Haiti organisations attack US takeover

Anti-poverty groups, shanty town community organisers and local medical charities issued a joint statement criticising the US government's takeover of relief efforts following last month's devastating earthquake as part of a "strategy of the remilitarisation of the Caribbean."

"Massive humanitarian aid in Haiti is essential because of the magnitude of the catastrophe, but this aid should be constructive, articulating a different vision of the reconstruction process," the organisations stressed.

"Instead of a new military occupation, Haiti needs international solidarity brigades to help in the struggle against illiteracy and in the construction of new systems of education and public health," the communique, broadcast over the surviving radio stations in the capital, Port-au-Prince, stated.

Haitian President Rene Preval countered criticism that he had permitted the US to virtually annex the country, claiming that only the airport and port were under military control.

But he accepted that aid was being distributed "chaotically."

To combat the chaos and attempt to regain control of food distribution, UN workers began issuing coupons to survivors to allow them to claim one bag of rice each day.

Meanwhile, 10 members of a US church were arrested trying to smuggle 33 Haitian children into the neighbouring Dominican Republic as part of what frontier guards said was an illicit adoption scheme.

The church members were stopped at the weekend after police conducted a routine search of their lorry, Haiti's Social Affairs Minister Yves Cristalin confirmed.

Ms Cristalin said that those arrested had no documents to prove they had cleared the adoption of the children, who are aged between two months and 12 years, and had no papers showing the children were orphans.

Laura Silsby, speaking from a prison cell in Port-au-Prince, said that she was the leader of an Idaho-based charity called New Life Children's Refuge.

Ms Silsby denied any wrongdoing and claimed that "a Baptist minister asked us to take the children to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic."