Latin America
Related: About this forumGuns, gangs and foreign meddling: how life in Haiti went from bad to worse
Source: The Guardian
Corrupt elites and badly managed aid have ensured life for Haitians remains mired in violence and poverty. President Moïses assassination marks an escalating catastrophe
Peter Beaumont
Mon 19 Jul 2021 07.01 BST
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Now Moïse is dead, assassinated in his private residence in the Pelerin 5 district of Pétion-Ville, the wealthy enclave where Haitis political and business elite live in the hills above the capital. And Haitis long-running crisis has reached full throttle.
It has become routine to see one of the worlds most corrupt and ill-governed states lurch from catastrophe to catastrophe, amid coups, failed governments and natural disasters. But this current crisis brings a particular question to the fore how, despite being the recipient of $13bn (£9.5bn) in international aid since the devastating 2010 earthquake that killed an estimated 220,000 people, has the situation for Haitians, by most indicators, continued to worsen?
The very modest gains in poverty reduction in Haiti, according to the World Bank, has gone into reverse, with 60% of the country living in poverty and the richest 20% of the population holding more than 64% of its income.
Haiti is unusual among failed and fragile nations. It is not only an aid state, hugely dependent on external development assistance and remittances from Haitians living abroad, but one where aid and foreign intervention, far from helping, has helped undermine an almost nonexistent administration.
Few who have not visited Haiti can fully comprehend the absence of services and institutions, planning or state direction.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/jul/19/guns-gangs-and-bad-aid-haitis-crisis-reaches-full-throttle
brush
(53,726 posts)French rule in the early 1800s, France and the complicit international community unjustly extorted a debt from the nation to PAY FRANCE BACK for overthrowing its cruel rule...21 Billion. It took until 1947 for the debt to be paid. It's called the greatest heist in history and France refused as recently as 2015 to pay back 28 billion in restitution.
So there's really a big reason why Haiti is always down on it's luck.
Just think of all that could've been done by the nation with that money to develop it's own economy over the nearly century and a half it took to repay the debt.
And of course it's had its share of corrupt rulersPapa Doc and Baby Doc. And there is the problematic and disadvantaged relationship with the Dominican Republic which it share the island of Hispaniola with.
It's almost as it the nation is cursed