17819: Reid - Abduction - New York Daily News Article (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Ralph Reid <rafreid@yahoo.com>

The New York Daily News did a story on the letter
we fax to Mayor Bloomberg and our trip to Haiti.

Ralph --

-----------------------------------------------------

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
Mayor warned off Haiti
By DAVID SALTONSTALL and LESLIE CASIMIR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Saturday, January 10th, 2004

Mayor Bloomberg canceled his trip to Haiti yesterday to the relief of a
city worker who had just returned from 11 harrowing days in her
homeland.
Marjorie-Helene Dejean, a city computer analyst who lives in Queens
Village, wrote a letter to the mayor, begging him not to go.

"My husband and I traveled there on December 27, 2003, and within 45
minutes of our arrival on Haitian soil, we were carjacked, abducted,
completely robbed and subjected to unspeakable humiliations," wrote
Dejean.

"By visiting Haiti now ... you will appear to be supporting the
policies of Aristide's government."

Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott called her home Thursday night to say the
mayor will take her advice under consideration.

Citing security reasons, Bloomberg said yesterday he was scrapping the
Haiti leg of his Caribbean tour and will only visit Jamaica.

"The mayor didn't want to be in a position where his presence would
take resources away from protecting other Americans and State
Department employees in Haiti," one mayoral aide said.

The trip also had been criticized by some Haitian New Yorkers and
officials in the Caribbean nation because Bloomberg was not planning to
meet with any representatives from President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's
administration.

A massive anti-government protest is scheduled tomorrow. Recent
demonstrations against Aristide - the first democratically elected
president of the country - have been marred by violence, leaving at
least 45 people dead and 100 others wounded in four months.

Leslie Voltaire, the minister of Haitians Living Abroad, said yesterday
that police presence has been increased on the main airport road - a
hot spot for criminals to prey on visitors loaded down with gifts.

Although hundreds of Haitian-Americans enjoyed safe visits to their
homeland over the holidays to celebrate its bicentennial, Dejean, 32,
and her husband, Ralph Reid, 37, said they are thankful to be back in
the city alive.

Their homecoming horror unfolded 45 minutes after leaving
Port-au-Prince's international airport and getting stuck in traffic. A
man wearing a blue baseball cap pointed a gun at his head, said Reid,
who had not returned to Haiti in 15 years.

The couple and the relative who picked them up at the airport were then
driven to Ti Tanyen, a notorious killing field nearby made up of weeds
and garbage mounds.

There, they were stripped of all their belongings, including $2,000,
repeatedly threatened with death and asked if they were supporters of
an anti-Aristide coalition.

The thugs also painstakingly plucked small amounts of other cash from
30 different Christmas cards intended for relatives sent by other
family members in the U.S.

"During this same time, all we did was pray. We prayed everything that
we knew," said Dejean, whose rosary beads were snatched by the bandits,
who also tried to camouflage the car, with the couple inside, with
leafy vines.

"There has always been general lawlessness in Haiti. But I never
expected this," she said.



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