As the news streamed in, the world gaped. 230,000 dead. 300,000 injured. 1,000,000 homeless. Government buildings were in ruins. The National Palace had broken in half. Every person in the United Nations building had been crushed to death. All this in a place with no firm economy, educational system, or worst of all, medical institutions. Port-au-Prince was in ruins, and was the only place in the country that could sustain the rest of the country. Citizens sat in fear, poverty, pain, and despair.
In the days following the disaster, relief poured in from all angles. The Dominicans were the first to respond, sending water, food, and heavy-lifting equipment. Soon, their efforts were duplicated by Europeans and Americans (North and South). The amount of supplies and monetary contributions were outstanding, billions being raised in a matter of days. Yet, the essential question remained, why did it take a natural disaster that maimed the country permanently to get global attention to what is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere?
Much of the reason for these quandaries roots back to Haiti's history. Hispaniola was the small island that Haiti and the Dominican Republic sit upon today. Founded in 1697, the French took the western side of the island and renamed it Saint-Domingue, and made it the most successful island nation in Western Hemisphere. Slave labor was heavily employed, and the island was run "brutally efficient", with 1/3 of new African slaves dying within arriving to the island. Their primary export was sugar and has remained thus until today.
In 1793, with abolition talk running rampant through the Americas and Britain, one slave named Toussaint L'Ouverture decided to take matters into his own hands. Starting the first successful slave rebellion that ended in freedom for the colony now named Haiti, L'Ouverture brought real hopes of freedom to the Haitian people. But their history remained rife with problems. The French put the entire debt of the rebellion on the Haitians. No other countries would acknowledge them as a true country, including the US, until 1915. The people were horribly undereducated, most not knowing how to read or do more than tend the sugar fields.
Life did not improve much after 1915 either. The US occupied Haiti for the next nineteen years, until 1934. Politics remained a power play, with the Duvalier family (Papa and Baby Doc) governing the country in a reign of terror for almost thirty years. In 1990, Haiti held it's first democratic election which culminated in the election of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. His politics leaned towards socialism and the United States did not approve, and funded and succeeded in ousting him from power within two years in office. When Clinton came to office, he was able to get Aristide back in office, but Bush supported getting him out again.
Economic policy was worse. It's GDP per capita is about 790 USD, equaling about $2/day per person. US Free Market Trade Policies undercut Haitian farmers trying to make money selling rice and selling them at either deep discounts in the US or selling heavily subsidized US rice in Haitian markets. Haiti's debt has soared to 1.3 billion dollars and it has recently qualified for external debt cancellation by the World Bank.
Interestingly enough, Haiti also has the most aid organizations coming into its country each year of any country in the Western Hemisphere. One would imagine with all this external help, the country would have been able to come out of its endemic poverty and present with modest gains in its economy, yet improvements are minimal at best. My personal belief is that by external organizations coming into the country, Haitian civil society has little to say about what direction the country goes in. Instead of instilling outside ideas and trying to make them work, organizations should focus on empowering the Haitian people with the skills to fix their country. Once the citizens are vested with a personal obligation to their country, innovation and prosperity are soon to follow. Therefore, as the world tries to figure out a solution to the Haiti problem, the real people who should be trying to find solutions are the Haitian people themselves.
Easier said than done though. Resources are limited, food is scarce, rains are torrential, children are malnourished, healthcare is nonexistent, and homes are gone. So its best to plan in a long-term sense: debt cancellation, aid workers, and focus on health & education as a means of moving forward. So much has gone wrong in Haiti's history that it might be time for things to go in the right direction. But I guess the old adage will hold: time will only tell.
Mukherjee, Dr. Joia. "Promises, Promises - What It Will Take to Rebuild Haiti." Editorial. The Huffington Post. 7 Apr. 2010. Web. 12 Apr. 2010. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-joia-mukherjee/promises-promises----what_b_526971.html
Good one, athena
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