Page Twelve
TH" SUMMER DAILY
Friday; June 1, 1973
GOVERNMENT 'NEEDS HELP'
Haiti still gripped by poverty
By WILLIAIM NICHOLSON
PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti <' - Nicola
Timers, who is in her 40s, spends her
days selling peanuts on Harry Truman
Boulevard in Port au Prince. For this
Nicola makes about $10 a month, which
is more than many of her countrymen
earn.
That's why hundreds of peasants from
the interior jam the buses leading to
the capital, hoping to get one of the $I-
a-day jobs in the new factories. But not
many jobs are to be had, and unemploy-
ment hovers at 30 per cent.
DESPITE the economic spurt it has
been experiencing, Haiti remains one of
the poorest nations in the Western Hemi-
sphere with a per capita income of $80
a year. The per capita income in the
United States last year was $4,480.
Most of the residents of Port au Prince
live in squalor, inhabiting wooden shacks
dotting rocky paths that flood during
the rainy season.
The political tension in Haiti relaxed
with the death in 1971 of its president,
"Papa Doc" Duvalier. After Duvalier's
21-year-old son, Jean-Claud, took over,
the reins, the climate improved. Haiti at-
tracted new in-estment and more tour-
ists.
But the capital also kept attracting
peasants, doubling the population in the
past two decades.
"PORT AU PRINCE is now a very
-ter 10020 40 60 80 100
- ~HIS A IOL -. Cp d Mle, Hat is apptnsne sixtytrie WSW of tuba.
{HISP AIOLA mt -MM M
large slum," said Hubert de Ronceray, with potholes that many are nearly im- with clay walls. They grow sisal plants
director of the Haitian Center for Re- passable. A few hundred feet from these used 'to produce fiber for rope and
search in Social Sciences. It is a slum roads, the Haitian peasants seek to wrest twine. They also produce bananas, bread-
of half a million people. a living from the small plots of soil left fruit and other fruits and vegetables.
"The government needs help," said de to them by their fathers and their grand- Many peasant children suffer from mal-
Ronceray. "It just can't handle this it- fathers. Nearly 90 per cent of Haiti's five nutrition in Haiti where the life expect-
self. It needs the help of local industry million people live in the interior, which ancy is about 47 years.
,,o has felt little or nothing of the economic The religion of Haiti is a combination
and international organizations. spurt that has been going on. of Roman Catholic faith and the voodoo
Only a few miles outside Port au Prince beliefs of their ancestors. Protestantism
in any direction the roads are so scarred THE PEASANTS live in two-room huts is making some gains.
Be careful with fire.
Remember: there are babes
in the woods.
And those baby fawns. rabbits, follow all the rules of safety and
squirrels and trees need a safe happy caution -just like any other place where
home. They need a place where they can there are children at play.
grow up strong and healthe.
Like babes everywhere.
So, please, be careful with fire when :-:)
you re in the forest.
Accused mass murderer got
'thank you' note from Nixon
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (UPI) - Accused mass murderer Edmund
Kemper III, has received :a "Thank you" note from President Nixon
for volunteer work in the 1972 campaign.
Kemper, after his arraignment in Superior Court on eight counts
of murder, startled newsmen Wednesday when he showed them the
form letter on White House stationery. The letter expressed "deep
appreciation" for his work and was signed with the President's
mimeographed signature.
THE 6-FOOT-9 SUSPECT told sheriff's deputies, however, that he
switched his registration from Republican to Democrat and voted for
Sen. George McGovern.
The note had been forwarded from Kemper's former residence
in nearby Aptos to the County Jail.
Kemper was accused of killing his mother, her best friend and
six college coeds. He had served time in a m'ntal institution for
slaying his maternal grandparents.
R.C. SUMMER THEATRE Presents
The Banana From Outer Space
an original musical comedy
JUNE 20-23 EIGHT P.M.
East Quad Auditorium
Admission $1.00
MAJOR EVENTS COMMITTEE
EASTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY
PRESENTS:
SAVOY BROWN
MANFRED MANN
Siegel-Schwall Bond -
Dr. Hook & The Medicine Co.
SAT., JUNE 9-4 P.M.
EMU Campus-Rynearson Stadium
$5 advanced $6 at the door (gen. adm.)
TICKETS AT: McKenny Union
Ann Arbor Music Mart
Huckleberry Party Store
All Hudson's and Grinnells