Haiti Makes Its Case for Reparations by J. Damu (FinalCall)

Haiti Makes Its Case for Reparations

By J. Damu, guest columnist, Final Call, 10 February 2004

The meter is running at $34 per second

You've got to hand it to Haiti. Not only was it the world's first country of enslaved workers to stand up and demand their freedom and independence; now they are the world's first country to stand up to their former slavery-era master, France, and demand the return of its stolen wealth.

Everyone say "Amen."

Haiti's president and other government officials claim their country was held up at gunpoint in broad daylight in 1825 and now they want the admitted thief, France, to replace the stolen wealth to the tune of $21.7 billion. his, despite massive attempts, well documented elsewhere, by the United States and world lending institutions to destabilize and overthrow the democratically elected government of Jean Bertrand Aristide.

Government officials also say, due to forced efforts to hand over its wealth in a timely manner to France, the coerced payments so distorted and stunted the economy, Haiti feels the effects to this day. They also say, due to those efforts, Haiti became saddled with a form of class oppression that resembles racism.

In a soon to be published booklet provided to a U.S. reporter by the foreign press liaison to President Jean Bertrand Aristide, Haitian government officials dissect the 1825 "agreement" that initially forced Haiti to pay to France 150 million francs in exchange for liberty.

The booklet, like Haiti's restitution claim, is based largely on the research of Dr. Francis St. Hubert, a member of the government's Haiti Restitution Commission.

"I did most of my research in New York at the Columbia University Library and the Schomburg Center," Dr. Hubert said by phone from Port-au-Prince.