Haiti Demands Restitution From France [not a joke]

upi via bloomberg no url | 12/18/3

[NativeNewYorker]

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide has demanded $21 billion from France for "colonial crimes," the Miami Herald reported Thursday.

The campaign is growing in popularity on the impoverished island as its Jan. 1 bicentennial approaches, the newspaper said.

The exact amount Aristide wants is $21,685,135,571.48, which he claims is modern-day equivalent of the ransom, 90 million gold francs Haitian President Jean-Pierre Boyer agreed to pay France as insurance against re-colonization.

The European power refused to recognize Haiti's independence and threatened to re-enslave the Haitian people if the indemnity wasn't paid.

Aristide has said restitution will allow Haiti to move from misery to poverty with dignity.

The French are dismissing the campaign, although France has dispatched one of its foremost intellectuals, Regis Debray, to Port-au-Prince to examine Haitian- French relations as part of a Committee on Reflection of Haiti.

The committee plans to report next month on ways France can encourage Haiti's political and economic development.

[CWOJackson]

LOL! This is too rich...

[MEG33]

Hehe

[AngryJawa]

We should really throw some superpower weight around and back the Hatians on this. Not because it's necessarily the rght thing to do, but because France sucks. 8^)

[M. Thatcher]

Do you have the original url? Can't find. Many thanks.

[krb]

Aristide has said restitution will allow Haiti to move from misery to poverty with dignity.

Aim high.

[Kenton]

This would seem to me to have more legal merit than say, slave reparations.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

France raped the land of Haiti. Let them pay for it.

[thiscouldbemoreconfusing]

War between Haiti and france, could take france up to two weeks to surrender, I think it would take about that long for the Haiti Naval canoe to row across the Atlantic and position itself and it's 12 fighting men off the french coast.

[observer5]

Go for it

[Billthedrill]

It works out to about $3000 per Haitian, or roughly six times their per capita income. (Not that it's likely the poorest Haitian will ever see a dime of it...)

[Ditto]

This would seem to me to have more legal merit than say, slave reparations.

I think I agree with you. Here's some of the history.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

• This left the biggest nut for Boyer to crack in his search for security -- France. Boyer and all of Haiti lived on the edge, dreading and fearing the return of the French, their colonial rule and slavery. Boyer wanted to get the French threat off Haiti's back forever and to formally join the company of nations of the world. He sued for recognition from France. After many years of on and off again negotiations, Boyer finally agreed to an outrageous French proposal. Haiti would pay: 150 million francs within 5 years. Actually by the time it came down to this point in the negotiations Haiti had little choice. This "offer" was given with 14 French warships in Port-au-Prince harbor, supported by nearly 500 guns. It was clear to Boyer that were he not to concede to this "indemnity" that France would immediately re-open hostilities. There was no realistic way for him to defend against this force. He signed on July 11, 1825 and France recognized the existence of Haiti.

  It is hard to describe the level to which this debt crippled Haiti. After a few years when Haiti couldn't pay, the debt was renegotiated down to 60 million francs without interest, but even this debt strapped Haiti far beyond her means.

Between this debt and the Petion/Boyer land distribution system and the resulting subsistence agriculture, Haiti's future was relatively fixed into a pattern of simple and primitive life.

Boyer seemed to have finally gotten the security that he wanted. But, in actuality, he had gravely undermined it. Instead of finally vanquishing his last source of insecurity, France, he had unleashed a new and much more dangerous one -- his own people.

Outraged at paying an indemnity to the former slave masters, and unwilling to be taxed, the masses turned on Boyer and his mulatto government. Responding to the pressures to repay the debt, on May 1, 1826, Boyer tried to generate income and returned to the basic plan of fermage which Toussaint, Dessalines and Christophe had used earlier. Boyer had a new Rural Code passed which bound cultivators to their land and placed production quotas on them.

This was an impossible plan.

• The plantations, source of export levels of sugar cane, had been broken up into smallholdings.
• With the accord having been signed with France, there was no longer a fear of France, thus there was little to no motivation for rallying people around some concept like national need.
• The army's power had been steadily weakening since the revolution and was incapable of serious enforcement of the Rural Code.

The only real impact of the Rural Code was a very negative one, the recognition of Petion's fait accompli. By giving the army the role of overseeing the new code and exempting the towns from it, Boyer gave implicit recognition of the two Haitis.

• A rural Haiti of black subsistence farmers ruled by a mainly black army.
• A mulatto urban life ruled by the official government of Haiti, a mulatto government.

The basic class and color division of Haiti's different worlds was solidly in place. The very social and economic structures that Boyer tried to change by means of the Rural Code, he solidly reinforced.

Boyer's days were numbered. The formal revolt began on Jan. 27, 1843 under the leadership of Charles Riviere-Herard, a black leader from the south. The revolt, however, was wide spread and didn't only represent black discontent with the state of things, but included young rising mulattos who wanted into areas of power and wanted changes in the structure of the country.

The revolt was quick and successful and on Feb. 13, 1843 Boyer fled first to Jamaica and later settled in France.

The end of the first phase of Haiti history came with the fleeing of Jean-Pierre Boyer. However, the basic social, economic and social structures of Haiti were fixed, and remain basically the same today as they were then.

Haiti's first 39 years produced a country that relied on subsistence farming on small plots of land by the rural masses, controlled by an almost wholly black army. A small urban elite, almost totally mulatto, controlled what economy there was and the government. The economy was adequate to supply that small elite with lifestyles of considerable wealth and ease.---------------------------------------------------------

source: http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/history/earlyhaiti/boyer.htm

[CapnMcK]

A possible solution to this problem would be for France to cede their province of Quebec to Haiti. The Quebecois consider themselves French, therefore they would be in no position to object, and while the rest of Canada might take some exception to this solution, they hardly have the armed forces to stand up to Haiti. The only problem might be that Haiti wouldn't want to be burdened with Quebec.

[LTCJ]

Haiti Demands Restitution From France

Good Lord, has France lost ANOTHER war?

[nypokerface]

Haiti should get the UN involved in this. They'll take up anything.

[tbpiper]

I propose he declare war on France and invade. France could never stand the onslaught of the Hatian Navey. Imagine the impressive sight of 15,000 Hatian sailors, uniformed like homeless Rastafarians, aboard the entire fleet of 6 handmade wooden warships, what a magnificent sight. Now if they could just get past Gonave without drowning.....

[Kenton]

I think we need to go after France for reparations for the atrocities committed on this continent by the French and their Indian mercenaries during the French and Indian War.

[cake_crumb]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!! The IRONY!!

[Paul Ross]

Bump. The irony is too thick. The effete, overly long DeGaullian snouts of the nattering Parisian nabobs, rubbed in their own doo-doo.

[Paul Ross]

Indeed.