Language

correction and addition

Submitted April 15, 2004 - 4:11 pm by David Keating
I should correct the title, its the San Francisco Bay View newspaper at the same web address.  And I found the story within that addresses the slave reparations (Note: not slavery reparations - monies paid to former slaves - but monies paid to former slave owners for loss of their "property").  You may review it here:

http://www.sfbayview.com/012804/haitimakesitscase0 12804.shtml

exerpts:

Haiti makes its case for reparations

The meter is running at $34 per second

by J. Damu

...

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.

...

Finally in 1825, France, which was being encouraged by former plantation owners to invade Haiti and re-enslave the Blacks, issued the Royal Ordinance of 1825, which called for the massive indemnity payments. In addition to the 150 million franc payment, France decreed that French ships and commercial goods entering and leaving Haiti would be discounted at 50 percent, thereby further weakening Haiti’s ability to pay.

According to French officials at the time, the terms of the edict were non-negotiable. And to impress the seriousness of the situation upon the Haitians, France delivered the demands by 12 warships armed with 500 canons.

...

The 150-million-franc indemnity represented France’s annual budget and 10 years of revenue for Haiti. One study estimates the indemnity was 55 million more francs than was needed to restore the 793 sugar plantations, 3,117 coffee estates and 3,906 indigo, cotton and other crop plantations destroyed during the war for independence.

By contrast, when it became clear France would no longer be in a position to capitalize on further westward expansion in the Western hemisphere, they agreed to sell the Louisiana Territory, an area 74 times the surface area of Haiti, to the U.S. for just 60 million francs, less than half the Haitian indemnity.

Even though France later lowered the indemnity payment to 90 million francs, the cycle of forcing Haiti to borrow from French banks to make the payments chained the Black nation to perpetual poverty. Haiti did not finish paying her indemnity debt until 1947!

...

J. Damu is the acting western regional representative for N’COBRA, National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America. Email him at jdamu@sbcglobal.net.

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