Why not relocate to Port-au-Prince instead?
The long neglected nation of Haiti is finally the focus of the world’s attention, even if a 7.0 magnitude earthquake is in tight competition with ten centimetres of snowfall for UK headlines. I’ve just heard a prominent Republican advocating turning Haiti into a UN protectorate on a BBC World Service Newshour special on the country’s humanitarian needs. The idea of establishing Haiti as a UN protectorate has been circulating for some time, but the notion of revoking the hard-fought independence of the first truly postcolonial country is naturally tainted. The fear is that otherwise crisis led pledges will last only as long as the attention of the news media. But for all the gestures of support donned by the international community, one genuine remedy is yet to be prescribed; the relocation of United Nations’ headquarters from uptown New York to the ruins of Port-au-Prince. Such a move would, without impinging Haitian sovereignty jealously guarded since independence, signal the necessar
