The Haiti Political Disaster

In 1804, Haiti became the world’s first independent republic, after a 12-year revolt by slaves to oust their French masters. On Independence Day in 1904, president Rosalvo Bobo told his countrymen that he was "tired...of our stupidities" and lamented "a century of slavery of negro by negro." He urged Haitians to mend their ways, so that by January 1st 2004, their descendants might have something to celebrate on their country’s bicentenary. They didn’t and still don’t.

Haiti is an example of a former colony in the Western Hemisphere that has become a chronic failed state. It is the poorest country in the Americas, one of the poorest in the world, and continuously spirals into mayhem and bloodshed. More than 80 percent of the country’s 10 million people live in poverty and have suffered repeated coups and civil wars. Haiti has been ravaged by AIDS, with a life expectancy of 53 and 80 percent of the population living on less than $4 a day.

Is it any wonder that the shabbily built shanties, Presidential Palace, government buildings, apartment blocks, luxury hotels and villas occupied by the UN, NGOs, charities and infrastructure, including hospitals, bridges and schools ─ lie in rubble?

Who is to blame? Where have the billions of aid dollars donated and loaned to Haiti after the countless natural and political disasters for more than a century gone?

The Haiti earthquake is the latest tragic reminder of how corrupt political cronyism destroys people’s lives. Homeless, hungry and thirsty people are left to mourn their dead and care for their injured as they scramble for food and water while their foreign administrators continue to enrich themselves as they dispense more aid.