Haiti

The Difficult Road towards Recovery
The Chinese proverb, "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" offers effective insight in regards to how the international community should address the unfortunate situation in Haiti after the devastating earthquake of 2010. The sovereign nation of Haiti has been—since the colonial era—at the mercyof the Empire’s will. The occupiers’ interests have been put before those of the Haitians, which have presented an obstacle towards the furtherance of the country. Years of occupation and neglect left Haiti with a broken political and economic system and completely unprepared to face a catastrophic situation like the earthquake, which left in ruins the capital of Port-au-Prince. Many countries aswell as NGOs have attempted to aid the nation with monetary donations; about 6 billion dollars have been disbursed in official aid, according to the center for global development. The logical assumption would be that such amount would have a notorious boost to reconstruction in the decimated capital, but the results demonstrate otherwise. In order for the sovereign nation of Haiti to improvesignificantly, the international community needs to help construct a more effective development strategy—one that supports the private sector and stimulates entrepreneurs and that consults with the Haitian government before executing their plans—rather than assist with more foreign-aid money. Monetary contributions will only cause negative repercussions, due to the prevalent corruption within thenation’s government.
Independent Haiti was born out of the first successful slave revolt. Liberated from the mother country, France, Haitian peoples hoped for a more promising outlook for their society. But a combination of factors hindered the newly sovereign nation’s progress. First and foremost, Haiti was left a nation divided, The North was ruled by the Blacks and the South by the Coloureds; inorder to combat outside pressure, a nation must be working in unison and Haiti lacked this key ingredient. A weak nation was then marginalized and looked upon as a frightful model for their nations. Specifically the United States and The United Kingdom who feared that such a revolution would serve as an incentive for their slaves in their own countries to fight their own battle for independence;as a consequence, Haiti was strongly marginalized. In addition, Haiti’s economy was deeply hurt by the revolution; its economic foundations (sugar plantations, coffee, and spices) were destroyed. The profitable slave market was no longer in place, this lucrative fiscal venture was a significant part of the nation’s economy and its extermination abruptly shook the economy. The events that followedwere just as detrimental for the nation; as the world was changing, evolving, progressing, Haiti stayed behind, isolated from the international community. The industrial revolution skipped the Caribbean Island. In the midst of the growing economic enterprise around the globe, Haiti was unable not regain their economic competency. Due to the already mentioned division of the nation, a series ofleaders came to power with different objectives but most of them shared a similarity, corruption. The legacy of Dessalines, Christophe and Petion was that of more division in the nation, which additionally, was left with a huge debt, almost impossible to pay off due to the country’s economic situation. In 1915, The United States invaded the island; once again, Haiti was facing a threat to itssovereignty. The citizens of the nation were subjugated to the Empire’s rule. Soon after the invasion, U.S. troops seized the gold of the country and placed the Haitian bank under the control of U.S City Bank in New York. The U.S remained in the island for about 19 more years. The problems continued: a series of corrupt governments came to power, an embargo was placed in 1991 by the United States,—it...