Haitian fact of the day

Mr. Charles must also rebuild a force corrupted by Colombian drug traffickers, who pay millions of dollars a year to Haitian officials to ship cocaine through Haiti to the United States, the State Department says.

The United States government estimates that the value of bribes paid in Haiti by cocaine kingpins is nearly three times the government's spending on police, courts and justice, and that nearly a quarter of the Colombian cocaine reaching the United States flows through Haiti — almost 80 tons a year [emphasis added].

Here is the full story.

And by the way:

Haiti has seen 15 governments and army juntas in the past 18 years. Throughout those years, even under Mr. Aristide, who was democratically elected, "a small economic elite has supported a predatory state" shored up by "pervasive repression through army, police and paramilitary groups," the World Bank said in a 2002 study.

Here is my earlier public choice account of Haiti.