Word: chiles
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...Both Chile and Haiti sit atop large, volatile fault lines. In recent decades, Chile has mandated earthquake-proofing for new structures, requiring that materials like rubber and features like counterweights be built into the architectural designs to allow buildings to bend and sway rather than break during temblors. Haiti, by contrast, lets its buildings rise with little if any input from engineers and plenty of bribes to so-called government inspectors. Structures have scant reinforcement and are often set on weak foundations. That's why 13 of 15 federal ministry buildings pancaked in the Jan. 12 earthquake...
...Chile quake provides all the more reason to demand that, in return for billions of dollars in aid, Haiti must agree to terms that will force it to improve its abysmal governance. "The Chilean example will encourage donors to make the case that this is an opportunity to do things differently in Haiti - and do them right for a change," says Michael Shifter, vice president at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington...
...fair, Haiti has had far less experience with earthquakes, and therefore earthquake preparedness, than Chile has. (Before Jan. 12, the last major quake to hit Port-au-Prince was in 1751.) There will, of course, be the apologists who insist it's unfair to compare a basket case like Haiti, the western hemisphere's poorest country, with a showcase like Chile, which has Latin America's highest per capita GDP and is set to become the first South American member of the exclusive, Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Chile can do things right, Haiti defenders argue...
Wrong. It's the other way around: Chile is more developed because it's doing things right. The same goes for Brazil, Uruguay, Costa Rica and a handful of other Latin American and Caribbean nations that have decided in the 21st century to stop running their societies like medieval fiefdoms. They've conceded that niceties like rule of law, accountability, education, entrepreneurial opportunity and administrative efficiency actually have merit. And they've stopped making worn-out excuses, like the threats of communism or U.S. imperialism, for not modernizing their political and economic systems. (See TIME's complete coverage...
Bellerive wouldn't go as far as to blame Haiti's élite for the more than 200,000 earthquake deaths. But those who doubt Haiti's ability to transform its government should note that Chile wasn't always an OECD candidate - it spent 17 years, from 1973 to 1990, under a brutal military dictatorship - and that Haitians are more than capable of emulating Chileans if given the chance...