Haiti Realities Interview Part 1

Jean Saint-Vil talks to Pat Van Horne about Haiti’s realities, part 1 of 3

By Ish Theilheimer

Media coverage of and political reaction to the Haitian disaster don’t offer much perspective on the situation. Saint-Vil explained that Haitian realities that go beyond the stereotypes of endemic poverty and corruption. He pointed to a racist subtext that subtly portrays Haitians as incompetent and ignores a centuries-old history of oppression and foreign meddling.

Saint-Vil said, for instance, that Haiti has never recovered from reparations it was forced to pay to France, totaling $40 billion in modern currency. Returning that money to the Haitians would help them recover much better than a patchwork of foreign “aid” with all the vested interests and strings inevitably attached.