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The pervasive poverty that has been heaped on Haiti by global forces ever since it chose to shake off the shackles of slavery and colonialism in 1804, continues to bear heavily on that bewildered nation.
Today, with about 60 percent of its population categorized as living in extreme poverty on about $2.00 a day, hundreds of thousands of its children malnourished and close to half the nation’s food insecure, Haiti is presented as a poster-child for distress and poverty and an object of pity and sometimes disgust.
Hardly ever do we hear about the external forces that contribute to this malaise.
No wonder ten years after that devastating earthquake, which killed more the 300,000 people and rendered about 1.5 million Haitians displaced, and the billions of dollars that were raised, the country remains more destitute than ever and the suffering continues.
For the hardworking Haitian people who are not part of the 20 per cent that controls much of the wealth of the land, and who have been carrying the load of destitution throughout the long history of the country, the struggle continues, as the cliché goes.
In the weeks following the Magnitude 7 earthquake which struck on January 12, 2010, more than US $15 billion were raised in an outpouring of love from people around the world.
Sadly, much of that money was in the hands of foreign charity groups and governments, none of which had the interest of the people of Haiti at heart.
So as it has been throughout the history of the nation, the Haitian people were left empty handed.
But the suffering continued.
In the months following the disaster, Haiti was crippled by a nasty cholera outbreak that infected 800,000 and killed 10,000.
After much complaints from Haitians, the United Nations finally accepted the fact that the disease was brought to the country by the Nepalese contingent of UN soldiers.
Then came Hurricane Matthew on October 4, 2016 causing a further US $3 billion dollars in damage and killing an estimated 1,000 Haitians.
Through all this suffering nobody really gave a damn about the country.
Certainly not President Bill Clinton who served as the United Nations Special Envoy for Haiti, international co-chair of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, and the face of the Bush Clinton Haiti Fund, which raised millions of dollars.
Not sure if he got 10 houses built.
Haiti…. we’re sorry again.
