President Preval’s address to the population last Friday in the wake of the recent violent demonstrations in Haiti has been labelled by a number of critics as being really weak and lacking concrete solutions for the real and hard realities of hunger and outrageously unaffordable cost of living faced by the majority of the population. Whilst most expected him to have announced the resignation of the Prime Minister, Preval simply reprimanded those who were involved in pillaging commercial interests including twenty-two petrol stations, the main office of Voila (one of the three major telecoms service provider) and a number of banks. His declarations on subsidising national agricultural production, establishing community restaurants, providing credit to small enterprises, implementing more labour-intensive projects, subsidising education and easing of taxes on some grain imports have, however, given some hope to the common mass. These have, however, not been sufficient to appease the enra...