Haitian Corruption

After viewing The Agronomist this week in class, I was interested to learn more about the country of Haiti. I found The Haitian Times online and perused all of the articles. There were editorials commenting on Chavez's Venezuela, the new immigration laws and fees of the United States, and an article about a former New York police officer that covered up the torture of a Haitian man. All of these provided an interesting and alternative viewpoint than the one generated by the media of the United States. The article about the police officer really struck me because it blatantly shows that racism against Haitians is still a very large problem. One other article I read was about Socabank. This was Haiti's third largest private bank. It is in the news because the bank stole its clients money and would not pay them back. This story becomes even more interesting because the Federal bank of Haiti stole money from the Socabank just as the Socabank stole from its customers. It is practically a cycle of corruption. I think this illustrates a common problem facing many countries in Latin America, the tendency for corruption. This article ends by stating that the government needs to regulate the private banks and prevent them from committing corrupt actions. With the removal of corruption, more money and time can be put towards development in Haiti. Here is the link to the article: