The earthquake that ravaged Haiti is the latest, perhaps darkest chapter in the Caribbean nation's long tale of anguish, dashing whatever glimmer of hope had existed that the impoverished country was finally on the right path. After decades of violence and civil unrest, Haiti showed signs that it had begun to stabilise in recent years.
Despite devastating hurricanes that left hundreds dead in 2008, Haiti was able to hold elections last year and introduce significant economic and democratic reforms that led to some level of optimism the country was ready to move on from its dismal past.
A donor conference in April that included 40 countries and international groups raised 324 million dollars to help the nation of 9 million people stay on track and overcome the hurricanes and global economic crisis. All that progress was shattered Tuesday afternoon, when a 7.0 magnitude earthquake ripped through the country, turning the capital Port-au-Prince into a pile of rubble and burying an untold number of people.
The country's leaders have warned the death toll could reach into the tens of thousands or more. "For a country and a people who are no strangers to hardship and suffering, this tragedy seems especially cruel and incomprehensible," US President Barack Obama said, announcing a mobilisation by his administration to rush help to the Haiti.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was among many of the world's diplomats who were hopeful after last year's donor conference. She received the grim news of the quake while on a trip to the Asia-Pacific region, which she cut short to return to deal with the situation in Haiti. "It is biblical, the tragedy that continues to daunt Haiti and the Haitian people.
It is so tragic," she told reporters in Honolulu, Hawaii. The United States, United Nations and many other countries and world bodies had a "good plan" for Haitian development, with donors lined up and private businesses starting to invest, Clinton said. "There was so much hope about Haiti's future, hope that had not been present for years," she said. "And along comes Mother Nature and just flattens it."
The International Monetary Fund in July praised the Haitian government for successfully carrying out a long list of reforms despite the hurdles posed by the storms, the global economic downturn, food shortages and high fuel prices. The IMF said the reforms qualified Haiti for more than 1 billion dollars in debt relief.
That accomplishment was a huge milestone for the poorest nation in the western hemisphere, with more than 80 per cent of the population living in poverty, along with the region's highest rates of HIV/AIDS, maternal mortality and child mortality. Haiti had reached its precarious position over 200 years of turmoil. Haiti was the second colony in the western hemisphere - behind only the United States - to gain independence, breaking free from France in 1804.
But from that time until 1915 it was ruled by more than 70 dictators, followed by a series of toppled governments until Jean- Bertrand Aristide won the Haiti's first free election in 1990. He was ousted less than a year later in a coup and replaced by a military government. Then-president Bill Clinton intervened, and Aristide was restored to power in 1994 under the threat of a US invasion. US and UN troops in yet another deployment entered the country to keep order.
But Aristide was again thrown out of office in a violent upheaval in 2004, and later that year thousands of Haitians died in a series tropical storms and hurricanes. Under UN guidance, Haiti again held elections in 2006, and the current president, Rene Preval, came to power. He has since ushered in the reforms sought by the international community. Despite the most recent blow, Secretary of State Clinton and husband Bill, who now serves as the UN envoy to Haiti, said the United States will not stop trying to help the country and its long-suffering people. "I would implore you not to give up on Haiti as a lost cause," Bill Clinton said on CNN. "We can get through this."
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