial gain.
"... American volunteers who have worked with this Project over many years do not believe these allegations and have signed letters and affidavits to this effect. Haitian business leaders and high level U.S. Embassy personnel in Cap-Haïtien do not believe these allegations. American human rights observers and trauma professions (including Amber Gray) all of whom lived and worked in Haiti for many years and who understand the Haitian culture do not believe these allegations. Father Carrier, SJ, does not believe these allegations."
 
But the Haitian National Police, the United Nations investigative team and, ultimately, the U.S. Justice Department did believe them. In early 2009, the Haitian police recommended Perlitz be arrested. By then, he had left the country, never to return to The Village, and probably was beyond the reach of Haiti's law enforcement.
 
The U.S. authorities had at their disposal a 2003 law that allows them to prosecute American citizens who travel abroad to commit sex crimes. According to court documents, agents seized Perlitz's laptop computer during his September 2009 arrest in Colorado. Their examination determined that a user named "Doug" was searching the Internet, using phrases like "gay boys black," "Colorado Haitians," "africa boyz" and "boys first time." They also uncovered over 100 images, many of which were "younger-looking black males engaged in graphic homosexual activity," the documents say.
 
And they also had the Haitian police report.
 
Perlitz returned to Connecticut, where he has pleaded not guilty to charges. At his initial hearing, the courtroom was packed with dozens of his supporters, who offered to raise $5 million bond and give him a place to live and work.
 
Fairfield County is home to more than 11,000 Haitians, with the largest concentration in Stamford and then in Bridgeport. At Perlitz's bail hearing in November, two dozen Haitian-Americans came to demand that he not be released. Perlitz's lawyers withdrew their bond request moments before the hearing was to begin.
Perlitz remains in a Rhode Island prison cell.
 
His lawyer, William Dow, repeatedly declined requests from Hearst Connecticut Newspapers to interview Perlitz.
"The appropriate venue to address these allegations is in court where witnesses are sworn and cross-examined and their credibility can be evaluated by a jury," he said. "Mr. Perlitz is entitled to a fair trial where the government has to prove the allegations beyond reasonable doubt."
 
Perlitz will be tried on the charges in court. But a trial of a different sort now rages in Cap-Haïtien.
 
Perlitz is innocent, the victim of a conspiracy to pay boys to make scurrilous allegations, some say.
 
Perlitz and his supporters are trying to scare or buy off the victims of abuse, counter others.
 
On two hot, muggy December days, nine of Perlitz's prize students trooped onto the veranda of the Hotel du Roi Christophe in Cap-Haïtien.
 
One is an honor student, another a soccer star, a third an aspiring teacher. One claimed he was kidnapped, beaten and left to die in one of the few public toilets near The Village, his beloved school, as a warning to Perlitz -- his "adopted father." Others said the kidnapping was a message to stay away from another man's woman.
 
Still, each wanted the world to know their Douglas Perlitz -- the man they claim lifted them out of the street, gave them a future when they had none and never sexually abused them or anyone else.
 
All of the nine -- several of whom are identified in the Haitian National Police report as abuse victims of Perlitz -- said they never were molested by him. All of the nine also said they were never interviewed by investigators. Federal investigators' statements indicate that none of the nine are listed as victims in the indictments.
 
One by one, each sat down separately at a table. Their eyes furtively scanned the other tables, the bar, the restaurant. Some asked to move further inside, fearing that people are listening to them. Each vowed to repeat the same story to a jury in Connecticut if given the chance.
"The Village provided everything one needed in life," said Jackson, now 22 and one of the earliest students. "The Village was my savior."
 
There, Jackson learned to read and write. He learned responsibility by performing chores and completing his homework before being allowed to play soccer.
 
The effort paid off. Jackson scored first among all city students seeking admission to Cap-Haïtien's top private school -- quite an accomplishment for the dirty, barefoot boy whose mother threw him onto the streets to beg.
 
During his 2002 commencement speech at Fairfield University, Perlitz said Jackson exemplified the transformational work at Project Pierre Toussaint. "This kid, Jackson, was totally, totally from the street," Perlitz said. "Look at what he did. That's what keeps me going."
 
The others at the interview, Ti-Guy, Willie Felix, Wilno Joseph, JJ, Wismon, Pedro, Gisman and Wendy, all said that meeting Perlitz and getting into The Village changed their lives.
"I am proud, I can write my name," said Willie Felix, his voice choking with emotion. "I didn't have an education, and society rejected me. Now I feel like I'm part of society, thanks to Douglas, who I see as my adopted father."
 
Ti-Guy, a tall, well-spoken 22-year-old, said that after The Village shut down a former Project Pierre Toussaint employee called a meeting of the students. He urged them to invent lies about Perlitz being an abuser, which would allow the facility to reopen, the young man said. This, Ti-Guy explained, was part of a plot to take over the school.
" `You'll be able to eat again, you won't be walking on the street,' " Ti-Guy said the former employee told them. "When the kids realized that, they agreed."
 
Ti-Guy said he refused to go along. Wendy, JJ, Jackson, Willie, Wilno, Wismon and Pedro also said they refused money, meals and booze. Some said the ex-employee flashed as much as $40,000.
 
Hearst Connecticut Newspapers interviewed the former employee. He denied the allegations and scoffed at the former students' claims.
"I never gave them money or offered them money," he said by telephone from his apartment in pre-earthquake Port-au-Prince. "I never, never bought them beer or got them drunk. I never, never took them to a restaurant. They know they are not telling the truth. I know that, and they know that."
 
He denied he was part of any attempt to oust Perlitz.
 
In an Oct. 27, 2009, motion to deny Perlitz bond, Assistant U.S. Attorney Krishna Patel contended that telephone records showed that up until his arrest, Perlitz was still in contact with a group of unnamed former Project Pierre Toussaint students.
"These individuals communicate with Perlitz about providing them with money. Western Union records have confirmed that beginning in 2008 and continuing through 2009, Perlitz was sending money to a group of individuals in Haiti. The Government is aware that most of the wire transfers were to individuals formerly enrolled in Project Pierre Toussaint."
 
The government, Patel's motion continued, believes the wired money "was done to buy the silence of additional children."
Dow, Perlitz's lawyer, disputed that claim. "Doug and prominent longtime supporters of PPT could not stand by while these young men were abandoned after they refused to go along with claims they knew to be false," said Dow in an e-mailed statement. "A large group of individuals, including Doug, attempted to fill the huge void left in these young men's lives when support from PPT was abruptly cut off. These actions were motivated by basic humanitarian concern. Any allegations to the contrary are baseless."
 
Such is the grinding poverty and hopelessness of life in Haiti that truth is for sale to whomever cares to pay, said Liam Pigott, a Canadian retiree who lives part of the year in Haiti. Pigott was a friend of Perlitz's who occasionally visited him at Project Pierre Toussaint and watched NFL games with him at a Haitian hotel.
 
Bribes against Perlitz? Bribes to support him? Either would be believable, he said.
"Money is everything here," Pigott said. "Cash is king. If somebody thought they were going to get money, it wouldn't surprise me what they'd do."
 
Federal investigators dismissed the suggestion that the claims against Perlitz were fabricated, pointing to the most recent indictment on Jan. 28 that added nine more boys to the roster of Perlitz's purported victims.
 
All 18 of the boys named as victims in the indictments have been interviewed by federal investigators, court papers and government sources say.
 
These days, the Rev. Paul Carrier, once such a visible figure in Fairfield County, has disappeared from public view.
 
He was a homilist at St. Thomas Moore in Darien after his reassignment from Fairfield University in 2006. But he stopped serving Mass after a parishioner, Michael Nowacki, late last year publicly demanded an explanation of Carrier's role in Project Pierre Toussaint.
 
Nowacki leafletted fellow parishioners' cars to call attention to Carrier's role. He attempted to speak out during a Mass at St. Thomas in October, but was escorted to the door and almost arrested by police officers summoned to the church.
 
Nowacki also accused St. Thomas More of failing to make a full disclosure about the money contributed by parishioners to Carrier for his Haiti program. So Nowacki said he turned to federal authorities and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal to investigate. Blumenthal confirmed that his office is looking into Nowacki's complaint and awaiting additional documentation.
Calls and e-mails to the Rev. J. Barry Furey, pastor of St. Thomas More, were not returned.
 
Of late, Carrier has been saying private Masses in the homes of some Fairfield County parishioners, sources said. A spokesperson for the New England Province of Jesuits said that Carrier does not have an assignment, but that does not preclude him from celebrating Mass. The spokesperson declined to disclose Carrier's location or make him available for an interview.
 
Federal investigators continue to sift through the tangled finances of Perlitz's program. The Congregation Oblates of Mary Immaculate in Cap-Haïtien, which rented its house to Perlitz, is owed at least $25,000, the order said.
 
At Fairfield University, Stanley A. Twardy Jr., a Stamford lawyer and Connecticut's former U.S. attorney, has been hired to conduct an investigation into the school's financial relationship with Perlitz.
The results of that review are expected Feb. 17.
 
Reopening the Cap-Haïtien program "is entirely up to the current Board of the Haiti Fund Inc.," President Jeffrey von Arx said in a statement last week.
 
The university "is committed to help support such an effort and we have reached out to non-profit organizations that we hope will be interested in the program to help facilitate a conversation with the Haiti Fund board."
 
McCooey is not sure that is possible. The network of hundreds of donors that once bankrolled Perlitz's project has been sundered by the allegations. Contributions have dried up.
 
Furthermore, the Jan. 12 earthquake has made Haiti one of the century's biggest catastrophes, and the already-vast relief effort under way is barely able to keep hundreds of thousands of Haitians alive. The plight of a school that served a few hundred street boys is overshadowed by the far-larger crisis.
 
While the earthquake mostly spared Cap-Haïtien, the city nonetheless is sharing in the agony of the country's latest misery.
Kendrick, the advocate for children who have been sexually abused, was in Cap Haïtien at the time of the earthquake. He views the demise of Project Pierre Toussaint as a humanitarian disaster of its own. If ever there was a time and a need for Project Pierre Toussaint, it is now, Kendrick said.
"Displaced survivors of the earthquake, half of whom are children, are already fleeing from Port-au-Prince in search of food, water and shelter," he said. "The streets of Cap-Haïtien are becoming even more crowded with children who have nowhere else to go."

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http://www.ctpost.com/default/article/Who-s-who-Major-participants-in-the-case-of-357476.php

Who's who: Major participants in the case of Perlitz and Project Pierre Toussaint

Published: 11:47 a.m., Tuesday, February 9, 2010
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Paul Kendrick, a 1972 Fairfield University graduate who now advocates for... Michael Nowacki, a parishioner of St. Thomas More Church in Darien who has... Assistant U.S. Attorneys Stephen Reynolds and Krishna Patel, prosecutors in...

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This story originally appeared in the Sunday, January 31 print edition of the Connecticut Post. Click here to subscribe.
 
Douglas Perlitz, a 39-year-old Fairfield University graduate whose religious ministry inspired him to create Project Pierre Toussaint, an internationally recognized school for abandoned and orphaned boys in Haiti. He is charged with sexually abusing 18 of those boys and awaits trial in federal court in New Haven. He has pleaded not guilty.
 
• The Rev. Paul E. Carrier, S.J., a former longtime director of Campus Ministry at Fairfield University. He helped establish the Haiti Fund, a nonprofit that raised millions for Perlitz's program. He was a close friend and mentor to Perlitz and frequently visited him in Haiti.
 
Cyrus Sibert, a Haitian journalist who exposed allegations of sexual abuse by Perlitz in his blogs and former radio program in Cap-Haïtien.
 
Michael McCooey, a New York lawyer who was elected chairman of the Haiti Fund after Carrier resigned. His board ordered an April 2008 investigation by Haitian private detectives that board members believed supported accounts of Perlitz's sexual activities.
 
• Inspector Jean Myrthil Joseph, of the Haitian National Police in Port-au-Prince, who led the 2007 joint investigation with United Nations personnel into the allegations against Perlitz. The probe identified 29 alleged victims of abuse.
 
• Louis Petit-Frère, an inspector with a Haitian social welfare agency. He found several anonymous notes attached to his door claiming Perlitz was abusing boys. He confronted Perlitz, who deniedthe allegations. Petit-Frère dropped his probe.
 
Margarette Joseph and Joseph Excellent, both hired by Perlitz to work at Project Pierre Toussaint. They believe Perlitz allowed numerous boys to sleep in his room.
 
Jacques Philome Jeanty, a Cap-Haïtien radio talk show host who shared an apartment with Perlitz in 1998. He said Perlitz would bring children to the apartment to sleep over.
 
• Georgemain Prophète, the north Haiti delegate who reports to the minister of the interior and is believed to be the most powerful politician in Cap-Haïtien. He vows to work with any group that wants to reopen Project Pierre Toussaint.
 
Paul Kendrick, a 1972 Fairfield University graduate who now advocates for victims of sexual abuse by clergy and church workers. He expressed concern to Perlitz about his association with a former Catholic priest defrocked for abusing children who moved to Haiti. Kendrick recently traveled to Haiti to meet with abused students and is calling upon Fairfield University, the Order of Malta and New England Society of Jesus, as well as Catholic charities who supported Project Pierre Toussaint, to provide funding to reopen it.
 
• Assistant U.S. Attorneys Krishna Patel and Stephen Reynolds, prosecutors in the Perlitz case. Patel has developed an expertise in sexploitation cases.
 
William F. Dow III and David Grudberg, members of a New Haven law firm who are defending Perlitz.
 
Janet Bond Arterton, the federal judge presiding over Perlitz's trial. She heard the municipal corruption case against then-Bridgeport Mayor Joseph P. Ganim and sentenced him to nine years in prison following his conviction.
 
Michael Nowacki, a parishioner of St. Thomas More Church in Darien, who has urged state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal to investigate use of money raised at the church by Carrier for Project Pierre Toussaint.
 
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Cyrus Sibert is a street-smart investigative reporter, who blogs, broadcasts and otherwise publishes news about Haiti. Sibert, a 38-year old member of the Society of Professional Journalist and Investigative Reporters and Editors Association, was approached by an acquaintance who told him an American helping street kids also was abusing them. He then began talking to employees, who were disgusted at what was happening. They confirmed the stories."People did not report this because they were afraid of losing their jobs,". Sibert was photographed at the radio station Radio Kontak Inter, in downtown Cap-Haitien on Dec. 16, 2009. Sibert's investigative work on the abuse of street children led to the arrest of US citizen Douglas Perlitz, who operated a school in the city. Photo: Christian Abraham / Connecticut Post | Buy This Photo
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Cyrus Sibert, a Haitian journalist who exposed the allegation of Perlitz's sexual abuse in his blogs and former radio program in Cap-Haitien. Photo: Christian Abraham / Connecticut Post | Buy This Photo