Why Haiti must address its policies on private land ownership

Agent-x - July 4 2012, 5:44 PM

According to emergingfrontiersblog-com on 27 June 2012,Reposted from the Caribbean Journal, Written by Ilio Durandis, What was a crisis before the earthquake in Haiti is shaping up to be an omnipotent disaster for the reconstruction effort.

Establishing legal land ownership anywhere in the world can be a difficult task, but in Haiti, not only is it a very agonizing process, but, at times, it can even be deadly.

Using the lessons of Haitian history, for many politicians, land reform policies are not be considered.

It is suicidal for the career of most politicians to talk about agrarian reform.

The affinity of the Haitian population to their land remains one of the few traits inherited from colonial era. For the peasants, the land is their savings account.

For those in big cities, land ownership is a sign of prestige and wealth.

However, not everyone who claims to be a land owner can legally prove their ownership.

A stalemate is slowly brewing, as countless volumes of documents were lost at the land title registrar building in Haiti right after the earthquake in January 2010. At present, it is a very complicated matter to prove rightful ownership to a piece of land in Haiti.

It is even more problematic to do so with squatters and trespassers living and building on one

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