If there is a country, at least in the Americas, that seems to be cursed it is Haiti which as you all know by now has been struck by a devastating earthquake. At this point it does not matter that the Haitian natural disasters are made worse through grinding poverty: hurricanes are worse there than any place in the Caribbean as poverty as done away with the once lush forest so people can cook delicacies such as dirt cookies. Sometimes one even wonders if the UN should not go back to the former Society of Nations system to create "mandates" over countries, to have them ruled for a decade or two by a group of foreign powers just to put some order, rebuild the basic infrastructure and create some jobs. Haiti today is the kind of place on earth where you cannot come up with any economical system that seems it could work out there.
It should not have been like that. Haiti did start well, if in a dramatic bloodbath. The first black rulers where able to build impressive castles, conquer next door country. But they also called themselves emperors. You might have forgotten it but the Dominican Republic was worse off than Haiti for a while, becoming a Haiti possession for a few years. And yet today Haiti is dirt poor while the Dominican Republic is an up and coming country where poor Haitian flee to get a shot at cleaning tourist toilets.
And even as it is dirt poor, people compete over Haiti control including Chavez. And thus the curse of Haiti, petty and cheap little leaders fighting it off for power (not even for wealth anymore, besides the one they can skim from international help programs). As a result a devastating earthquake because, well, construction codes cannot be enforced and even less afforded.
I shudder at what a 7.1 intensity earthquake will do to Caracas. Not only because of the shacks that will collapse but because we also know that the governmental response today will be way off what it should be. Look at simple things as electricity production and wonder what will happen when hospitals fill up with hundreds of earthquake victims.......
Thus we must offer to Haiti all the empathy and help we can, hoping that mother nature will spare us...