Of all the ways to describe televangelist Pat Robertson's wickedly callous superstition that Haiti's earthquake is payback for an 18th-century "pact with the devil" to overthrow Napoleon's army in the world's first slave revolution, one of the most charitable is that it is not the whole story.

Haiti does seem impossibly blighted by man and nature. But unlike other humanitarian disaster zones in, say, sub-Saharan Africa, where all countries share the same problems, Haiti's despair seems unique, and more striking because it shares a small island with the Dominican Republic, one of the more stable, wealthy and tourist-friendly countries in the Caribbean.

"The question that all visitors to Haiti ask themselves is whether there is any hope for the country, and the usual answer is 'no,'" the Pulitzer Prize-winning geographer Jared Diamond wrote. For the sympathetic outsider today, disinclined to pin the blame on Satan and change the channel, there are more questions, and answers, that involve everything from the African slave trade to New World colonialism, from sugar farming to professional baseball.


Q Why has the Dominican Republic thrived, with 5 times the per capita income of its neighbour, while Haiti languishes?

A In his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Prof. Diamond devotes a chapter to this question. He identifies some environmental differences that contribute, such as the prevailing winds from the Atlantic that drop rain on the broad valleys and thick soils of Dominican Republic, then dry up as they cross the mountains to Haiti.

But he also gives a fair share of credit to the post-colonial dictators: In the Dominican Republic, Rafael Trujillo tried to develop an industrial economy to enrich himself and his cronies, while in Haiti, Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier did not. It was a historically crucial difference that seems to "mirror their different societies."

The stereotype today is that the Spanish-speaking, lighter-skinned Hispanic population of the Dominican Republic has been more closely allied to Europe, more hospitable to immigration and open to Western markets, in contrast to the Creolespeaking, predominantly black African population of Haiti.

"Most of the explanation has ... to do with differences between the two peoples in their histories, attitudes, self-defined identity, and institutions, as well as between their recent leaders of government," Prof. Diamond wrote.

"For anyone inclined to caricature environmental history as 'environmental determinism,' the contrasting histories of the Dominican Republic and Haiti provide a useful antidote."


Q Were Haiti and the Dominican Republic ever the same country?

A When Christopher Columbus made his first New World landfall on what came to be called Hispaniola, the island was already home to a half-dozen chiefdoms of Taino Indians, who spoke an Arawakan language that traces to South America. They were nearly wiped out by disease and forced labour in Spanish-run gold mines, and over time assimilated with the Spanish colonists and the African slaves that were brought to work plantations.

Distracted by greater booty in South America, Spain started to lose interest in Hispaniola in the late 18th century, just as the French had established a port on the western coast at Port-au-Prince, and were importing hundreds of thousands of African slaves. Even today, Haiti has one-third of the land, but the population is about equal at nine million each, with more than 10% of the Dominican Republic's population made up of an underclass of mostly undocumented Haitians.

France briefly united the country in 1795, when Spain abandoned it, but within a decade, a slave rebellion would repel a French force to create the first post-slavery nation ruled by blacks. The former Spanish colony in the east briefly tried to rejoin the Spanish empire, but Spain had other priorities, and the future Dominican Republic remained vulnerable to repeated Haitian land grabs.

The effect in Haiti of the French withdrawal was that the white European population was either driven out or murdered, and a landscape ravaged by French sugar plantations was carved up and given back to the people in little parcels. As Prof. Diamond tells it, "that was what the former slaves wanted ... [but] it proved in the long run disastrous for Haiti's agricultural productivity, exports and economy."


Q What are the economies of the countries like?

A The Dominican Republic has cornered a good chunk of the global avocado market, in which it is the third-largest producer. Likewise baseball players, including many from the glory days of the Toronto Blue Jays. But the Dominican Republic also produces coffee, cacao, tobacco, cigars and fresh flowers, and it has infrastructure for mining, telecommunications and hydro dams, to say nothing of a bustling tourist resort economy.

Its economic growth has mirrored the decline of state involvement in sugar production, which was vulnerable to price collapses, in favour of more stable mining, manufacturing or industrial investment.

Haiti produces some coffee and sugar, but few other export crops. It has free trade zones that employ 20,000 or so in low-wage manufacturing jobs, and there are a few coastal vacation spots. Wood charcoal is the main cooking fuel, and what forests remain are stripped for supply. Hydro-electric power has become a near impossibility because of destroyed watersheds.


Q Which country has had the most coups?

A It is hard to say, because both are world leaders in this category. Between 1844 and 1915 in Haiti, only one of 22 presidents was neither assassinated nor forced out of office. Between 1844 and 1930 in the Dominican Republic, there were 50 presidents and 30 revolutions.


Q Does anyone immigrate to these places?

A Openness to foreigners is a major division between the histories of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Post-revolutionary Haiti was essentially closed to foreigners, with laws against them owning land or industrial means of production, and a Creole language that derives from French but is not spoken anywhere else. Even after American occupation of the island in the early 20th century gave way to home-grown dictatorship, this ethos was common both on the island and in the potential immigrant pools around the world.

The Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic, however, needed people for its economic growth, and welcomed immigration that began in the 1800s with Arabs and Koreans coming to work as labourers and merchants, followed by Chinese who, as elsewhere, came to mine and build railroads. More recently, Japanese have come and found work in business centres. Other significant groups include post-war European Jews, Palestinians, Germans, Italians, Cubans and Puerto Ricans.

if it means anything, most haitians dont know how to cultivate the land. their main resource used to be cutting down trees

Pretty much. The Dominican Republic has resources and a historically healthy agricultural industry. Haiti destroyed most of their cultivatable land

I have a friend who used to manage about 30 haitians in a farm and I was shocked when he told me he had to teach agriculture to all of them from scratch (how to plant a seed, how to plough the land, etc)

Haiti serves Satan for 200 years - official religion is voodo - based on fear! The DR has Christianity as the main religion. I guess Satan promises a lot but pays little.

The other reasons have to do with race. You might even get kicked off of this forum for stating what we all know is true.

the gems keep flowing

The other reasons have to do with race. You might even get kicked off of this forum for stating what we all know is true.

number me amongthose who do not know the truth about race, and enlighten me, please. i will not address your religious reasons, because i do not suffer fools gladly. but, i would love to hear what YOU think race has to do with this issue

the gems keep flowing

The other reasons have to do with race. You might even get kicked off of this forum for stating what we all know is true.

number me amongthose who do not know the truth about race, and enlighten me, please. i will not address your religious reasons, because i do not suffer fools gladly. but, i would love to hear what YOU think race has to do with this issue

for Greenpeace, the resident genius

The Roman Catholic Church in Haiti is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope, the curia in Rome and the Conference of Haitian Bishops.

There are over 10.5 million Catholics in Haiti - about 80% of the total population. There are nine dioceses including two archdioceses.

oh, i forgot. you religious evangelist types do not consider Roman Catholics to be Christians. sorry.

1. The RC church does not ask people to give up there Voodoo beliefs - if your were educated you would know this. They are allowed to practice both.
2. Most RC Christians in Haiti are nominal - go look that word up - and maybe 10-15% actually go every week. Whereas 90% of Haitians still have some belief in and practice of Voodoo.
3. Voodoo is their official national religion as documented and as declared by their gov.
4. Check out the Voodoo pig statue in front of their gov. building. Remember 200 years ago they sacrificed a pig and drank it's blood and promised Haiti to Satan.

You try to come across as educated. Why do you not know these things?