Campaign 7

Mission: Keep alive and press for the $21,685,135,571.48 billion and counting owed by France to the Haitian people.

Prepare a demand letter. Collaborate with those pursuing the development of legal documents to present to France on behalf of the Haitian people. Set forth a public relations campaign to support the demand, especially in light of France's current role in the February 29, 2004 Coup D'etat. An additional amount should be requested for the lives lost due to the machinations of France and its Foreign Minister, et al.

Integrating documents culled from items campaigns 1-6 above, our goal would be to present the list of over 3,000 victims of the 2004 Coup D'etat (conservatively estimated as of April 27, 2004) who lost life, property, still have living relatives and are part of the revised demand.

In addition, one of our collaborators noted and the Leadership hereby emphatically declares:

"The idea has been floated in the mainstream media in recent months that in the event that France provides restitution for all or part of the $21.8 billion, these funds be funneled through the OAS. In any discussion about restitution, we must always stress that there has been a 200-year campaign to disenfranchise - economically and politically - the Haitian people. We should further point out that recent suggestions that any restitution be funneled through organizations and institutions other than those elected by the people of Haiti are yet another manifestation of this systemic exploitation and disenfranchisement. Governments elected BY THE PEOPLE OF HAITI are the only entities entitled and authorized to (i) discuss, (ii) negotiate, (iii) receive, or (iv) spend any form of restitution."

This website - http://www.haitirestitution.org/ - will prove useful to French-speaking folks wanting to learn more about the 21.7 billion owed the Haitian people by France.

The two J. Damu articles noted below explore how Haiti fought and won it's independence from the slaveowners and then had to pay them for "their lost" of our African foreparents as "property" and how U.S. and France impoverished Haiti throughout Haiti's existence:

1. How the U.S. impoverished Haiti by J. Damu

www.sfbayview.com/082703/impoverishedhaiti082703.shtml

2. Haiti makes its case for reparations by J. Damu at:

www.sfbayview.com/012804/haitimakesitscase012804.shtml

Perhaps we shall later add other relevant articles that shed further light on the history and details on the 21.7 billion owed by France to the Haitian people.

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This debt forced on Haiti by 12 French warships armed with 500 canons was a grievous injustice visited upon the Haitian people. It began the colonial model of debt dependency that was then used throughout the Africa continent after "independence." It is as grave as colonialism and another form of slavery without the political, moral and social encumbrances to Empire. No Haitian government, legitimate or illegitimate, may declare this case for the 21.7 billion close or summarily denounced the Haitian people's collective rights to pursue their claim for restitution from either France or the United States for 200 years of containment-in-poverty.

With the 2004 U.S. orchestrated Çoup D'etat and under cover of "avoiding a bloodbath" in Haiti, not only was the Constitutionally elected President flown out of Haiti virtually at gunpoint. But another Haitian territory, has been taken over by the United States. A piece of Haitian land, the U.S. has been trying to put its hands on since the 19th century. Thus, one of the first acts by the U.S. marines after landing in Haiti, was not to demilitarize the fugitive rebels and murderers of Haitian cops and civilians, nor to protect Haitian lives in Cite Soleil, Bel Air, etc. But to establish a perimeter around Mole St. Nicolas, the peninsula opposite Guantanamo, jutting into the narrow strait between Haiti and Cuba. Haitian living in the area have reported to Haitian news media that U.S. military structures are currently being built on the Mole St. Nicolas site, a military base long sought after from Haiti by the U.S. as a companion base to Guantanamo Bay. .

Obviously, the puppet Latorture government, put in place by the U.S. to secure U.S. interests in Haiti, has not seen fit to denounce this thievery or the old French 21.7 billion thievery of Haitian assets.

But it has seen fit to denounce the Haitian people's demand for France to return the 21.7 extorted from Haiti.

What does the U.S. want in poverty stricken Haiti? The answer is cheap, almost-slave-like-labor; a place to dump corporate subsidized farm goods and staples; a military base at Mole St. Nicolas not to mention destruction of an African-based culture and population control of the largest concentration of Blacks in the Western Hemisphere.

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The demand for the repayment of the 21.7 million is just the beginning of a long line of abuses - wrongs which must be righted - that may not be "reconciled" or 'whitewashed away." The 21.7 billion is not reparation, it is restitution. Money Haitians earned through hard work as a free people and had to pay France for their lost of our grandgrans as "property." Not too mention the fact the African masses in Haiti, who had already given 300 years of free labor under slavery to the Western Europeans, also were forced to discount import and export tariffs on commercial goods to and from France at 50% as part of this French 1825 blackmailing debt scheme. This was the humiliation Haiti had to suffer and pay to France in order for Haitians not to be returned back to slavery, to maintain our independence in peace.

But French ecclesiastic and financial colonialism never did go away. It was replaced in 1915 by a 19-year U.S. military occupation, along with the attendant U.S. ecclesiastic colonialism, pepe education and financial colonialism up until 1990. Only with Haiti's first democratically elected President in 1990 did Haitians began to actually run Haiti for the benefit of the mass populace. The US/Euro foreign-funded destabilization of Haitian democracy, sovereignty, human rights and justice did not stop. The 1991 Coup D'etat and now the 2004 Coup D'etat returns Haitian rights, rule of law and sovereignty back to ground zero, back to rule by force and on behalf of U.S./France's geopolitical, economic and cultural interests.

Yet, for Haitians, Haitian-Americans, Blacks, progressive peoples and the entire African Diaspora, the two Coup D'etats, 1991 and 2004, against the Haitian mass electorate, only serve to increase the debt owed the Haitian masses by the foreign powers funding Haitian destabilization, debt, dependency, death squads and underdevelopment.

Thus, it is a further violation of Haitian rights and legally impossible for the 21.7 billion to be legitimately denounced by this U.S./France funded and installed Latorture dictatorship, or any of its successors.

As of 1990, the Haitian masses have begun to release themselves from - two-century-old and Euro/U.S. imposed - cycles of debt, dependency and foreign domination. A pattern traditionally administered, first through Haiti's Rural Code devised to pay the 21.7 French debt, by the economic elite, on behalf of the imperial powers.

The 21.7 demand is an initial measure of economic justice and respect for Haiti's territorial sovereignty and revolutionary legacy. The overwhelming U.S./France military force of 2004 intended to zombify the Black people of Haiti with fear or prevent the Haitian nation from releasing itself from containment-in-poverty shall not stop the Haitian struggle for economic justice and restitution.

France owes Haiti 21.7 billion (and counting at $34 per second). One day, the rule of law, will have enough teeth in this world. One day the world citizenry will have enough power and information and shall stand with the Haitian people to face empire. And then, no U.S. or French or any government will deny any peoples the rights to enjoy the benefit of their own labor and get away with it unscathed.

Marguerite Laurent
Haitian Lawyers Leadership