28670: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti-Americans Kidnapped (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By STEVENSON JACOBS

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, July 21 (AP) -- Two U.S. missionaries held hostage for
five days in Haiti spent their captivity in a sweltering makeshift cell
praying and even ministering to their kidnappers, one of the men said
Friday.
   Tom Barron said he and William Eugene Seastrum were treated relatively
well during the ordeal.
   But there were times they kept "coming in yelling and waving their
pistols around," Barron said by telephone.
   Barron and Seastrum, both of High Point, N.C., were released Thursday
after negotiations led by the FBI. Barron said the captors initially sought
$500,000. A U.N. official said the men were released for an amount below
$10,000. They had been snatched by gunmen Sunday on their way to church
with three Haitian friends.
   Barron, pastor of the Mustard Seed church, said he and Seastrum prayed
with others hostages held in an adjoining room and tried to minister to
some of the kidnappers, who he said included teenagers and men in their
early 40s.
   Once rare in Haiti, kidnappings for ransom have flourished since the
ouster of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in a February 2004
revolt. Most of the kidnappings are blamed on well-armed street gangs.
   Barron said they were brought to a house in the slum of Cite Soleil and
locked in a boiling-hot, 9-foot by 10-foot room with blankets over the
windows and a single mattress on the floor they shared with a Haitian
hostage.
   Through holes in the brick walls, they could see U.N. helicopters
swirling above during the day and hear gunfire at night, most likely
fighting between U.N. troops and gangs.
   "It was a like a war zone," he said.
   Also freed Thursday was 70-year-old American businessman Charles Adams,
who was abducted by gunmen Wednesday. Adams, of Queensbury, N.Y., said in
an e-mail message he was treated well and released without paying a ransom.
   Barron, 46, said he and Seastrum would return to North Carolina soon but
didn't rule out a return to Haiti, where's he been doing missionary work
since 1999.
   "If it's God's will for me to come back, I'll come back," Barron said.
"But it won't be next week."