why is France helping the bloody hands bushgang coup d'etat Eristide?

[donsu]

this does not jive

what is in Haiti that both France and the bushgang want so much?

Some people say Haiti is a conduit. Is it a conduit that both France and the bushgang prosper from?

I can see the bushgang using Haiti for military bases and as a new bombing practice/test place (since they got put off of Viaquise Island (sp.) ) putting a BIG threat toward Cuba? But France?

what dog does France have in this race?

[ButterflyBlood]

1. repartions

Haiti has sued France for reparations and won.

[htuttle]

2. Are you familiar with the history of Haiti?

If not, a refresher course will reveal the motives of France.

As far as current pressing reasons, there are $21 billion reasons -- Aristide had begun a suit to press for repayment of the 'reparations' that Haiti was forced to pay upon their independence (basically, they had to 'purchase' their freedom).

[markses]

3. Both reparations and industry

My father worked for a French chemical company in Port-au-Prince when we were living there in the late 1970's. I expect that many of those cheap labor companies are still operating in Port-au-Prince and throughout Haiti.

[donsu]

4. ahh, after posting I read the 'lowdown on Haiti' post

and now see why the French are involved.

remember that song "money makes the world go round, the world go round, the world go round"

[Oilwellian]

5. Here's some good info

via DU member Tinoire. :loveya:

First a little history:

Jean-Jacques Dessalines, pronounced zhahn zhahk day sa LEEN, (1758-1806), is one of Haiti's national heroes. He helped free the country from French rule and became its first chief of state.

Dessalines was born a slave in Grande-Riviere-du-Nord, Haiti. In his early life he served as an officer in the French army. In 1791, Dessalines became a part of the freedom movement that lead to the total abolition of slavery in Haiti in 1793. After fighting under General Toussaint L'Ouverture against British and Spanish soldiers attempting to take the Haitian colony from France, Dessaline fought again under Toussaint to expel the French from Haiti. In 1802, when the French arrested Toussaint, Dessalines became the revolution's leader. The French, under General Rochambeau (successor of LeClerc who had died of malaria earlier), were finally defeated at the famed Battle of Vertieres on November 18th, 1803. Notably, it is Dessalines' victory over Rochambeau in Vertieres that forced Napoleon to abandon his bid for the control of Louisiana and eventually, the rest of the 'New World'.

In 1804, Dessalines declared the colony the independent country of Haiti and assumed the title of governor general for life. In 1806, He was murdered by political rivals.

http://dolphin.upenn.edu/~dhsa/dessa_bio.html

As soon as peace was concluded with England, the French Consul dispatched a fleet to St. Domingo, commanded by Admiral Villaret, with an army of at least 20,001 men. At the head of the army was placed General Leclerc, the Consul's brother in law, assisted by several Generals of great note, particularly Rochambeau, well known in the West Indies for his attachment to the cause of slavery.
==

Rochambeauu, unable to bring his enemy to battle yet also prevented from establishing strong points in the interior because of the constant raids and ambushes, decided to copy the Jamaican planters who had used 100 Cuban man-hunting bloodhounds in putting down the Maroon rising of 1795. He imported several couples from Havana, where dogs were bred specially to track down runaway slaves, intending to use them to smell out ambushes, but they prove to be unsatisfactory.

They were difficult to control (the British had engaged expert handlers, as well as dogs) and their operational range was less than that of a trained infantrymen. Rochambeau, whose mind was ingenious in evil, decided to use them instead as a new form of punishment, a new instrument of torture. The dogs should be used not to track the rebels down, but to tear them to pieces after they were captured.

<snip>

Dessalines had his men erect five hundred gallows during the night and, in full sight of the French lines, hanged five hundred Frenchmen at dawn. Rochambeau again economised his ammunition by sending Black prisoners out to sea to be drowned instead of shot. The skipper of the barge that took them out, pinioned ready to be thrown overboard, fancied himself as a wit and, when challenged by the sentries at For Picolet, would invariably reply, "I'm just off to soak some cod." They had sandbags tied around their necks as sinkers; when the bags or the ropes rotted, the corpses rose to the surface and floated ashore.

Rochambeau (1755-1813)

Senseless evil was matched by insensate heroism

<snip>

http://www.nathanielturner.com/christophe2.htm

"Every atrocity committed by the French will be revisited on the French." Dessalines.


Here is an article about Aristide's demand "that France restitute Haiti some $21 billion for the 90 million francs Haiti paid France during the 19th century as “compensation” for winning its independence in 1804." Aristide was going to take France to the World Court on this matter but, well, we all know the rest.
===

<snip>

Meanwhile, the Haitian government’s own “Interministerial Commission for Restitution and Reparations” organized an international colloquium in Port-au-Prince from Oct. 13-15 entitled “Restitution and Development.” Attended by a diverse crowd of lawyers, historians, economists, and activists, this meeting starred another well-known French intellectual, Claude Ribbe, who has just published a French-language novel entitled The Expedition. The book tells the story of France’s doomed 1802 mission to restore French rule and slavery in Haiti through the eyes of Napoleon’s sister, Pauline Bonaparte, who was married to the expedition’s leader, General Charles Leclerc.

Ribbe was the guest on the government’s “Press Tuesdays” TV show, where he read an extract of Leclerc’s Oct. 7, 1802 letter to Napoleon. “I will have to carry out a war of extermination,” Leclerc wrote. “This is my opinion of this country. We must destroy all the blacks in the mountains, men, women and children over 12 years old, destroy half of those in the plains, and not leave in the colony a single man of color wearing epaulettes.”

<snip>

On the television program and during the colloquium, Ribbe, a philosopher and historian, acknowledged the “unspeakable” crimes which France committed against the Haitian people’s ancestors during both slavery and the independence war. Supporting Haiti’s demand for restitution, he called on the French government to “assume its responsibilites” and for French President Jacques Chirac to visit Haiti.

<snip>

“Let’s not forget, that capitalism was built principally from the colonies of the Antilles and particularly from St. Domingue,” said one Haitian intellectual during the colloquium’s opening session. “Thus the splendor of Europe, and particularly the splendor of France, was built on Haiti’s back. Haiti didn’t owe France any debt. France owed Haiti a debt.”

<snip about France sending an armada to Haiti to force them to pay before recognizing Haiti's independence >


Ironically, the most vocal critics of Haiti’s demand for restitution has been the small clique of politicians, power brokers, and pundits huddled in the Haitian opposition’s formations: the 15 “party-cle” Democratic Convergence opposition front, the hyper-inflated “Group of 184" organizations of assembly-industry-owner-turned-activist Andy Apaid, and the Civil Society Initiative of former neo-Duvalierist-minister Rosny Desroches.

<snip>

http://www.haiti-progres.com/2003/sm031022/eng10-22.html

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

6. because France is a neo-imperialist power too?

and because France has been interfering in Haiti for hundreds of years? Because French corporations have interests in Haiti? Why else?

Surely no one thought the French were opposing the war against Iraq for noble reasons?

[slappypan]

7. haiku

Dubya scorns the French
Until this Haiti dust-up
"Pouvez-vous m'aider?"

[DuctapeFatwa]

8. Here's a history-of-Haiti-in-a-nutshell link (w/props to Tinoire)

http://cyberspacei.com/jesusi/authors/chomsky/year/y501_008.htm

Tinoire posted this in another thread, it's a must-read for those who may not be experts on Haiti history.