The following summary of Haiti is from the report "Restoring the Competitiveness of the Coffee Sector in Haiti" (Diego Arias, Emily Brearley, Gilles Damais; Inter-American Development Bank; Economic and Sector Study Series, RE2-06-012, April, 2006):
"Haiti is predominantly a rural country, with more than 60 per cent of the population living in rural areas. Agriculture accounted only for 26.9 percent of GDP in 2004, and employed 66 percent of the labor force. Most of the poor live in rural areas, and poverty is especially severe in the northeastern and northwestern regions. According to the most recent household survey data1 in 2001, 49 percent of Haitian households lived in absolute poverty with 20, 56, and 58 percent of the households in metropolitan, urban, and rural areas respectively, being poor; based on a US$1 a day extreme poverty line. Social indicators in Haiti are also very low, with around 20 percent of children suffering from malnutrition; nearly half the population without access to health care; and more than four-fifths with no clean drinking water." (p. 2)
The following assessment of the major environmental problems is from the same document (my emphasis):
"Haiti's mountainous topography and the movement of small-holders to increasingly fragile upland soils, have set in motion a pattern of deforestation, accelerated erosion, depleted fertility, reduced water retention and widespread silting of waterways. This, in turn diminishes, the carrying capacity of the land and contributes to the downward economic and environmental spiral. These land-use practices have also contributed to catastrophic floods and mudslides. Today it is estimated that Haiti loses around 10,000 - 15,000 hectares of once-fertile land each year to erosion, and the potential for expansion into arable areas has generally been exhausted throughout the country. Thus deforestation and soil degradation represent the most serious environmental and economic problems facing the country." (p. 3)
Ranquitte, Haiti, is small town in a small country located in the dim recesses of American minds. "Have a good time in Tahiti," I was told by one person. Few Americans know much, if anything, about Haiti - although Vodou springs to many minds, and perhaps a movie or two, of the type that plays off the most sinister-seeming element of Haitian life, the zombie.
Fewer Americans are aware of the long and shameful history of U.S. involvement in Haitian affairs. While the U.S. was the first country in the New World to achieve independence, the race was close: Haiti was the second, achieving independence in 1804 after the first successful slave revolt leading to independence in modern times. Because of these nations' common cause of throwing off foreign domination, one might assume that the U.S. and Haiti would be friends. Unfortunately, however, a country founded by slave revolt was not a welcome addition to the neighborhood, especially given the U.S.'s position on slavery at the time.
And so the U.S. began its long history of troublesome, meddlesome, self-serving, domineering bullying in its relationship with Haiti, right up to its recent "escort" of President Aristide into exile. Aristide, a president elected with an actual majority of votes, claims to this day that he was kidnapped by the U.S. and forced out of office. Fortunately the marines who came to help Aristide exit the country are no longer in Haiti: the United Nations have provided a force which has been tasked with the stabilization of Haiti in the aftermath of Aristide's removal.
In contrast to U.S. history, full of illustrious and upright personages performing deeds notable for their nobility, Haitian history is replete with atrocities: one history of the country is aptly named "Written in Blood". The book is a blood-chilling recounting of massacres, tortures, treasons, murders, assassinations, and other crimes against humanity, as often perpetrated by Haitians upon their own people as by the Colonial power on the Haitians.
As an example, during colonial times the planter Jean-Baptiste de Caradeux was reputed to entertain his guests by seeing who could knock an orange off a slave's head with a pistol shot at 30 paces. The atrocities get no less breath-taking with the passage of time: Jean-Claude Duvalier (the notorious "Baby Doc"), former dictator of Haiti, reputedly sacrificed two male newborns obtained from a local hospital. This occurred in 1986, as he was leaving Haiti for luxurious exile in France. The sacrifice was part of a Vodou ceremony to curse the person (then unknown) who would take the reigns of power from him.
While we were in Ranquitte, a woman died at the clinic in the presence of me and my wife (who was working at the campus clinic): the woman most likely died of hypertension (she was on medication for high blood pressure, and had a BP of 200/120 when we last took it). In spite of the evidence, four people were accused of having "killed" her, and the family of the deceased woman went looking for the accused. A day after M. Coyo's death, the wife of one of the accused was hacked to death by a machete-wielding gang of thugs, paid to hunt down the husband.