The earthquake in the small nation of Haiti in January this year may have been one of the worst human tragedies in the human history. The news reports and wide coverage by the electronic media have detailed the catastrophe in its minutest form. To This poor impoverished nation, Mother Nature could not have been less cruel. Looking at the magnitude of the loss of human lives , an estimated 2,00,000 people perished in this devastating earthquake, which may rank very high in the list of this catastrophic natural phenomenon. This massive earthquake has brought this nation into focus of international attention for another reason which the role of its big neighbour USA played so far in keeping this nation in abject poverty and perpetual state of underdevelopment. Haiti was a colony of the United States and in the subsequent years in its bid to retain its hold, it embarked upon a policy of promoting unpopular, selfish and corrupt dictatorship from time to time who have been notorious in hogging all the international economic aid and assistance and keeping them in their private accounts.

The misrule for decades together has added to the misery and sufferings of the Haitians who are denied the very basics in their daily lives. The orphanages which are inhumanly crowded and miserable, have children who have dumped by their parents because they are too poor to provide support and sustenance to these children. The USA can not absolve itself for creating this absolutely deplorable social condition which is characterized by complete absence of infrastructural facilities which has appalled even the international volunteers. The hospitals in the country were reported to be lacking even in rudimentary facilities. There were heart-rending scenes of thousands of hungry Haitians looting food and whatever the could lay their hands on.

It is time that the USA revisits it policies towards this small nation. It pontificates on the virtues of democracy to the world and feels proud of it democratic institutions in it own land but what it practices in relation to other countries is nothing but a mockery of democracy. Let the Haitian elect their own government and be the master of their own fate!