The mind-numbing scale of Haiti’s earthquake devastation may be currently shaking the world’s conscience but it is little realized, perhaps, that it is Haiti’s income inequalities and poverty which are compounding its deep torment. For, the tragedy in this the ‘Poorest Country of the Americas’, poignantly illustrates the truth that it is poverty which intensifies human suffering anywhere.

Not surprisingly, Haiti also suffers from the blight of corruption. In fact it is also habitually referred to as ‘one of the most corrupt’ countries of the world. Apparently, corruption and the unfettered accumulation of wealth by a few, is facilitating its wealth inequalities and thereby rendering the country’s poor majority increasingly vulnerable to natural and man-made disasters. Poverty’s unnerving reach in Haiti could be gauged from the fact that half of its wealth is owned by a mere one percent of the population. Small wonder, the country’s current helplessness staggers the imagination.

If the majority of Third World countries could be described as having currently entered a neo-colonial phase in their development, or better still underdevelopment, Haiti continues in the grip of colonial servitude, in the truly classic sense of the phrase. This realization is driven home by the fact that besides its chronic political instability and poverty, its internal politics is continuing to open itself to even overt foreign military interference and manipulation. Whereas in the bulk of the rest of the Third World, external interference in the running of states is largely covert, in the case of Haiti this ‘foreign hand’ is very clearly there to be seen and this ‘hand’ is blatantly unapologetic in its interventionist efforts.

Even as this is being written, some 10,000 US troops have arrived in Haiti, ostensibly for the purpose of helping out in humanitarian operations but the US could be expected to take more than a humanist’s interest in Haiti’s affairs. For, US military intervention has been more or less the norm over the decades. It occurred in the early nineties when former President Aristides was ousted from power in a military coup and for a second time in 2004, the ‘Haiti Rebellion’, when Aristides lost power for a second time in another military take-over. As keen as the US in Haitian affairs is France, which is currently wrangling with the US, over what seems to be equal influence or may be more, in the Haitian humanitarian operation. In fact, France has accused the US of ‘occupying’ Haiti.

It is plain that these big powers are not content with registering only a nominal or humanitarian presence in the Caribbean country. The deep interest taken by the US, in particular, indicates that it considers Haiti to be in its ‘back yard’ and by virtue of this fact, coming within its sphere of influence.

The economic deprivation continuously suffered by Haiti proves that such ‘outside interference’ has hardly been in its interests. It was renowned US political scientist, Noam Chomsky, who famously pronounced that ‘for the last 20 or 30 years, the US has basically been trying to turn Haiti into a kind of an export platform with super cheap labour and lucrative returns for US investors’.

Chomsky goes on to contend that in 1990, when the US militarily intervened in Haiti at the time of the first military coup which ousted Aristides, it ensured that an economic embargo it clamped on Haiti it did not affect some 800 US companies already doing business in Haiti. That is, one of the US’ primary motives was to secure its economic interests. Besides, Chomsky takes- up the position that the US was in league with the most dictatorial of regimes in Haiti, such as those led by the notorious Duvaliers.

One is left with no choice but to concur with Chomsky, when considering the experience of underdevelopment in the rest of the Third World and the role played in this process by imperialistic and exploitative powers. However, the case of Haiti stands out on account of it being still caught-up, as pointed out earlier, in the early phases of colonial exploitation with the imperialistic powers continuing to play an overtly military role in it.

The bulk of the rest of the Third World could not afford to adopt a condescending attitude towards Haiti because the neo-colonial ties that bind it to the West, ensure that it is suffering no less a fate than Haiti, although less overtly and dramatically. Today, neo-liberalism plays the role that direct exploitation of colonies performed in former times.

So, there is more than meets the eye in Haiti’s cataclysmic tragedy. Charity and largesse are the needs of the moment and the world cannot lose any more time wrangling over ‘space’ to carry out urgent humanitarian operations. But if organizations, such as the UN, are looking at ways in which countries, such as Haiti, could be helped on a sustained basis, the so-called structural constraints to their survival need to be considered. Plainly, ‘structural adjustment’ loans and the like which perpetuate rather than help in wiping out poverty, need to be shelved and exploitative ties between these poor countries and the rest of the world, which facilitate Third World disempowerment, need to be done away with. Apparently, the UN needs to take a lead role in revaluating economic models that promote underdevelopment.

The Haitian tragedy reminds us that there is yet a great deal to be done in the process of decolonization. Nominal political independence could be utterly ineffective in the task of empowering the ‘Wretched of the Earth’. In fact no ’independence’ could be said to have been achieved if the poor continue in a relationship of economic and cultural subjugation with particularly the former imperial powers. Clearly, what relentlessly weakened Haiti was its continued economic and military subjugation to the West. It continued to be exploited by the Western MNCs, for instance. The poverty thus suffered by the majority of Haitians rendered them increasingly vulnerable to natural and man-made tragedies.