Whereas, for a period
of almost 300 years, the people of Haiti were victims of the most extreme
crime against humanity- the trade in enslaved Africans and the associated
system of racialized chattel slavery-which was inflicted upon them by the
nation of France
and various other European powers;
And whereas the people of Haiti fought and won the only successful revolutionary war waged against the system of chattel slavery by the enslaved victims of that system;
And whereas the Haitian
Revolution and the military defeats inflicted on the slavery sustaining
regimes of France, Spain and England by the Haitian revolutionaries constituted
a major blow to the entire
European system of racialized chattel slavery, and proved to be an invaluable
source of inspiration to all enslaved African people struggling for their
freedom;
And whereas these major victories won by the Haitian people for themselves and all other African people were accomplished at the expense of tremendous human and material sacrifice on the part of the nation and people of Haiti;
And whereas in the years after the Revolution powerful and vindictive regimes in Europe and North America, including the governments of France and the United States, made every effort to inflict punitive damage on the nation and people of Haiti by imposing on Haiti a so-called compensation payment of 150 million gold francs to France, and by carrying out a number of blockades, embargoes, invasions and occupation of Haiti;
And whereas these long
years of criminality and unlawful victimization have resulted in continuing
and currently existing underdevelopment, poverty, human suffering and economic,
social and cultural damage to
the nation and people of Haiti;
And whereas, as a matter
of international law and morality, the nation and people of Haiti are entitled
to the payment of reparations and the implementation of reparative measures
and programmes, to repair the
damage that they have suffered and continue to suffer;
And whereas, at the
African and African Descendants World Conference Against Racism which was
held in Barbados in October 2002, the newly established Global Afrikan Congress
committed itself and called upon
African and Caribbean people and governments to make the achievement of
reparations for Haiti one of the priority objectives of the international
Reparations movement;
This 3rd Assembly of Caribbean People hereby resolves:-
To immediately launch
a Caribbean and a wider international campaign, in collaboration with progressive
forces in Haiti and in the Haitian
Diaspora, to advance, demand and achieve reparation payments and reparative
measures and programmes for the nation and people of Haiti, and in so doing,
to identify and target the government of France as one of the major guilty
parties from which reparations are due and owing; and
To observe and celebrate every 23rd of August as an international day in support of reparations for the nation and people of Haiti.
CARRIED: By Majority of Delegates
Dated August 24/2003, Cap Haitien,
Haiti.
Representing the Global
Afrikan Congress at the 3rd Assembly of Caribbean People in Cap Haitian,
Haiti
Are:
Cikiah Thomas; GAC Chairperson
(Canada)
David Comissiong; Director of the Commission For
Pan-African Affairs (Barbados)
Attorney Bobby Clarke; (Barbados)
Nekesha Holdipp; York University Toronto (Canada)
Akins Vidale, University of West Indies, (Trinidad &
Tobago)
------------------------------
Jun. 16, 2003.
01:00 AM
Haiti hounds France for billions
Claims reparation for colonial rule Illusion persists that cash is on way
CAROL J. WILLIAMS
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
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.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
