Sanctuary for FRAPH's Chief?

On the day before Christmas, a U.S. Customs official in San Juan, Puerto Rico, examined the travel papers of a visitor from Haiti who had arrived from the Dominican Republic. Following standard procedure, the official would have checked the computerized watch list for the name of the fellow before him: Emmanuel Constant. There was nothing in the system. Not the information that this Haitian was leader of the repressive, violent, pro-coup Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti. Constant was waved through. He was free to ramble anywhere in the United States, far beyond the reach of the Haitian authorities searching for him. His easy entrance prompts the question: Did it occur as the consequence of a screw-up, or had Constant's handlers in U.S. intelligence abetted his escape? For almost two months, the embassy and the U.S. State Department said nothing publicly about Constant's flight to the United States.