Went on a wiki tangent reading about Haiti Independence Debt. Mind-blowingly unfair stuff in here. Learned the term "odious debt".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti_Independence_DebtHaiti as a whole has a VERY compelling case vs. France in terms of reparations.
Not only did Haiti have to pay a first payment amount that was 6x their annual treasury revenue (30 million first payment out of 150 million total) for the right to be recognized, it was earmarked for slavers. Imagine being a freed slave - after decades of revolution (in addition to centuries of slavery) and fighting so hard only to have to cough up money you don't have to be paid to former masters so that other countries will trade with you and recognize you as a sovereign entity (they couldn't even get the UK to trade with them at reduced tariff rates and the UK
hated France at this time). And that in doing so, your entire country's economic development will effectively be nil from 1825 to 1947. 1947 was the last payment made to Citibank - who had decided to take on the lucrative debt payments away from France.
Here are some choice excerpts:
"By the late-1800s, eighty percent of Haiti's wealth was being used to pay foreign debt"
"From 1880 to 1881, Haiti granted a currency issuance concession to create the National Bank of Haiti (BNH), headquartered in Paris by CIC which was simultaneously funding the construction of the Eiffel Tower.[4][13][7] BNH was described as an entity of "pure extraction" by Paris School of Economics economic historian Éric Monnet.[7] On the board of the BNH was Édouard Delessert, the great-grandson of French slave trader and owner Jean-Joseph de Laborde who established himself when France controlled Haiti.[7] Haitian Charles Laforestrie, who mainly lived in France and successfully pushed for Haiti to accept the 1875 loan with the CIC, later retired from his positions in Haiti amid corruption allegations, joining the BNH board in Paris after its founding.[7] CIC took $136 million in 2022 US dollars from Haiti and distributed those funds among shareholders, who made 15% annual returns on average, not returning any of the earnings to Haiti.[7] These funds distributed among shareholders ultimately deprived Haiti of at least $1.7 billion that could have been put towards infrastructural development.[7] Under the French-controlled BNH, Haitian funds were overseen by France and all transactions generated commissions, with CIC shareholders profits often being larger than the entire budget for Haiti's public works."
"from 1910 to 1911, the United States Department of State backed a consortium of American investors – headed by the National City Bank of New York – to acquire control of the National Bank of Haiti to create the Bank of the Republic of Haiti (BNRH), with the new bank often holding payments from the Haitian government, leading to unrest"
National City Bank of New York = Citibank
"The history of Haiti's indemnity is not taught as part of education in France"
"In 2003, President of Haiti Jean-Bertrand Aristide demanded that France pay Haiti over 21 billion U.S. dollars, what he said was the equivalent in today's money of the 90 million gold francs Haiti was forced to pay Paris after winning its freedom from France.[31][32] French and Haitian officials later claimed to The New York Times that Aristide's calls for reparations led to French and Haitian officials collaborating with the United States on removing Aristide"
See the 2004 coup instigated by France and the US - Operation Uphold Democracy (really is crazy the Orwellian names that bureaucrats will dream up)
" Thomas Jefferson, United States President, feared a slave revolt would spread to the United States, ceased the aid that was initiated by his predecessor John Adams and sought the international isolation of Haiti."
