How Haiti paid for its freedom – twice over

The first country ever to free itself from slavery through a successful uprising, Haiti gained independence from France in 1804. But the price for defying the colonial order was steep. On April 17, 1825, besieged by French warships, Haiti agreed to pay an indemnity of 150 million gold francs to the European power.

Officially, the payment was meant to compensate French plantation owners for “lost property” following independence, but the amount far exceeded actual losses.

“France forced the winners of Haiti’s independence – the former slaves – to compensate the losers, their former masters,” Monique Clesca, a journalist and activist of Haitian descent, said on Thursday at a meeting on the country’s independence debt.

The price of freedom: A double debt

This tax on liberty soon plunged world’s first Black republic into a spiral of debt. When Haiti was no longer able to pay, France pushed its banks to lend it money, what we call a “double debt,” Ms. Clesca explained.

By 1914, over three-quarters of the country’s national budget was still being drained to repay French banks. It was not until 1947 – more than 140 years after independence – that Haiti finally settled its debt.

“France committed an enormous injustice that still resonates today,” Ms. Clesca said.

An in-depth 2022 investigation by The New York Times found that Haiti’s payments to France amounted to the modern equivalent of roughly $560 million. Had that money been retained in Haiti and invested domestically, it could have added more than $20 billion to the country’s economy over time, according to some economists.

Haiti today: The legacy of debt

Though Haiti stands a milestone in the global fight for emancipation, today it today is mired in instability, with armed gangs controlling 85 per cent of the capital, Port-au-Prince. According to the World Bank, it remains the poorest country in Latin America and the Caribbean.

From institutional paralysis to arms trafficking and corruption, the country’s challenges are immense. Yet, to the members of the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, the roots of Haiti's crises are clear: they lie in history.

“The entrenched human rights crises in the Republic of Haiti [are] rooted in legacies of enslavement, colonialism, debt payments, military threats and interventions,” said the advisory body to the UN Human Rights Council in a position paper last month.

A belated recognition

Responding to mounting calls for justice, French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday announced the creation of a joint commission of Haitian and French historians to examine the impact of the 1825 indemnity.

While welcoming the move, Martin Kimani, a member of the Permanent Forum, stressed that the commission’s effectiveness would depend on its willingness to fully acknowledge the harm caused.

“We call for restitution of the financial sums extracted through this cost arrangement along with broader reparative measures to address Haiti’s structural underdevelopment and international neglect,” Mr. Kimani said during the meeting, held on the final day of the Forum’s fourth session this week.

According to media reports, so far the French president has stopped short of committing to financial reparations.

Calls for restitution

“The colonial past creates responsibilities that must be assumed collectively by France and the international community,” said Pierre Ericq Pierre, Haiti’s Permanent Representative to the UN, who took part in the discussion.

According to the Haitian ambassador, the country’s enduring inequalities are rooted in its colonial past and the burden of the “ransom.”

In his view, restitution would only be far. “This isn’t about revenge,” he said. “It’s about truth and justice.”

Restorative justice

The Haitian people deserve a future free from violence – one that meets basic standards of development, said Gaynel Curry, another member of the Permanent Forum.

In addition to returning the colonial debt, Ms. Curry called for the creation of an international reparations fund for Haiti and establishing an independent inquiry, under the Human Rights Council, to explore avenues of into restorative justice.

For Verene Albertha Shepherd, Vice Chair of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, such steps would also honour another debt – the moral one owed by people of African descent to Haiti’s revolutionaries.

“These freedom fighters struck fear into the hearts of all slaveholders,” she said.

More than two centuries after Haiti’s independence, she added, the time has come to deliver justice.

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This story was first published by UN News.