The ONE campaign has started a debt cancellation petition addressed to the US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. I know many of you have been supportive of the Jubilee Movement in Africa and understand the role of debt incurring international loans, not project specific grants for development.
Haiti's financial and ecological debt serve its greatest challenge in the years ahead. As millions of dollars in relief pour into Haiti in the coming weeks and months debt cancellation is an option that should be explored as part of aid packages to chart a long-term vision for Haiti's future.
Authors Jared Diamond in "Collapse" and Tracy Kidder in "Mountain beyond Mountains" present excellent biographies of Hiati's political and ecological history. Haiti's current state is strongly tied to its exhausted resource base as a result of colonization by the French, strong private property rights based on subsistance farming and corrupt political dictatorships in recent decades.
A new course for Haiti's recovery should be supportive of programs that address the link between sustainable resource management, human health and well-being. There are a number of organizations working on these fronts such as Partners in Health, TREES for the Future, Oxfam International and the United Nations Development Programme.
I am constantly reminded of Wangari Mathai's quote from above, "Suppressed, hungry and poverty stricken people are not concerned by environmental degradation even though they are the first victims of environmental degradation." The people of Haiti live in constant recognition of this truth in their daily struggle for survival. International response to alleviate the short term suffering of natural disasters while meeting long term goals to develop, improve governance, political stability, and meet basic human rights (food, education, sanitation) serve the greatest challenge of this new decade. Haiti is long overdue for such a concerted international response. How will we respond?
