29945: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti-American Kidnapped (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By TRENT JACOBS

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Feb 6 (AP) -- Two FBI hostage negotiators were sent to
Haiti on Tuesday to help secure the release of a kidnapped American
missionary, officials said.
   Nathan Jean-Dieudonne, 58, a U.S. citizen of Haitian descent, was
abducted Sunday afternoon as he and three others drove home from church in
Croix-de-Bouquets, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, U.N. police spokesman Fred
Blaise said.
   FBI special agent Judy Orihuela said from Miami that Jean-Dieudonne's
family requested help in negotiating with his captors after the kidnappers
contacted them and demanded a ransom for his release. Authorities have
declined to say how much the kidnappers sought.
   U.N. police spokesman Fred Blaise said Jean-Dieudonne, whose hometown in
the U.S. and church denomination were not immediately available, apparently
was unharmed and that his family described him as being "in good spirits."
   Kidnappings for ransom surged in the impoverished Caribbean nation last
year but have fallen in recent weeks as a 9,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping
force and Haitian police step up patrols around the capital.
   Foreign missionaries, who usually travel with less security than
diplomats and businesspeople, have increasingly become targets.
   Most kidnappings are blamed on armed gangs that flourished in the
aftermath of a February 2004 revolt that toppled former president
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti's first democratically elected leader.
Corrupt police officers have also been implicated.