Concerning “International Donors’ Conference at the UN: For $ 10 billion of promises, Haiti surrenders its sovereignty” (April 7, 2010):

It seems incredible to me that after more than two centuries of nonstop struggle to get back and hold onto their freedom and independence, the bedrock of sovereignty, that, presto, after a meeting is called which is chaired by the man [Bill Clinton] who did the most to destroy the nation’s agriculture, some money is promised (who knows how much will be delivered), and then, willy-nilly, Haitian freedom-fi ghters are going to say, “Everything’s OK now, so let’s give up the struggle.”

Sorry, but one day in Haiti, on May 20, 1967, fi lled me with enough vivid and stark images to realize that a people more heroic and stronger than Haitians could not be imagined. That was the day that an exile group sent a plane to bomb the National Palace. The passenger plane I was on landed a few hours later in Haiti. I had just seen the movie version of Graham Greene’s book, “The Comedians” and, guess what, that’s right, before me as I climbed down the stairs, there was the same offi cial greeter [Aubelin Jolicoeur, the inspiration for Greene’s Petit Pierre] whom I’d seen in that movie, white suit, cane & all. Then, I was assigned a hotel (there were single digit numbers of tourists back then, too grim even for tourists). Arriving at the hotel [the Oloffson], again, that déjà vu feeling, and I found myself looking over to the right to see if there was a swimming pool there; and there was because, indeed, it was the same pool featured in the movie (without any bodies fl oating in it, however).

At any rate that was the beginning of a day so loaded with startling sights and experiences (for a Californian, that is) that they remain almost as vivid now as way back then. To me the question isn’t whether Haitians will give up the struggle. It’s how can the outside world help their never-ending liberation struggle? The answer, of course, is to stop outsiders from colonizing Haiti for the umptyumpth time.

In appreciation, Jack Kent