I agree with a lot of that.. certainly the political class is corrupt and the state there has always been predatory. I think that the aid addiction was also CREATED by the donors, no? Duvalier would not have stayed in power were it not for foreign aid The US has invaded and occupied Haiti twice.. so they (we) bear some of the blame for the state of things, no? Just that there are shades of grey and lots of blame to go around just a bit harsh to blame the victims. And I disagree about the influence of the slave trade.. that it was just a bad patch.. I think that the mentality of slave and owner has never really been overcome in Haiti... that the upper class regards the peasantry as really just that... sorta like a family with a history of abuse where there has been no intervention to straighten it out and so the pattern just keeps repeating