Officials of the Foreign Affairs and Armed Forces Ministries escorted two Haitian police officers to the VIP Salon of Santo Domingo?s Las Americas Airport to await departure of the Copa Airlines flight that would carry them first to Caracas, and then on to Quito, and political asylum in Ecuador. The pair, Seide Didier and Fritz Gaspar, will be followed tomorrow by five other Haitian police officials, whose fate was recently decided by President Hipolito Mejia. Rejecting repatriation claims of the Haitian government, Mejia arranged the departure for Ecuador on humanitarian grounds. Both Gaspar and Didier are married to Ecuadorian women, a fact that enabled them to enter Ecuador under immigration rules, rather than as political refugees. Didier told reporters, ?We will return to Haiti. We are not conspirators. We are patriots.? The remaining five, who have been housed by the Ministry of Armed Forces for the past three weeks, are scheduled to leave for Quito tomorrow.
