Failure In Haiti

Haiti: Led To Failure? State failure is viewed as the partial or full collapse of state authority where matters such as revolutionary wars, genocides, and constant regime transitions seemingly occur (King & Zeng pp. 623-625). The world has been witness to failing states throughout history and the vast majority of times this witness is of third world countries who lack adequate resources. A state that has been on alert as failing is that of Haiti. Amy Potter (pp. 208-230) discusses how though Haiti is indeed failing, that all failure is not due on their part and has had a helping hand from interfering governments. Third world countries often become susceptible to the power of states who are developed and in many cases do not improve though

Media coverage is spouting that Haiti is a country of “violence”, “AIDS ridden” and ran by “blood”, stating that all believe in the religion of voodoo, and that creatures like mermaids and zombies are alive and among them (Potter, p. 224). In reality, Haiti is 33rd when it comes to being infected by AIDS (CIA Factbook) when a country like Zimbabwe is 4th (CIA Factbook) and is estimated that 2500 a week are dying due to this (Maclean, p. 513). At such a high placing for AIDS, there is not as much media viewing Zimbabwe under a telescope as it seems they are doing to Haiti. When introducing the violence factor, a large degree of it was brought to hand by other countries using Haiti for its own personal gain. In 2004, President Aristide was in threat to be deposed for a second time, the first being in the 1990s, by the military coup who were involved in the drug trade in which the president disagreed with harshly (Potter, pp. 220, 226). Whereas the belief was that all of Haiti was at fault, truly the reestablished military wanting power seems to be the culprit. The government in power could not control its military showing much variation from a leader who is causing conflict, such as Mugabe, who utilized the military regime to remain in power (Maclean, pp. 519-520). It was Haiti’s military who served as a puppet for the United States to put into power who they deemed fit. With no surprise, the United States slowly responded to Aristides’s call for help and in fact some of the military involved in the drug trade were being paid by the CIA (Potter, pp. 220, 226). Lastly, the voodoo factor is where many get the belief that Haiti is ran by blood due to voodoo sacrifices (in most cases on animals) (Potter, p. 224), where Zimbabwe is known for the futile blood diamond conflicts (Maclean, p. 516). In this light, being “ran by blood” is a stretch for media who is only searching for elements to