Chris Dodd: “The matter that I wish to address regards the nation of Haiti, a tragedy that is unfolding a short distance from our own…”

“The matter that I wish to address regards the nation of Haiti, a tragedy that is unfolding a short distance from our own shores, literally only 90 or 100 miles away from the coast of the United States. As yesterday's New York Times article entitled ``Eight Years After Invasion, Haiti's Squalor Worsens,'' written by David Gonzalez, makes abundantly clear, the people of Haiti in that article, as we know, are on the verge of despair. Sonia Jean-Pierre's life is one of apocalyptic misery. With hardly any food or work, her only refuge is a concrete cell. The searing sun is blotted out by cardboard pasted over the windows. On the wall by her bed, she has scrawled, ``Jesus Christ is coming soon,'' like a promise of salvation to greet her every morning. Ms. Jean-Pierre and hundreds of neighbors live as squatters inside the old Fort Dimanche Prison once the brutally efficient killing chamber of the Duvalier dictatorships. A prison no longer, it has been renamed, hopefully, Village Democratie.”