By Peter Vundla
HAITI is a God-forsaken country. God-forsaken not in the sense of
the drivel spewed out by the right-wing evangelist, Pat Robertson, who believes
the massive human suffering to be a result of a “curse” because that nation is
founded on “a pact with the devil”.
No: Haiti, in my view, is God-forsaken
because, difficult as this may be to imagine, it has no raison d’être as a
country or nation.
Proud history or not, should not the major Unisa symposium on
Haiti, envisaged on these pages last week by Professor Shadrack Gutto of the
Centre for African Renaissance Studies, consider shutting the island down as an
option in assisting the people of the ill-fated nation?
Drastic measures call for drastic action. Consider some of the
following facts and milestones in the life of this country, where national
cohesion is defined by degradation, misery and despair:
As editorialised in City Press, “disaster seems to
disproportionately befall this poor Caribbean country”. Haiti has had four
hurricanes in succession over a period of just 30 days. More are predicted, and
there is no defence against them since less than two percent of Haiti’s forests
remain.
The country has been a veritable playground for colonisation and
imperialism perpetrated by France, Britain, Spain, Portugal and recently the
United States of America. This has led to untold impoverishment of
Haitians.
The people of Haiti have been subjected in recent years in their
200-year history to unimaginable violence, murder and mayhem by successive
dictators such as the Duvaliers and their marauding force of Tonton Macoutes,
whose love of wielding machetes brutalised Haitians. Not without reason has
Haiti been called “an international crime scene”.
The country had never known constitutional democracy until
Jean-Bertrand Aristide became its first freely elected leader in 1990. But he
was to be ousted not once, but twice.
Nature, too, has not been kind to Haiti. Scientists have
determined that the recent earthquake is the largest in the Caribbean in more
than two centuries.
The country had three earthquakes in the 18th century: in 1701,
1751 (which destroyed Port-au-Prince) and 1770.
Haitians have been rendered forever helpless. Per capita income
is $450 (about R3 375) a year; the nation cannot feed itself and imports half of
its food; access to clean water for millions is unavailable, even in the cities;
Haiti’s government is highly dependent on foreign aid; there is no direct
foreign investment; the infrastructure has almost completely collapsed; and the
country, with some 40 percent of its population under 14, has one of the world’s
highest mortality rates.
One could catalogue even more reasons that militate against Haiti
becoming a prosperous and sustainable nation.
Andrew Buncombe of UK newspaper The Independent has accurately
observed: “Much will be written about Haiti’s ‘chaotic past’ and its status as a
‘failed state’. There are reasons for this. Few have anything to do with the
beleaguered people of Haiti.”
So, then, what is to happen to our brothers and sisters in Haiti
once we shut down this hell-hole?
It has been reported that thousands of Haitians attempt to flee
their country each year, unable to endure a living hell. I propose we help those
who want to leave the damned island, and resettle and integrate them, in the
most humane manner, in countries such as South Africa, the United States, Cuba,
France, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Canada.
The time for band-aid solutions to Haiti’s woes is over.
Vundla is a businessman and concerned citizen of the world