Why Haiti's Earthquake is France's
Problem
by Tunku Varadarajan
www.thedailybeast.com/, January
14, 2010
As Haitians lurch destitute in the rubble,
and as governments, churches, and NGOs do the best they can to
bring succor to Haiti's hell, a vivid solution to the country's
needs presents itself, one so obvious and irrefutable-so resonantly
just-that it must be advocated with the greatest of energy: France
must repay its colonialist debt to Haiti by paying for much of
the island country's reconstruction.
Haiti's chronic impoverishment began at
its birth in 1804, when, having overthrown its French rulers in
a bloody, 12-year slave revolt, the new-born nation was subjected
to crippling blockades and embargoes. This economic strangulation
continued until 1825, when France offered to lift embargoes and
recognize the Haitian Republic if the latter would pay restitution
to France-for loss of property in Haiti, including slaves-of 150
million gold francs. The sum, about five times Haiti's export
revenue for 1825, was brutal, but Haiti had no choice: pay up
or perish over many more years of economic embargo, not to mention
face French threats of invasion and reconquest. To pay, Haiti
borrowed money at usurious rates from France, and did not finish
paying off its debt until 1947, by which time its fate as the
Western Hemisphere's poorest country had been well and truly sealed.
France must now return every last cent
of this money to Haiti. In 2004, at the time of the 200th anniversary
of Haiti's independence, the Haitian government put together a
legal brief in support of a formal demand for "restitution"
from France. The sum sought was nearly $22 billion, a number arrived
at by calculations that included a notionally equitable annual
interest rate. (For a full account of the calculation, read Jose
de Cordoba's excellent news story in the Wall Street Journal,
published on Jan. 2, 2004.) The demand was made by President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, a firebrand ex-preacher who was forced out of office
by a violent uprising that February. His successors, Boniface
Alexandre and Gerard Latortue, controversially chose to renounce
Haiti's claim for restitution/reparations. (There was, of course,
much pressure exerted on them by France, which had found Aristide's
demand politically disconcerting.)
This last act of renunciation weakens
Haiti's legal case against France, notwithstanding the fact that
the treaty under which France gouged 150 million gold francs from
Haiti was clearly unconscionable and executed under duress. But
this story is not one of law and legality alone, nor even one
of wealth and poverty. (France's GDP is $2.85 trillion, while
Haiti's is a mere $6.95 billion.) It is, rather, one of historical
justice and political morality: No one can dispute that an extortionate
and bullying treaty, concluded at a time when France was an imperial
hyper-puissance and Haiti a friendless fledgling, is an ugly stain
on France's national conscience.
The money involved is not a sum that will
give sleepless nights to Christine Lagarde (France's finance minister)
or Bernard Kouchner (its foreign minister) or President Nicolas
Sarkozy. In this era of multibillion dollar bailouts of private
banking institutions, $22 billion should scarcely raise a Gallic
eyebrow. But to Haiti, the sum would be a godsend.
More than that, however, this is money
that is Haiti's own. As Haitians lie prostrate, buried under the
rubble of their nation, France must do the moral thing, the just
thing, the civilized thing: France must write Haiti a reparations
check for $22 billion.
Tunku Varadarajan is a national affairs
correspondent and writer at large for The Daily Beast. He is also
a research fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution and a professor
at NYU's Stern Business School.
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