Bodies are being buried in mass graves in Haiti. What were until recently mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers have lost their identities as human beings and are not even being accorded the dignity of a decent funeral.

Many orphans have been created, many parents made childless, and many persons, including Haiti’s President, have been made homeless.

The world is responding with help, which may be ameliorative in a short-term way, but which certainly cannot suffice to rescue that nation from further deterioration of its socio-economic dynamics.

This land of Toussaint L’Ouverture, the heroic figure of Haiti’s freedom struggle, has been devastated to the extent that even the resilient Haitian people, who have endured a series of devastating hurricanes and a long history of violence and instability, would be hard set to recover from, because the earthquake and its aftershocks of last Tuesday have been of a magnitude that few countries, rich or poor, would be able to survive.

Previously condemned as a failed state, Haiti’s government has embarked on economic reforms, efforts to stamp out corruption and improve conditions for the 80 percent of Haitians who live in poverty, and thus slowly won the confidence of donors and investors, especially since former U.S. President Bill Clinton personally took up Haiti’s cause, becoming a U.N. special envoy and visiting the country several times to showcase its potential to donors and investors.

The Government has been investing heavily into infrastructure and social programmes after the IMF and World Bank cancelled $1.2 billion in Haiti’s debt, which freed up funds for developmental works in the country.

Haiti has slowly but surely, under the stewardship of President Rene Preval, been climbing out of its morass of grinding poverty to rise, only to crash last Tuesday under the massive onslaught of a 7.0-magnitude earthquake.

Haiti’s compromised building codes, which resulted in building specifications being severely deficit and deficient, causing structures to collapse like houses made of cards, should be a lesson for societies and countries, because those culpable are mass murderers.

The history of Haiti is replete with revolutionary leaders, beginning with Toussaint L’Ouverture. But while Toussaint fought for his people’s freedom, the Duvaliers, especially “Papa Doc”, and other leaders drained their people and their nation dry of resources and goodwill, leaving severe dislocations in their wake.

However, a land and a people that could give birth to a Toussaint L’Ouverture would always be hallmarked with courage and dignity, and the Haitian nation would emerge from this catastrophe stronger and with greater support in the international arena.

Hands of friendship are being extended today to Rene Preval and his people. Haitians will endure and one day, hopefully in the not-too-distant future, they will prevail over all their adversities and calamities.