MAY strength, mercy and grace from Yahweh flow to Haiti as its citizens mourn the deaths of loved ones, minister to the injured, help the homeless and undertake general recovery from the 7.0 earthquake that struck Port-au-Prince at about 4:53 pm on January 12. At the time of writing, destruction and casualties were still being assessed, but coming so soon after the 2008 season when four hurricanes demolished Jamaica’s Caribbean neighbour, killing 800 people, the earthquake of January 12 was a “catastrophe of enormous proportions”, to quote Raymond Alcide Joseph, Haitian ambassador to the US.

Add to that the 2004 destruction of Gonaives in Haiti by Hurricane Jeanne which killed 3000 people, some 60 per cent of that city’s populace, and the tribulation in Haiti will fall into perspective. Some Jamaicans who viewed newscasts and web streams with this writer shed tears for Haiti, especially when observing raw video footage of trapped, bleeding and dead people lying in the streets, while others attempted rescue amidst screams for help and from distress. Reports that the earthquake caused significant tremors in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica remind Caribbean residents that they are all together in this crisis. Furthermore, Jamaicans, living just 296 miles west of Haitians and sharing some common historical and current experiences, feel the pains of their Haitian brothers and sisters in a very special way.

Reports that Prime Minister Bruce Golding had directed that help be sent to Haiti were welcomed along with other gestures of kindness from the Opposition, the private sector and ordinary Jamaicans. Praises also go to the US, Canada and other countries which immediately pledged and mobilised relief efforts to Port-au-Prince. State Secretary Hillary Clinton was reassuring and generous in her speech promising assistance, as was Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, and other world leaders. Wyclef Jean and other Haitian-born celebrities were swift in their rallying of Haitian diaspora members to send assistance to their beleaguered home country. As Haitians joined hands, sang hymns and prayed on Tuesday, January 10, many Jamaicans joined them in prayer and will continue to pray for them. Faith in God is prevalent in both countries, despite Haiti’s preferences for voodoo and Catholicism while Jamaicans choose Seventh-Day Adventism and other Protestant beliefs. Jamaicans have not abandoned the spiritual practices of their African ancestors memorialised in obeah, pocomania, and other rituals, just as Haitians preserve Loua beliefs. In this time of disaster, all beliefs in God should become one as both countries join hands and hearts to bring swift deliverance to Haiti, with God’s help.

News of Haiti’s demolition came as this writer pondered the significance of Tuesday’s date while recalling author Jim Marr’s disclosures in The Fourth Reich that leaders of the New World Order agenda had planned for massive death and destruction this 21st century to strike people of colour globally, including Latin America and the Caribbean. Why were most US media outlets highlighting “most impoverished country in the hemisphere” and CNN flashing continuously that “Haiti is 95 per cent black?” Just minutes after news of the earthquake broke, there were websites asking whether or not the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Programme (HAARP) US military outfit in Alaska played a part in the Haitian killer quake. The question is valid, given the current occupation of Haiti by foreign forces, the 2004 kidnapping and extradition of its legitimately elected president Jean Bertrand Aristide, and other historical invasions, destabilisation and devastation of Haiti by foreign entities. Jamaica has suffered similar foreign interferences and has for 30 years suffered under the hemisphere’s and at times the world’s highest murder rate.

As Haitians and Jamaicans suffer together, they must also unite to achieve deliverance, recalling that the Jamaican-born Haitian named Dutty Boukman led the 1791 slave revolt against France in Saint-Domingue, successfully concluded by Toussaint L’Ouverture in 1803, to make the Haitian revolution the only successful slave revolt in world history. Consequently, both countries continue to suffer economic and socio-political subterfuge from their former slave drivers and must stick together in pushing back drugs, gangs, capitalistic commercialism, racial divisiveness, religious deception and the many other devious devices used to oppress both nations. Economic slavery and social disruptions are now crying out for another revolution to free Haiti, Jamaica, the rest of the Caribbean and so-called Third-World nations from 21st century Euro-American oppression. The similarities between Haiti and Jamaica are numerous and many of them were admirably expounded in a 2006 document originating in Canada named, “Jamaica, Haiti, Diasporas and Peace Building – For A University of Peace Conference On Diaspora And Security” (www.upeacecanada.org/documents/jamaicahaitidiaspora.pdf) which designated Haiti and Jamaica as small island developing states (SIDS). Let the citizens of both nations pray daily for Jamaica and Haiti and work together, even more closely amidst the lingering miseries of the earthquake’s aftermath, to solve the current crises. “Pour le Pays/Pour la Patrie/Marchons unis…/Pour les Aieux/Pour la Patrie/O Dieu des Preux/O Dieu des Preux/Sous ta garde infinie/Prends nos droits, notre vie.” God bless Haiti.

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