ON THURSDAY, HAITI will mark the 200th anniversary of the revolution that freed it from Napoleon’s army but not from poverty, class conflict and now, unprecedented environmental degradation.
Anniversary events are likely to focus less on fireworks and stories about slaves overwhelming a powerful French army than about removing a sitting president. He is Jean-Betrand Aristide, a former priest who once symbolized Haiti’s yearning to break with predatory leadership and corruption to build a truly democratic society. He is now dismissed as incompetent, relying on street thugs to attack his opponents and pushing the nation toward chaos and perhaps even civil war.
The United Nations and wealthy nations, particularly the United States, have an obligation to keep Haiti from imploding. To many Americans preoccupied with Iraq and homeland security, the plight of Haitians may seem unimportant. But what happens to the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere matters for humanitarian reasons.
In Haiti, most people make do on less than $2 a day ; the infant mortality rate of 93 per 1,000 births is among the highest in the world. Average life expectancy is 49 years ; the clean water shortage, along with malnutrition and hunger, outstrips similar problems in some Third World countries.
Overlying the political instability and human suffering is a devastating environmental crisis. It was triggered by the destruction of nearly all the trees and forests in Haiti’s mountains as its poor scavenge for firewood. The rainy season now brings mudslides, and the resulting erosion has wiped out two-thirds of Haiti’s farmland since the 1940s. The result is a nation with more people than the land can support.
The United States suspended aid in 2000 to protest election irregularities. The nation has since relied on assistance from international agencies, along with money from members of Haiti’s exile community. The United States occupied Haiti during the early 20th century and sent troops there in the 1990s to drive out military leaders who temporarily removed Mr. Aristide in a coup. Those developments show how American foreign policy has shaped Haiti’s history. So it wouldn’t be unprecedented for the Bush administration to use its clout to help defuse the current crisis through diplomacy.
Haiti needs leadership that can work with the West and international groups to shore up its economy, heal its sick, feed its hungry, reverse its rampant deforestation and, above all, give renewed hope to its masses. If Mr. Aristide cannot be persuaded to return to his democratic roots, then he should step aside in favor of more enlightened leadership.
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