Nothing quite opened the year 2010 like the earthquake that hit Haiti, located in a Caribbean island. At around 5 p.m. on Jan. 12, an intensity 7 temblor struck the country. In minutes, its capital, Port-Au-Prince, was leveled, as though a bomb had been dropped on it. Hundreds of thousands instantly died. Those who were lucky to survive either faced injury and starvation or were trapped in their collapsed homes. In Jan. 23, almost 150,000 were confirmed dead. Latest figure is at around 200,000—enough to fill the Staples Center in Los Angeles 10 times over.

A poor neighborhood shows the damage after the earthquake. (Photo by United Nations Development Programme)

Courageous people

There is something to be said about the courageous spirit of the Haitians. In 1791, their ancestors, led by Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessaline, successful battled three Western armies in a decade-long conflict, making Haiti, then known as Saint-Domigue, the world’s first independent black republic. They also conducted, as history reveals, the only successful slave revolt.

This independence, however, did not translate into progress for the country. Their succeeding leaders, it turns out, acted like their white masters: accumulating as much wealth as they could without consideration to their people. Forests were picked clean of resources (only one percent of it remains), oppositions were killed and vision for any kind of growth was abandoned. Pockets of unrest, coups, and further destruction of lives ensued to the 21st century. The United Nations had to send stabilization mission to intervene against the Haiti Rebellion in 2004.

A Haitian boy receives treatment at an ad hoc medical clinic at MINUSTAH's logistics base. (Photo by United Nations Development Programme)

A series of unfortunate events

Because of the uninterrupted political and economic crisis that has besieged the country for two centuries, Haiti is marked with disheartening poverty. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and subsists essentially on foreign aid. A family has to make do with two dollars a day.

A country ailing economically is severely under threat from the effects of natural calamities. At the beginning of this century alone, Haiti has been pummeled by so many natural disasters that that earthquake seems to be the horrific culmination to the bad luck that has befallen this country. In 2004, tropical storm Jeanne hammered the northern part of Haiti, killing 3,006 people. Between August and September 2008, a total of four storms—Hurricanes Gustav, Hanna and Ike and Tropical Storm Fay—pummeled the country in a span of a month, destroying 900 lives and almost a billion dollars worth of properties.

Nature is not the enemy

Though the Jan. 12 earthquake totally crippled the country, it is still the leaders who are the main culprits in Haiti’s catastrophe, as some political observers note. “Haiti’s harms have been caused by men, not demons,” writes Mark Danner for the New York Times. “Act of nature that it was, the earthquake…was able to kill so many because of the corruption and weakness of the Haitian state, a state built for predation and plunder.”

The Haitian national palace shows heavy damage after an earthquake measuring 7 plus on the Richter scale rocked Port au Prince. (Photo by United Nations Development Programme)

Corruption, it seems, has overrun the Haiti government. Its 20th century leaders, Papa Doc Duvalier and his son who succeeded him, drained Haiti of its wealth, stealing about $504 million from the country’s treasury. Nothing different came with the two-term reign of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former priest, who embezzled telecom funds and turned the country into a drug- trafficking hub.

A ray of hope

Haiti needs all the immediate aid it can get, considering the gravity and the extent of the situation. Various countries have pledged their support, led by the United States which has sent 5,000 troops to help in the recovery effort and promised $100 million in humanitarian assistance. China has also committed $4.2 million while European Union nations have earmarked more than 400 million euros for reconstruction.

A Haitian woman grimaces while receiving treatment at an ad hoc medical clinic at MINUSTAH's logistics base. (Photo by United Nations Development Programme)

Celebrities were also quick to help. George Clooney and MTV organized the Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief, a charity telethon held last Jan. 22. Various artists performed and answered the telephones, including Leonardo diCaprio, Julia Roberts, Madonna, Ellen DeGeneres, Tom Hanks and Stephen Spielberg. Anderson Cooper reported from Haiti’s ground zero. They were able to raise $61 million dollars, excluding corporate and large private donors and sales of the album and video.

What will set Haiti on the road towards recovery and growth and is the initiative of its citizens. The US can provide the blueprint toward this direction, says Eric Farnsworth of the United Journal Online. “The United States should take a leading role in the effort,” he writes, “although others including France, Canada, Japan, the EU, and the United Nations among others should work together under a special new UN mandate to restore the nation and put it on a new path to long-term, sustainable development.”