Haiti seeks reparations for colonial rule

Thursday, October 9, 2003

PARIS, France: Haiti's Jean Bertrand Aristide government has sent France a bill for US$21,685,155,571.48 as reparation for the suffering caused in the Caribbean nation during the colonial period, the Associated Press quoted the foreign ministry in Paris as confirming yesterday.

The figure was reportedly reached by an unknown method of calculation as the modern-day equivalent of 90 million gold francs that were paid out in 1825 to King Charles X of France, as compensation for French settlers who had been expropriated by the newly-independent republic.

Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide apparently first made the demand in April -- on the bicentenary of the death of independence hero, Mr. Toussaint Louverture in a French jail -- and the cry has since been taken up in proclamations on state-controlled media and street banners. 

However opposition figures in the impoverished Caribbean republic have distanced themselves from the move, accusing Mr. Aristide of seeking a populist diversion from pressing political and economic problems which are closer to home.

On 1, January, 2004 Haiti celebrates 200 years since its army of black slaves and freemen defeated an expeditionary force sent by Napoleon to crush the rebellion there, becoming the second nation in the western hemisphere after the United States to gain independence.

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