U.S. Army bulldozers rumbled through 12-foot-high grass, leveling the red earth for camps to house up to 10,000 Cuban refugees in the sweltering jungle beside the Panama Canal.
Work will be finished Monday on the first 2,500-bed tent block for Cubans flown in from the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, on Cuba's southeastern coast, camp commander Lt. Col. Jim Greenwood said Sunday.It will be the United States' first third-country detention center to house the refugees and ease crowding at Guantanamo, where more than 20,000 Cubans are being held.
In Panama, U.S. officials said they would try to make the Cubans as comfortable as possible in their new surroundings.
"The intent of this operation is to ensure an orderly and safe environment in which the Cuban migrant population is protected and treated with dignity and respect," said a U.S. Army statement.
But life here won't be easy.
The jungle is filled with snakes and mosquitoes and plagued by scorching sun and daily rains.
At the turn of the century, malaria, yellow fever and other diseases killed as many as 25,000 laborers who were here to dig the 50-mile canal between the Atlantic and Pacific, opened in 1914.
For the Cubans, Panama will be the latest stop on a journey that began in the shark-infested Florida Straits and moved on to the confinement of Guantanamo.
Panama granted Washington permission on Sunday to begin flying in Cubans. Greenwood said he didn't know when the first would arrive, but U.S. officials have said it could be this week.