The anthem by Trinidad's David Rudder -- Haiti, I'm sorry -- aptly sums up the feeling of the entire human race as befuddled Haiti yesterday experienced yet another major quake.

For those who have followed developments in Haiti, here indeed is a country whose untold misery of today so dramatically belies the glory of their beginning.

The embarrassment of losing Haiti to a slave revolt over 200 years ago has haunted the French and remained a dark cloud over that Caribbean country from that moment on. The sordid intervention of the United States in subsequent years ensured that Haiti could never rise but for a few brief moments.

After Haitians rose up in the mid-1980s and threw out dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, better known as "Baby Doc", after his father François "Papa Doc" Duvalier -- president-for-life before him -- Haiti never really became a nation at peace with itself.

Try as he did, and as popular as he was, Roman Catholic Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide could not convince the better-off classes of Haiti that his Fanmi Lavalas movement was anything more than a tool for redistributing their resources to the teeming masses of the sprawling slums like Cite Soleil.

With the violence and disorder for which it has become known, Haiti became a pariah in the community of nations. But the world has watched its evolution with quiet anger and sympathy.

We believe that as dreadful and as horrifying as the situation in Haiti now is, following that devastating series of earth tremors, out of adversity has come an unprecedented opportunity. Haiti can now put the past behind and rebuild.

The massive response of the human family to the devastation has palpably demonstrated the enormous goodwill and empathy that Haiti and Haitians enjoy.

Importantly, the approach by the United States and France have clearly signalled their own willingness to start over with Haiti. US president, Mr Barack Obama took the lead in offering substantial aid to Haiti in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake last week Tuesday.

This was important, we believe, because it acted as a catalyst to the rest of the world, in that it said it was okay for those who had avoided Haiti in times of conflict to move in. And the world has moved in.

France, we gather from news reports, has offered to forgive Haiti's debts. This is critical, because it is widely held that the French were the original architects of Haiti's grinding poverty, for demanding a high percentage of its annual budget as reparation for losses suffered during the slave takeover of French-ruled Haiti.

That would have been a blot on a nation that is justly regarded as having one of the best foreign policy reputations.

And it would be nothing short of historic justice that the US and France should lead the rebuilding of a country they can't escape responsibility for helping to sink into the mire it has.

We agree with Digicel that what is needed now for Haiti is akin to the 1947 American Marshall Plan that so powerfully rebuilt devastated Europe after World War II.

It is also pleasing to note Jamaica's own attempts to help Haiti at this time, for the ties that bind the two countries have been long and abiding.

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