Posted on 06/26/2003 10:01:41 AM PDT by far sider
Jun. 16, 2003. 01:00 AM
HAITI HOUNDS FRENCH FOR BILLIONS
Claims reparation for colonial rule
Illusion persists that cash is on way
PORT-AU-PRINCE—France owes Haiti exactly $21,685,135,571.48 (U.S.), its government figures — not counting interest, penalties or consideration for the suffering and indignity inflicted by slavery and colonization.
Paris swiftly rejected the demand for restitution when Haiti raised the issue in April on the 200th anniversary of the death of Toussaint Louverture. A revered figure, Louverture led fellow slaves to throw off their French colonial oppressors.
Haiti is making a bicentennial spectacle of refusing to take no for an answer. In one of the most colourful campaigns to galvanize Haitians in years, the country is awash in banners, bumper stickers, television ads and radio broadcasts demanding payback.
Anyone reading newspapers aligned with President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's government, or listening to state-sponsored broadcasts, would think a cheque for the staggering sum was all but in the mail.
An illusion of momentum has emerged in the week since the Group of Eight industrialized nations met in Evian, France. On the fringes of the forum, French President Jacques Chirac replied to the repeated restitution demands by contending Haiti's dire economic straits were more the consequence of corrupt government than development thwarted by payoffs to France in exchange for recognition of Haitian independence.
"Chirac recognizes the arguments for restitution," a banner headline in the daily L'Union, a pro-Aristide paper, proclaimed after the G-8 summit. Subsequent issues have carried almost daily analyses of imagined signals that the French are about to buckle.
Communications state secretary Mario Dupuy describes Chirac's allusion to corruption as "verbal violence" but smiles tolerantly in laying out what he sees as the colonial masters' long-term outlook. "This is the kind of attack that precedes negotiations."
Others inside Aristide's circle say the campaign will continue.
"It's serious and it's going to intensify," says Michelle Karshan, a foreign media liaison for Aristide. "It's not something Haiti came up with by itself. It came up in the context of the summit on race in South Africa. The French leadership itself has acknowledged that slavery was a crime against humanity.`
Port-au-Prince raised its claim April 7 — 200 years after revolutionary hero Louverture died a captive in a French prison. Seven months after his death, Haitian slaves defeated French forces and proclaimed the Caribbean island territory independent in November, 1803.
France recognized Haiti's statehood 35 years later, after it began paying 90 million francs in gold to compensate the French landowners driven out.
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin replied to the April appeal with the observation that Paris and the rest of the 15-nation European Union have given Haiti more than $2 billion in recent aid.
The French contend Haiti's biggest problems are rooted in the present, not the past. "Bad governance, the degradation of security linked to the current grave political crisis are the main reasons for the social and economic downward drift of the country," said Villepin's spokesperson François Rivasseau.
Haitian Foreign Minister Joseph Philippe Antonio told Radio Solidarity the French are showing ``a certain embarrassment" in deflecting the restitution claim by referring to aid.
Antonio suggested fear of setting a costly precedent might be holding France back from conceding a debt to Haiti. But he insisted Paris eventually would do the right thing. "France will pay restitution for the monies that it owes Haiti. Restitution means to reimburse what you took that did not belong to you, with interest.''
The $21.7 billion bill, Dupuy said, is today's value for the 90 million gold francs Paris strong-armed from Haiti in the 19th century, with reparations for moral crimes yet to be calculated.
This ought to be really good. We could start a guessing game on how much the Haitian government would demand for "moral crimes" which happened over 200 years ago. The sky would be the limit.
This ought to be really good. We could start a guessing game on how much the Haitian government would demand for "moral crimes" which happened over 200 years ago. The sky would be the limit.
No kidding. The things the French did it their slaves in Haiti, makes anything in US history pale in comparison.
Why hasn't Haiti progressed much beyond the plantation atmosphere and standard of living during its 200 years? Look what the United States has done since 1776!
A lot of reasons. Mostly due to not having a firm foundation to build on.
1. The French first killed off the natives.
2. Then they imported and viciously brutalized slaves.
3. They built an entire economy on slavery and the rum trade.
4. They taught the slaves a twisted version of Catholicism.
5. The Haitians revolted, killed all the whites, and dedicated Haiti to Satan.
6. They were illiterate. Europe and the US embargoed them. They had no spiritual foundation.
7. Nearly all of the their leaders have been vicious dictators from Louverture to the Dulaviers and Aristide.
The US was founded on laws, Christianity, education, and democracy. That's the difference.
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