Haitian News

You almost have to wonder if Pat Robertson could be right for once.
*sigh*

Welllll, they say even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Unless it's a 24 hour clock, it's only right once a day. I think PR is a 24 hour clock.

Depends on what part. El punishing the island? Sure. The locals having sold out to the devil? nonsense.

bradhicks or ginmar had a good article on this. Haiti was the only slave nation to ever achieve independence. Then the rest of the world decided it must fail as a nation. So France levied them with insane duties to secede. The Haitian people managed to pay them off.

They managed it, so the US installed the Duvaliers, who made the governement take out massive massive debt at exorbitant rates, give them all the money and make the poor people pay for it.

Haiti would have been a functioning country but for outside interferance.

Exactly this.

A nation of freed slaves was seen as a danger, Heavern forbid slaves elsewhere might get strange ideas, so Haiti was abandoned even by those who, barring 'that' problem, would have been their natural allies.

The country was forced from the outside to fail in every possible way

Haiti would have been a functioning country but for outside interferance.

This cannot be said with certainty.
However, revolutionary ideals notwithstanding,
France and the United States had reasons of their own
to ensure that Haiti failed,
and interfered to that end.
*sigh*
I know it's just a movie,
but Clint Eastwood said so much when he said
"I used to know someone like you, and there was no one to help her."

This is substantially my understanding. If you read Dr. Paul Farmer's "Mountains Beyond Mountains", you will see that the poverty in Haiti is long-term and debilitating, that it is largely the fault of systematic long-term malign neglect and profiteering by the rich nations. The story of the extermination of the hardy native pigs in the 1970's and their replacement by factory-farmed US pigs gives another insight into how US (and French and Canadian) meddling in the Haitian economy and ecology have made it unnaturally disaster-prone. (http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1985/12/ebert-porkbarrel.html) .

If you read any mildly unbiased account of the recent exile of President Bertrand Aristide, you will see the US interference has continued to be blatant and obnoxious. My suspicion is that the (large-scale official) US aid is being given with ulterior motives and not simply a desire to help a people in distress. And yes, the best way to help people in distress is to ask them what help they need to get back on their feet, and to give that help patiently, rather than to send whatever the donor has a surplus of, soldiers, helicopters, MREs...

The article may have missed the point about the US not being the only possible source of aid, but other countries have not.

Other countries, as a matter of fact, have already contributed much more, and much more effectively, than the US. The cash-strapped Dominican Republic in particular has truly over-stretched itself in providing services.

Cuba had medical teams onsite within the first 24 hours and is maintaining a presence. Cuba also sent rice.

Cuba's geostrategic interest is in making friends throughout the hemisphere, trying to coalition-build against the ugly rich Americans. Doctors and rice are inexpensive interventions for a country that is still under embargo.

2) Haiti needs to become self-sufficient, not try to subsist on aid forever.

Any word on debt forgiveness ... er, actually "paying off your freedom forgiveness" from France?