Haiti


My immediate reaction to the news of the Haitian earthquake this week was twofold, firstly my shock at the scale of the devastation and then my shock at the lack of infrastructure in the country that shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic.

The Dominican Republic is a popular holiday destination with the Brits, it has smart resorts, recently built hotels and a transport system that can cope with the influx each year of people disembarking from long haul international flights. Haiti on the other hand, well as the past few days has shown it doesn't compare. My initial thoughts were that it was a similar situation to the Korean peninsula where the affluent South shares it's space on the world map with the austere, harsh North, but that would be hard on Haiti.

One fact leaps from the page more than any other when you read about the history of this former French colony, it has been witness to 32 coups in the past two hundred years, 32! That's a change of administration or attempted change of administration every six years . How on earth can a country have any stability with that happening in the background?

Haiti comes a lowly 168th on the Corruption Perceptions Index, it may be the only country in the west whose existence can be traced to a slave rebellion but the aftermath of this dreadful natural disaster could be seen to be coming. To be fair the French and American governments have tried to do their bit but endemic corruption has almost become accepted as a way of life for the Haitian people and that unfortunately can be traced back to the same French and American Governments who are now trying to assist.

The sight of Obama, Bush and Clinton standing 'shoulder to shoulder' on the lawn at the White House yesterday was quite nauseating. Like so much of the world Haiti has been well and true fucked up by the Americans because of its strategic military location. Just in case there's anybody out there not familiar with the geography of the area Haiti sits just off the heel of Cuba, America's favourite neighbour.

America helped Jean-Claude Duvallier (son of the evil Papa Doc) escape to France when things got a little too hot back in 1985, when the Catholic priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide came to power in 1990 he was left alone just long enough for the CIA to work out he was actually, surprise, surprise, left-wing and they promptly supported a coup to overthrow him. Shades of Chile, Argentina and Mexico there I think. Of course Bill Clinton realised the error of the Evil Empire's ways and promptly dispatched 20,000 American troops to make sure that Aristide was back in power. Unfortunately America can't keep its nose out of anybody's business for more than five minutes and successive changes in American policy saw him driven out of the country again in 2004.

There's a good chance that Aristide will return to Haiti, anybody who says the Americans don't do irony should consider the fact that he was ousted from power by the Bush administration who didn't believe that one man could poll 90% of the votes in a free election. Obviously it was a mistake and it should have been in the low fifties, similar to the farce that took place in Florida. Aristide may be left wing but he is the choice of the people, and like every left wing government that has ever existed his power was down partly to corruption, to cronyism, to knowing the right people, just like every right-wing government as well.

What Haiti needs now is friends, people who will put aside ideological differences and help rebuild a country for the benefit of its people. The fact that the earthquake registered less than the 7.0 October 1989 California earthquake that caused 'only' 63 deaths shows that death and poverty are unfortunate bedfellow. Any country that builds houses from reinforced concrete whilst being situated on a fault line is unfortunately doomed to failure at some point. Even the aid agencies in Haiti are riddled with corruption, Haiti actually has more people per head of population working for aid agencies than any country in the world and yet it still can't cope with the aftermath of this earthquake. It is a country where the joke is that when overseas aid is received 15% goes to a Government minister and is called "corruption", whilst 50% goes to aid agencies and is called "overheads."

The post war occupation and support that the U.S gave to Germany and Japan was a success because America supplied the money whilst the countries themselves supplied the business knowledge and the recovery, where America has intervened because of political ideology and has tried to be both provider and organiser it has truly cocked-up: Italy, Afghanistan, Haiti and Iraq. As Ken Clarke once said of the NHS, "you don't make something better just by throwing money at it and hoping something sticks in the right places." For once a Conservative politico was right.