Haitians call for compensation for France in 200th anniversary of independence
The campaigners say France has a moral responsibility to repay Haiti’s billions of dollars in “ransom” payments, which could help crisis outside the troubled Caribbean nation.
The call for reclaiming compensation was to reach an agreement that paid France 150 million francs in 1825 to compensate the slave-owned colonists after the Haitian Revolution.
Although this figure later dropped to 90 million, Fritz Deshommes, chairman of the Haiti National Recovery and Compensation Committee, estimated that the value of payments today could be between $38 billion and $1.35 billion, depending on how the sum is calculated, whether this reflects lost customs revenue and economic differences.
Once France was the most important colony in the Caribbean, Haiti was kidnapped, forcibly transported to the Atlantic Ocean and sold to hundreds of thousands of Africans in slavery.
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After a bloody struggle between self-liberated slaves and French, Spanish and British troops, it became the first Caribbean country to be independent from colonial rule in 1804.
But under the threat of military operations, France later demanded what HNCRR member Jean Mozart Feron called an injustice and high ransom, supposedly providing compensation to former Selef.
The huge payment paralyzes the fledgling country, Faren said. “This ransom has put Haiti in a spiral of economic dependence that has never been fully recovered, … killing the young country, killing its development, and transferring valuable resources that could have been invested in education and infrastructure,” he said.
He said that debt not only creates deep structural poverty, social inequality and weak institutions, but also affects “the way Haiti is perceived and treated on the international stage without proper consideration of this history of economic exploitation”.
Monique Clesca, a spokesperson for Kolektif Ayisyen Afwodesandan, a civil society organization who has been running for compensation for Haiti, said the “huge debt” created by ransom has prevented the country from “the pace we should keep moving forward, which prevents the country from moving forward.”
“Politically, this means we are almost a new colony, not only economically but also symbolically and politically, we are bound. So there are serious implications and consequences for this continuous debt.”
The campaigners called on France to repay the ransom and restore the damage caused by slavery and colonization.
HNCRR is aligning with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), which has a 10-point judicial program.
Garycom Secretary General Carla Barnett joined Haiti’s call for compensation by addressing the United Nations Permanent Forum on Monday.
“The negative economic and social impact of this historical injustice is painful and has a controversial connection to the situation in Haiti today. This anniversary provides you with an opportunity to draw global attention and a deeper understanding of the situation in Haiti and call for action to address the country’s ongoing security, humanitarian and governance crisis,” she said.
Calling for global support for Haitian compensation claims, Herren said: “Haitian citizens do not require the French people to be held accountable for the French state’s decision in 1825. However, we believe that the French people have moral responsibility and responsibility to unite with the Haitian people.”
He said HNCRR believes France and Haiti can reach an agreement on “the types of valuable expertise and technical assistance within the framework.” But Haiti must ultimately decide how to use compensation, he added.
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Since Haiti’s assassination by President Jovenel Moïse in 2021 and subsequent gang rebellion, forcing Ariel Henry to lead the country to become an unelected prime minister after Moïse’s death in March 2024, the support of the international community has been unable to restore a stable government and one in a thousand violence since then.
Faren dismissed the argument that the current crisis could prevent the country from effectively managing any compensation, believing that the state of the country is the result of its history.
He added: “Our committee intends to work closely with civil society to clearly recommend how Haitian countries can use or can use the money and how to manage it in a responsible way with full transparency.”
