*Haiti poor before earthquake

                                 Poor Haitian children before the earthquake



Why did it take a tragedy for the world to notice Haiti? The mainstream media keeps repeating that Haiti was the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. What the mainstream media fails to address is the REASON why Haiti was so poor. The international community is NOW promising billions of dollars to rebuild Haiti, but where were the billions BEFORE the earthquake... billions that could have helped the Haitians build adequate housing that may have helped withstand the shaking of the earth? Years before the Jan 12 earthquake hit, geologists were warning of a future earthquake in/near Haiti. 


Earl Ofari Hutchinson's article "Where was the world when Haiti really needed it?" is an insightful article that addresses some of the reasons why Haiti was so poor. 


"Haiti's sorry history of American occupation, brutal dictatorial and military rule, the flood of refugees trying to escape the nation's destitution, the perennial food crisis's, the wave of devastating hurricanes that tore through the country in one month in 2008, the US, Canada and France's meddling in the nation's internal politics , and the grinding poverty is well known."

"Haiti's corrupt, repressive military rulers and government officials get standard blame for the country's chronic poverty and bankruptcy. There's much truth to that. But Haiti is also a relentless victim of crushing and never ending debt servitude to the IMF and foreign banks, vicious labor exploitation, and the blind eye US aid policies that stunt Haiti's farm and manufacturing growth."

"The nation's debt burden would sink virtually any developing nation. Haiti is compelled to shell out nearly $1 million a week to pay off its debt to the World Bank and the IMF; debt incurred by the Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier regimes and their successor military governments in the early 1990s propped up by the US. Half of the loans were given to the Duvaliers and the other dictatorships. They squandered the cash on presidential luxuries with barely a cent going to development programs for the poor."

Read the entire article at:

Where was the world when Haiti really needed it? - (Jan 14, 2010)


See more on this subject in my post dated Jan 14, 2010 "Exploitation of Haitians"