Haiti: Restitution, Reparation, and Rehabilitation, Two Hundred Years Already

Bay kou bliye pote mak sonje: 1825-2025, the bicentennial of the multi-ransom for the 'recognition' of the independence of the world's first independent Black Republic.

A. ON HAITI'S MULTI-RANSOM PAID TO FRANCE

April 17, 2025, will mark, day for day, the bicentennial of King Charles X's ordinance by which France had compelled the young Haitian Republic to pay one hundred and fifty (150) million gold francs to compensate the former slave-owning colonists of the Saint-Domingue colony. Through this ordinance, the monarch reportedly sought to satisfy the demands of these exploiters/spoliators, who claimed reparation for the damages they had suffered during the Haitian War of Independence. Indeed, our ancestors had undertaken a deadly war and a total upheaval of the slave system after enduring for more than 300 years (1492-1803) the atrocities of this system, the most barbaric instituted by Europeans. Yet, such a system was considered so just and legitimate in the eyes of Western powers that the rebellion of our ancestors was deemed unacceptable, an anomaly. Therefore, everything had to be done either to correct the anomaly or to stifle the young nation. Hence this criminal cycle of absurd indebtedness which, officially, lasted no less than one hundred and twenty-seven (127) years (between the 19th and 20th centuries), and which Haitian society still cruelly feels. This stifling and paralyzing mechanism subjected our young nation to a stunted, moribund, and extroverted economy throughout the first two centuries of its existence.

Today, impoverished and debased by Western powers, our Haiti struggles to recover from the chaotic situation in which it is mired. Our country risks not surviving its collapse if it does not provide itself with adequate means for its perpetuation. It is in this perspective that this civil society organization named HAITI-3R (Haiti: Restitution, Reparation, and Rehabilitation) was born, which, in this bicentennial year of the said ordinance, I demand reparation and restitution from neocolonialist France. Restitution of our due 115 billion US dollars; reparation for this exceptional historical racket.

B. ON HAITI'S SECOND RANSOM TO FRANCE

How did France force our hand to accept paying a multiple ransom through Charles X's ordinance? The following excerpt gives an idea of the monstrous heist we suffered just 21 years after the proclamation of our independence. Article 1 of this said ordinance stipulates: « the ports of the French part of S.-Domingue shall be open to the commerce of all nations. The duties collected in these ports, whether on ships or on goods, both upon entry and exit, shall be equal and uniform for all flags, except for French flags, in favor of which these duties shall be reduced by half ». On what basis did France authorize itself the right to pay only half of its customs duties to the treasury? Is there not another loss of earnings for Haiti there? Does this 50% exemption from customs tariffs unpaid by France to Haiti not constitute a second ransom from Haiti paid into the French economy? Is this not literally a classic abduction of the country through this « ordinance » ? Reading this article, one will agree that there is reason to speak, for the moment, of a double ransom, because on the one hand, the young Republic was forced to pay a sum of 150,000,000 gold francs, but also, in parallel, France had to be exempted from 50% of customs tariffs. All things considered, it is undeniably a second loss of earnings on the economic and financial level and, by ricochet, on the development of the war-victorious country.