At the 79th session of the UN General Assembly last week, Edgar Leblanc Fils, president of the Presidential Council of the Transition of Haiti, reminded the world of France’s role in Haiti’s current financial woes and demanded reparations from France.
Grassroots movements in Haiti and the diaspora have long campaigned for Haiti’s liberation from foreign control and reparations.
For example, this photo was taken on 28 July 2022, when the Haiti Action Committee led a protest in front of Citibank in San Francisco, California, with a clear message: France must pay reparations to Haiti!
France forced Haiti to pay 112 million francs (now valued at around $560 million or €525 million) for ‘lost property.’ But what did France lose? The enslaved Africans who ousted their former masters and established the first Black republic in history!
Haiti spent roughly 70 years to pay ‘reparations.’
You may wonder why Haitian activists organised this protest at Citibank. Beginning in 1915, the US Marines invaded and occupied Haiti for 19 years at Citibank’s request, as part of its expansion overseas.
In 2003, Haiti’s socialist president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, demanded France reimburse Haiti €525 million it had been forced to pay. That, and social reforms to redistribute funds toward education and healthcare, forced Aristide onto a US jet, abandoning him in the Central African Republic while a US-backed coup unfolded in Haiti.
A few years later, in April 2024, a group of 20 NGOs went to Geneva, Switzerland, to address the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent about France’s debt to Haiti.
From Port-au-Prince to the streets of Paris, the Haitian people’s struggle continues!
Sources:
https://www.cadtm.org/spip.php?page=imprimer&id_article=20811
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2022/07/29/18851316.php
https://www.workers.org/2022/08/65860
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/haitian-groups-seek-billions-reparations-france-2024-04-18/
https://www.blackagendareport.com/content/citigroup%E2%80%99s-role-rape-haiti
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