François Duvalier came under rule of Haiti from 1957 to 1971 who promised to rebuild and renew the country as he had solid support from the military. However, after a failed coup attempt, Duvalier developed a deep distrust with the military and replaced the general staff with loyal officers. This led to a violent regime that resulted in an estimate greater than 45,000 deaths and the exile of many more Haitians. It also prevented majority of the population from having access to basic human rights, healthcare, and education. Such brutal actions by the Duvalier Regime had detrimental effects on life expectancy, mortality rates, and morbidity rates. Duvalier also began to violate constitution provisions by replacing legislatures that would favor him and rigged many elections, often running against no opponents. He would later ratify the constitution to make himself eligible to be president for life as the voting was rigged in his favor. With absolute power of the country, Duvalier continued his repressive and authoritarian rule and would misappropriate foreign aid money by transferring directly into his personal accounts. Haiti’s relations with United States proved to be difficult after Duvalier personally pocketed the annually aid from the U.S. of $15 million along with other foreign money which was a considerable large portion of Haiti’s budget. Nevertheless, the U.S. terminated its economic assistance after a few years. In attempt to gain U.S. support back, Duvalier became extremely violent towards communists and organized a campaign to give the death penalty to anyone who supported communism. Duvalier regime was filled corruption, intimidation, and repression as the government would often participate in bribery and racketeering domestic businesses while enriching those who supported the Duvalier regime. The government also seized land from peasants and distributed it among the regime. Many of the peasants fled to the slums of Port-au-Prince as they faced problems of malnourishment and famine. Because of the corruption, many educated professionals fled the country to the U.S. or other nations thus worsening the already shortage of doctors and teachers. Duvalier would be later succeeded by his 19-year-old son, Jean-Claude, who Duvalier named as successor before his death in 1971.
Jean-Claude Duvalier was no different from his father, as he continued the oppressive legacy, killing and torturing thousands while many fled the country. He used state sponsored money to fund his private lavish lifestyle while the people of Haiti remained in serious poverty thus creating highest income inequality of any country in the Western Hemisphere. Under pressure from the U.S. to make the government less repressive, he made superficial changes to his father’s regime by delegating some of authority among his advisors. Still, this did not prevent the government from involving themselves in drug trafficking and selling organs and cadavers to medical schools overseas. Jean-Claude’s wealth came from the country’s Tobacco Administration as well as other government firms that contributed to his slush fund. Jean-Claude also wanted to restore Haiti’s economic assistance and gain military aid from the U.S. and other foreign countries. In 1971, Haiti and the U.S. with other nations formed an economic policy that turned Haiti into a provider of cheapest labor in the Western Hemisphere for the foreign exporting assembly industry. The policy was designed to maintain low wages, open free trade, remove restrictions and taxes on imports including agricultural goods, lower public-sector employment, and restrict social-sector spending. These policies turned to be disastrous for Haitian’s agriculture as food imports flooded that Haitian market, driving Haiti’s self-sufficient food industry down. In addition, the food industry took another toll from the 1978 African Swine fever virus as the U.S. Department of Agriculture insisted to completely eradicate the pig’s population. This became a major economic disaster as many of Haiti’s peasants relied on pigs for their income and were never compensated for over 100,000 pigs slaughtered. The U.S., Canadian, and Mexican governments gave the Haitian government over $7 million to help rebuild their swine industry and provide other aids for the people, however, Haiti’s lacking supportive infrastructure made it impossible for Haitians to obtain a higher quality of life. Years later in 1985, social unrest built up as revolts began to break out when political and social activism expanded throughout the country. As the momentum of the uprising continued, Jean-Claude shortly fled the country in 1986.
After the departure of the Jean-Claude, many coup d’états and structural violent massacres broke out in attempt to control the country over the next two decades. During this time, Haiti faced an increase in violence and human rights abuse in addition to several hurricanes that were responsible for over 5,000 deaths. Consequently, the United Nations set up a peacekeeping mission that has been active since 2004. After the coup d’état of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004, President-Elect, René Préval was sworn in on May 2006. President Préval brought stability and foreign aid to Haiti by strengthening the relationships with neighboring countries. Unfortunately, riots broke out due to the increase of essential food prices across the world in 2007 and 2008 and were worsened by the four tropical storms that struck Haiti throughout 2008. The storms wiped out 70% of Haiti’s crops that further exacerbated the increasing food prices that resulted in deaths due to starvation and malnutrition. In short, Haiti suffered 793 deaths, along with 310 missing and another 593 injured from the four storms. An estimated 800,000 people needed aid as 22,702 homes were destroyed as another 84,625 were damaged. As a result, over $1 billion of damage was estimated as Préval chose to focus more on the effects of the hurricane and less on the warnings from geologists about a potential earthquake.
Two years later, Haiti was struck by an earthquake that caused severe damage to the Haiti’s weak infrastructure due to government neglect and repression. Unlike many other countries nearby fault lines, most of Haiti’s buildings were not built to be earthquake resistant due to the lack of the government requiring zoning and building regulations. Not only was there an absence of construction codes, there was a minimal number of qualified engineers, architects, and licensed contractors thus many of the structural components and infrastructures were disposed for a major disaster. This led to the destruction of hundreds of thousands of homes, nearly all government buildings, three-quarters of schools, and almost two-thirds of the country’s hospitals. With little financial resources, Haitians cannot afford to build earthquake-resistant buildings, let alone afford the cost of more earthquake resilient material. Instead, contractors and builders would often cut corners to reduce construction expenses by building their infrastructure using low grade cement, bricks, and stones, without reinforcement columns. Not only did buildings have faulty foundations and concrete roofing that was not reinforced, they were built along the hills of Port-au-Prince. In addition, massive migration to Port-au-Prince from countryside only exacerbated the outcomes of an earthquake.
With 10.4 million people living Haiti, half of them reside in densely populated cities with 2.6 million people living in Port-au-Prince, near the earthquake epicenter. Nearly all the people impacted the quake lived in the slums of Port-au-Prince, an area that severely lacked proper infrastructure and foundations as mentioned earlier. With the increase of assembly industry jobs, the dismantling of the swine industry, and the declining agriculture, many people migrated to Port-au-Prince as the population began to rise causing an increasing demographic pressure. Furthermore, Haiti’s extreme poverty had exacerbated the aftermath of the quake as poverty was no stranger to Haiti. Currently, more than 80% of Haitians live under the national poverty line including 60% of population living on less than US $2.00 per day and 25% living in extreme poverty on less than US $1.25 per day. As Haiti suffers from one of the world’s highest percentage of population living below the poverty line, Haiti also has one of the lowest gross national income per capita at $1730 compared to the average Latin American developing country of $14098. In addition, the gross domestic product (nominal) of Haiti puts it at 142 out of 191 countries, while being ranked 168th on the 2015 human development index that composites education, life expectancy, and per capita income. Because of the Haitian government has political practices that heavily prioritizes the wealthier districts’ agenda – politically, economically, and socially – Haitians must rely entirely on international aid in an event of a national crises, major or minor.
The international response by countries and international agencies was ample and abrupt with the U.S. Government being the largest source of aid that contributed $4.2 billion. The U.S. did not act alone as 38 other countries and the United Nations contributed to the $13.34 billion funding or sent some type of emergency aid in response to the crises. In addition, many other non-governmental organizations such as Red Cross provided relief aid. However, a destroy seaport and overcrowded airport delayed relief efforts exacerbated by nonfunctional communication systems. Coordination of multiple organizations and Haiti to execute recovery plans were disorganized as control towers to direct flights in were inoperative as there was no electricity on site. Fuel at the Port-au-Prince international airport ran out as all flights in had to carry their own fuel to fly out. The main docks at the seaport were partially submerged underwater thus preventing aid by ship from coming in. About a week later, it was announced that an UN Special Envoy will be deployed to Haiti to take on the expanded role of coordinating rebuilding efforts and to maintain order. Conversely, the UN Nepalese peacekeepers introduced a whole new problem.
Around mid-October 2010, an outbreak of cholera began to surface along the Artibonite River, 60 miles north of Port-au-Prince. On October 19th, the first cholera patient was hospitalized and was later confirmed on October 21nd by laboratory results. Confusion and panic broke out among the people as the island never had a cholera outbreak before. Prior to the earthquake, less than half of the population had access to clean water and less than a quarter had access to sanitations, but quake drastically cut access to both as sewage leaked into the Artibonite River which was used as drinking water. The disease spread quickly among those living along the river, eventually spread along the coast of Haiti including Port-au-Prince. Shortly after, the disease spread across the country and struck all ten departments. Heavy rains brought in from Hurricane Tomas in early November caused flooding that helped spread contaminated water quickly. New social behaviors had to taught to keep cholera cases from spreading by promoting washing of hands and foods, purifying water, and burying human wastes. The sudden spread of cholera rapidly diminished treatment supplies as more organizations had to donate materials. As of 2016, the outbreak claimed an estimated 10,000 lives and infected another 700,000. Hurricane Matthew, the most recent category 5 tropical storm that struck Haiti on October 4th, 2016, had officials preparing for another cholera outbreak as it already claimed dozens of lives within a few weeks. This catastrophic outbreak increased the pressure on relief organizations to reconstruct that neglected Haitian clean water and sanitary infrastructure.
Throughout the Haiti’s history, there has been political instability that has led to poor development of Haiti’s infrastructure. The Duvalier Regime was oppressive and prevented most Haitians from having access to basics needs such as human rights, healthcare, and education. In addition, the regime also neglected the infrastructure of its largest city and economic center, Port-au-Prince, while forming international policies that crushed their agriculture. These actions drove large migration patterns to the Port-au-Prince in attempt to increase quality of life. After decades of political instability, many violent revolts broke out that hampered life expectancy and increased morbidity and mortality. These social unrests left the government poor and broken without any building and zoning regulations in densely populated areas thus creating terrible conditions that were only exacerbated by the effects of the 2010 earthquake and cholera outbreak followed by destruction by Hurricane Matthew. After more than a half decade of crises, officials have felt pressure to coordinate plans to rebuild Haiti’s infrastructure to prevent such crises from occurring again.