Haiti is the small country that occupies the western side of the island of Hispaniola, sharing it with the Dominican Republic. Haiti is the poorest nation in the western hemisphere.
One of the main reasons Haiti is so poor is because of the United States’ involvement in its governmental affairs in the 1950’s. During the cold war the US wanted nations to be on their side against the Soviets and so they interfered a lot with smaller nations struggling with civil wars and/or revolutions. The US had come out of World War II more powerful and prosperous than any other nation and assumed that what had worked so well for them (liberty, equality, democracy), would work and benefit other countries the same way. In 1957 the CIA helped Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier get elected. Duvalier announced himself President for Life and proved to be a vicious dictator whose regime was marked by autocracy, severe corruption, and terrorism by his personal militia, the Tonton Macoutes. An estimated 30,000 were killed and thousands more exiled because of his tendency to use murder and expulsion to suppress his opponents. The Duvalier family continued to rule the country until 1986, funded in part by American manufacturers and US military and economic aid that was supposed to help the people but somehow went directly to Duvalier.
The devastating earthquake on January 12, just a few days ago, struck almost directly in the capital, Port-au-Prince, an overcrowded city stuffed with shanties and badly constructed buildings because of the lack of money for good materials. The city is almost entirely leveled, thousands and thousands lying in the streets dead and more buried under rubble, maybe even alive. Donations to the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders are much needed and appreciated. Here is a link to the New York Times article where more information about the situation is available:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/world/americas/15haiti.html?pagewanted=1&hp">
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