Actually, the hurricanes are more of a drop in the bucket, so to speak, given how many people died because of the Aristide troubles or the previous dictator - one method used by several political leaders in the past years in Haiti, in order to better stay in power, was to arm gangs which were left to roam the cities at free will. If people are kidnapped for ransom, hands and feets hacked off, kidnapped and tortured to death, nobody will go outside, which isn’t good.
When at the start of the year, food prices rose all over the 3rd world, Haiti was among those hit hardest, because of earlier globalisation: In the 80s, Haiti bought food cheaper overseas than from its own farmers, which lead to ruin of local farmers (and no steps being taken by a corrupt government to educate farmers in the most efficient, self-sufficient, long-term, nutritiouts and complimenting agriculture methods). So when prices of the imported food suddenly rose, they couldn’t switch over night to being self-sufficient; instead, the poor people had to go hungry.
(Three guesses as to who profited most from this switch from domestic produced food to imported food, and who therefore put pressure on the government? Yes, the capitalists in the 1st world countries).
Haiti is poor and will stay poor (the prospects look bleak, because a whole generation is about to be lost, due to lack of food and education, and the violence on the street), because the violent corrupt politicans are propped up by foreign powers to serve those interests instead of helping the people of Haiti to grow strong.
The Dominican Republic has a better government, interested in developing the country, and the effects are striking (not that the DR is rich by our standards.) But in Haiti, forests are being chopped down everywhere because people need wood now to sell for a few cents to maybe buy some food because when their children are starving in front of their eyes, a parent doesn’T care any more about what happens tomorrow, only what he can do today. DR attracts a lot of tourists (even though most of the money for those cheap resort ghettos goes elsewhere, it’s still an income and employment for the economy. In Haiti, with armed, vicious gangs running wild out of political reasons, foreigners are warned off., and even natives try to stay off the streets. And so on.
A solution isn’t in sight as long as enough people with influence profit from this state, while the rest doesn’t care - there are many poor fucked up countries, many failing states; real nation-building or serious help takes a long commitment (20 years is the usual estimate - one generation) both in personnel, resources and money; there is no oil there, and no threat from nuclear weapons, so nobody important will act.
The politically correct crowd haven’t helped either but then I sorta think their heart is at least in the right place. There’s a lot more to the human story than a high IQ or the ability to make money, and neither of those two things are at the top of my personal list in qualities I look for in a friend.