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#3171: Letter to the editor: A response
From:Jepiem@aol.com
I would consider this only a temporary measure which would not really solve
the problem in the long run. As you make space for more people, more people
would be produced through the simple process of reproduction. Twenty years
from now we would be facing the same problem. Programs should be oriented
towards:
a) Raising the standard of living of the existing population. First throw
out the politicians and don't let them get access to any of the aid money.
Develop roads, industries for export, ease the restrictions to encourage the
influx of foreign investment capital, bring in expertise to develop and
supervise programs, clean up the general mess of unnegotiable traffic and
horrible pollution, reclaim all the stolen state lands from those that
appropriated them under previous governments and make them into cooperative
land to foster agriculture so that the country can again become self
sufficient as far as food production, and, in the same light develop programs
to encourage agriculture.etc.......
b) educate the population in the necessity and the wisdom of birth control.
Before this can be done, birth control has to effectively become an
attractive alternative to thoughtless sex followed by unplanned reproduction.
Haiti of course has a long way to go before anyone can even consider such
programs in the whole. May be it will never get there, but if foreigners want
to really help this is the kind of thinking they should be armed with instead
of patch up immediate results kinds of measures. Haiti did not get into this
ugly mess in one day or one year. It will take time, patience and
perseverance to pull it out of it and that will require Haitians in Haiti and
abroad as well as foreign help that are truly committed.