What a shame that it has taken a killer earthquake to shock the world into sympathy for the pitiful plight of the people of Haiti. Descendants of former slaves who fought for and bought their independence from France in the early 19th century, they have been plagued ever since by one catastrophe after another.

Natural disasters like hurricanes have always regularly wreaked havoc on their lives and livelihoods. But the worst devastation they have suffered has been entirely man-made, imposed on them at the point of the gun or machete by some of the most criminal and corrupt ruling regimes on the planet.