Additionally, Americans have generously contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to non-profit efforts; mobilized local and state medical and rescue personnel; and opened their homes to Haitian children orphaned by this catastrophe.
And that's just the immediate relief effort, for the U.S. will be key to the reconstruction process. As Vice-President Joe Biden said, "We are there to rescue. We are there to secure. We will be there to provide. We will rebuild, and we will sustain."
So what does the Castro regime think of U.S. relief efforts in Haiti?
The following is the text of a communique that was distributed by the Cuban Embassy in a Latin American country to the foreign diplomatic corps there. It is believed that all Cuban Embassies in the region have done the same.
The original Spanish text (as received) can be seen below. Here's the translation:
"While it's still impossible to count the total number of deaths caused by the earthquake, the forces of occupation are repressing popular protests in Haiti with arms loaded with rubber bullets and tear gas bombs.
A Cuban television team has captured footage of U.S. troops, which have occupied the International Airport in Puerto Prince, attacking Haitians that were looking for work and a place food to survive.
U.S. soldiers, which control the International Airport in Puerto Prince, Haiti's main airport -- and therefore decide who can enter and leave the country -- are finally allowing the arrival of food with humanitarian aid, after receiving harsh critics for prioritizing military flights.
After the earthquake destroyed the control tower at the airport in Puerto Prince, U.S military personnel took control of its operations, and is therefore responsible for prioritizing the departures and arrivals amidst intense international air traffic, catapulting the tragedy.
The lack of coordination has caused supplies from different parts of the world to become accumulated there, and hundreds of people to flock there looking for work or food for themselves and their surviving relatives.
Due to the U.S. occupation of the the airport, the distribution of food, water and medical equipment was delayed last weekend.
France's Minister of Cooperation, Alain Joyandet, presented a formal protest to the U.S. Government at the Embassy in Paris. "We need to help Haiti, not occupy it," he condemned.
An air logistics expert with the World Food Organization (WFO) also complained that the priority of the U.S. military is to "bring security to the country." "Ours is to feed people. We need to synchronize those priorities," he stressed.
Benoit Leduc, emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders (DWB), said during a teleconference Monday from Haiti that three planes full of cargo and two planes transporting expatriated personnel from the non-governmental organization were not permitted to land.
Therefore, the five planes had to land in Santo Domingo, which delayed the aid distribution by 48 hours.
After that incident, the U.S. military acquiesced to prioritizing the landing of planes transporting humanitarian aid.
(With information from Cuban television and the IPS)."
