Should Haiti Maintain Normal Relationship With Cuba And Venezuela?
Haiti is Cuba’s closest neighbor in the Caribbean. The two countries share a common history of sugar plantations, slavery and colonial exploitation. Both have had wars and revolutions to overthrow their colonial masters. The revolution in Haiti in 1804 against the French established the world’s first black republic. In Cuba the 19th century wars of liberation against the Spanish colonialists finally culminated in the revolution of 1959 that threw out the US imperialists and their puppets who had usurped the Spanish role. Yet the paths then taken by the two countries have been very different, as JIM CRAVEN reports.
Haiti is now the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and the fourth poorest in the world. According to UNICEF, 80% of the population live in poverty and 48% in absolute poverty. More than two-thirds of the workforce do not have proper jobs. By 2002 life expectancy had risen to just 49 years and infant mortality stood at 79 deaths per 1,000 live births. Meanwhile, in the same year Cuban life expectancy had risen to 77 years and infant mortality had fallen to less than seven per 1,000, comparable to the richest countries in the world. In Cuba a doctor or midwife attends every birth and every child is inoculated against at least 13 diseases. In Haiti less than 25% of deliveries have skilled healthcare at hand and only about half the children receive any inoculations at all. Cuba has one doctor for every 195 people: the best ratio in the world. According to UNICEF, Haiti has one doctor for every 1,250 people (some sources say one per 4,000!) and 90% of these are in the cities. Only 16% of the Haitian rural population have adequate sanitation and fewer than a third of the total population have access to safe drinking water.
In Haiti primary school attendance is little better than 50% and secondary enrolment is only 20%. As a consequence barely half the Haitian population is in any sense literate. Cuba on the other hand has one of the most successful education systems in the world. It is presently aiming to ensure higher education is available for the whole population.
Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez found a hero's welcome when he visited Haiti on March 12, 2007. People from Port-au-Prince's poor neighborhoods lined the streets of the capitol to cheer, chant, dance, and sing, with all the infectious enthusiasm of Haitian celebrations. Haitians consider Chávez a leader in the fight against the global inequalities that keep people in Haiti, Venezuela, and the rest of Latin America poor, hungry, and uneducated. They admire him for standing up to the most powerful leader in the world. In turn, Chávez knows that the Haitian people have been standing up to inequality and oppression for more than 200 years. He knows that Haitians won their independence in 1804 by beating Napoleon—the most powerful leader of his day—and that Haiti became the first country to abolish slavery. Chávez knows, and acknowledged at the National Palace, that Haiti played a critical role in his own country's independence. He also understands that the Haitian people are still fighting for their sovereignty, and will keep fighting as long as necessary.
