The Plight Of Our Neighbour Haiti

THE PLIGHT OF OUR NEIGHBOUR: HAITI The Republic of Haiti, our Caribbean neighbor and the eldest country in the region, in terms of independence, has been classed, for many years, as the poorest and least developed country in the western hemisphere (Human Development Report, 2007). How did this come to be? Why is Haiti so poor? Factors contributing the plight in Haiti’s economy include its history of political oppression; urban overpopulation leading to a lack of knowledge and literacy among the people, subsequently contributing to a high rate of unemployment; and soil erosion as a result of widespread deforestation. Haiti, the Jewel of the Antilles, as called by the early investors, was once the most affluent colony in the world. While under the French regime of the 1750s it contributed immensely to the Gross National Product of France with exports of sugar, coffee, cocoa, tobacco, cotton, the dye indigo and other exotic products. However, since the Haitian Revolution that led to the country’s independence of French rule, Haiti has experienced insurmountable political oppression at the hands of both the corrupt among the wealthy leading sect in the country, and imposing countries like France and the United States of America. The French played their part soon after independence by demanding indemnities be paid for lands of former slave owners taken over after the revolution. If these were not paid they encouraged international boycott of Haitian products: they had much influence, in this regard, as they were the ones who usually refined, packaged and sold these products throughout Europe. The United States added further to Haiti’s political disarray but unlike the French, who acted from afar, they encroached with subtlety, by having their marines occupy the country and take control of public works, agriculture, health, customs, the police and the collection of revenues, despite the Haitian constitution’s provision that foreigners could never own land in Haiti. Through the power of its aid packages they still play a major role in the politics as they can choose when to afford Haiti its much needed support. This invasion by the US struck a hard blow to the self-image of Haiti, which boasts of being the only country in the hemisphere to undergo a successful slave revolution. Regardless of the oppression from international forces, however, the country that did most to encumber Haiti was, Haiti. Since independence it has gone through the succession on dictators, including the infamous Dr. François Duvalier, known as "Papa Doc". Greed, corruption, and even state-sponsored terrorism were at the helm of the government for decades. As a result there have been numerous coups and revolts since their independence in 1804, the most recent being the 2004 Haitian Rebellion which resulted in the premature end of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's second term. These have negatively affected every sector of the country’s development and have thus, led to thousands of Haitians seeking refuge in nearby countries.

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Haiti is the most densely populated country in the Western Hemisphere with a population density of 254 people per square kilometer as of 2002 (Gale, 2006) and a population growth rate of 2.493% (CIA World Factbook: Haiti, 2008). The nation’s capital city, Port au Prince, is plagued by the repercussions of being home to more than 2 of the 9 million citizens in the country, many of whom flood this and other major cities in search of better employment opportunities. The urban overpopulation there poses a myriad of issues that Haiti with its lack of funds has, over the years, been unable to solve. Some of these issues are the obvious high unemployment rate and low level of literacy. The literacy level is the resulting effect of over-crowded schools in an already failing education system that is still confused as to whether to teach in French or Haitian Creole. French is spoken fluently by less than 10% of the populace, yet this country finds it unnecessary to default the primary language to Haitian Creole which is common among the people (Corbett, 2008). The bilingual elite, who are more developed socially, economically and intellectually, almost always get better jobs over the monolingual majority, this discrimination is not new and many employers will argue, with some validity, that the latter perform below par in the working environment. Another contributor to the issue of overpopulation is that families in Haiti choose to have many children in a bid to improve their impoverished state. There are a number of reasons for this. With an infant mortality rate of 62.33 deaths yearly (CIA World Factbook: Haiti, 2008) most families want to make sure they have as much help as they can get for work in their farms, while others have children simply because in a life of low material gratification, raising children is among the few joys and delights one can have. Consequently, although there are many population control programs set up by the government, to curb the population growth, they continue to fail. While the issue of overpopulation continually puts a strain on the country’s resources it is not the main cause of the economic quandary, nor is it the reason why Haiti seems unable to bounce back from the political oppression of past years. Deforestation has become the worst of the evils faced by this impecunious nation, and picks up where other economic oppressors have left off. Due to the lack of electricity and running water in most towns and villages, charcoal is a family’s only source of fire, heat, and light. Currently less than two percent of Haiti remains forested, and remaining forested areas are being rapidly depleted to fulfil the need for coal. As a result of this, soil erosion occurs, making the nation’s countryside much more susceptible to severe flooding which in-turn leaves the land irreclaimable and also destroys the coral reefs (Institute for National Strategic Studies, 1997). Satellite photos of Haiti and its bordering neighbour, the Dominican Republic, show vast, forested areas on the Dominican side; on the Haiti side of the island, the land has been stripped bare by rampant clear-cutting. The backlash of this is that the country suffers from a long-lasting food crisis as the farming and fishing industries are so often crippled by the constant bombardment of hurricanes and tropical storms. Sadly, while the better of the Haitian lands are used to grow export crops, the production benefits only a selected few. One suggestion made by historian Bob Corbett, in his online article

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“Why Is Haiti So Poor?” (2008), is that these lands, that serve to make richer the elite of the country, be used to produce local food crops such as beans, rice and corn to be sold on the local market for consumption of the demographic. He goes on to state that most of the cash from imports goes to the owners or controllers of the land and is not spent in Haiti, as farm wages are among the lowest in the country (Corbett, 2008). This point is supported by senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Matt Miller who states that “80 percent of Haitian citizens live on less than one US dollar a day” (Miller, 2004). So dire is the state of Haiti’s food crisis, that it has gotten to the point where dirt cookies are now been sold as food (Katz, 2008). Haiti needs our help, and though their poverty may seem like an impasse due to all the other negative factors fueling it we should be able to offer support. The disparity in Haiti between the elites and minorities is an issue that is common worldwide; the rich seem to get richer and the poor, poorer. If we citizens of the western hemisphere and on a wider scale, the world, could unite for the purpose of saving Haiti then there would be widespread change. Haiti does have political issues, and while some will attest that monetary support offered to the nation is distributed unjustly there are foundations that seek to combat this negativity. One such foundation is Yéle Haiti, which was started by Grammy-Award winning musician, producer, social entrepreneur and Haitian Goodwill Ambassador Wyclef Jean. Yéle Haiti creates small-scale, manageable and replicable projects with a hope of making a difference in education, health, environment and community development. The pride of our neighbor, Haiti, can be restored, but not our help.

“Love thy neighbor as thyself.” (Matthew 19:19 KJV)

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Central Intelligence Agency. (2008). CIA World Factbook: Haiti. Washington, D.C: Directorate of Intelligence. Corbett, B. (2008). Why Is Haiti So Poor? Retrieved October 24, 2008, from Haiti: People to People, Inc.: http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/misctopic/leftover/whypoor.htm Gale, T. (2006). Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations (12 ed., Vol. 3: Americias). Institute for National Strategic Studies. (1997). Strategic Assessment 1997: Flashpoints and Force Structure. National Defense University . Katz, J. M. (2008, January 29). Rising Costs Force Haiti's Poor to Resort to Eating Dirt. Associated Press . Matthew 19:19. In The Holy Bilble, King James Version. Miller, M. (2004, March 4). Poor Haiti. Center For American Progress: National Security Issues . United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). (2007). Human Development Report 2007/2008 - Fighting climate change: Human Solidarity in a divided world. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.