While thousands of Haitians faced death from thirst and hunger on the ground below, a U.S. Air Force cargo plane spent five hours every day circling above.
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What was the mission? Air drops of food and water? No, the plane in the sky was there to broadcast a message over and over.
“Listen, don’t rush on boats to leave the country … If you think you will reach the U.S. and all the doors will be wide open to you, that’s not at all the case. And they will intercept you right on the water and send you back home where you came from.”
That was the tape-recorded message, in Creole, broadcast by the U.S. Air Force to the stricken people of Haiti at the moment of their greatest need, according to the New York Times.
Haitian people are dying of thirst. Without clean water to drink there will be epidemics of water-borne diseases that will take tens of thousands more lives. But according to The Guardian, it was not until six days after the earthquake that the Pentagon brass finally allowed the air drop of bottled water and food.
The U.S. military immediately took control of the airport and ports in Haiti following the earthquake. The U.S. priority was to land contingents of what will be a 12,000-plus military force. This prevented humanitarian aid from reaching Haiti.
After not being able to land for days, the World Food Program was finally allowed access to the airfield, according to another report in the New York Times. The group had been denied access to the airstrip for days so that U.S. troops and military equipment could land.
“There are 200 flights going in and out every day, which is an incredible amount for a country like Haiti,’’ said Jarry Emmanuel, the air logistics officer for the WFP’s Haiti relief effort. “But most of those flights are for the United States military.”
