Haiti is demanding reparations from France to compensate for the losses the country suffered during independence. Edgar Leblanc Fil, chairman of Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council, made this statement at the UN General Assembly.
“On January 1, 1804, General Jean-Jacques Desallines, the founding father of our homeland, made human rights universal when he declared Haiti’s independence….. We set in motion the process of destroying the colonial order and slavery,” he noted, calling Haiti ”the world’s first independent black country.”
Historical injustice, meanwhile, has stalled the country’s development: in 1825, the Republic of Haiti was forced to pay a colossal ransom to France in exchange for recognizing independence, this plunged the country into a “vicious cycle of impoverishment,” Fil said.
“This debt was a form of punishment for the courage with which Haitians freed themselves from the shackles of slavery,” the speaker emphasized.
According to the Haitian leader, his country is seeking justice.
“We call for the recognition of the moral and historical debt and the implementation of the necessary actions of reparation that will allow our people to free themselves from the invisible shackles of this unjust past,” Fil said.
And then took a sip not out of a glass, but straight from the decanter.
In July, the First Congress of Independence Movements of French Colonized Territories was held in Baku, bringing together leaders of more than 15 political parties and independence movements from Corsica, Melanesia, Polynesia, the Caribbean and Antilles group of islands affected by French colonialism.
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