A joint commission of French and Haitian historians will examine the contentious issue of the huge sum that Paris forced its former colony to pay for its independence 200 years ago and make recommendations, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday, April 17. "Recognizing the truth of history is refusing to forget or erase it," Macron said in a statement, two centuries to the day after France imposed the payment on the now poverty-wracked Caribbean nation. "For France, it also means taking responsibility for its part of the truth."
Haiti became the first free black nation in the Americas after enslaved people rebelled against their French masters in the colony of Saint Domingue, proclaiming their independence in 1804. Under threat from French war ships, the new nation on April 17, 1825 accepted to pay France 150 million francs in "reparations" in exchange for France recognizing its independence. France reduced the sum, supposed to compensate former land and slave owners, to 90 million francs in 1838.
Unable to pay, the new nation was forced to take out bank loans with high interest rates, indebting itself further at a moment when the price of its main source of income, coffee, was plummeting. It only managed to pay off what has become known as its "double debt" in 1952.
Today, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. It is politically unstable, with swathes of the nation, including parts of the capital, under the control of rival armed gangs. Experts have argued that the "double debt" hampered Haiti's development both financially and politically. French authorities have said Haitian leaders also bear responsibility.
On Thursday, Macron said a joint Franco-Haitian commission of historians would examine the past and make recommendations "in order to draw lessons and build a more peaceful future." Macron is then to draw his own conclusions.
France "subjected the people of Haiti to a heavy financial indemnity (...) This decision placed a price on the freedom of a young nation, which was thus confronted with the unjust force of history from its very inception," Macron added in the statement.
During a visit to Paris in January, Leslie Voltaire, the head of Haiti's presidential transition council, said Macron had mentioned a possible "restitution" to Haiti, but no comments were made on the issue on Thursday.
In 2003, former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide argued that his country's "double debt" was equivalent to more than $21 billion, an estimate that France at the time called an "anachronism."
The Haiti commission is the latest such group set up by Macron, who has also established similar bodies to review France's past roles in Algeria, Rwanda and Cameroon.