Ever since the Dutch apologized to the Caribbean for the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade, there has been renewed focus on making Europe atone not only for the sins of slavery, but also on specific atrocities done by specific nations.
In late December, the Dutch said it was sorry for its role as the leading slave trading nation among the Americas and gave more than a strong hint that the apology by Prime Minister Mark Rutte was not necessarily the final chapter on this subject.
Since then, the region has been trying to up the pressure on European nations, western institutions (including churches), and others that have benefited from the slave trade and are now thriving, prosperous countries or entities built on the back of free labor.
REALATED: Caricom steps up fight for reparations
When Caribbean Community leaders met in the Bahamas for their biannual summit last week, the question of the role France had played in not only the slave trade, but financially pillaging Haiti after it had defeated the French to gain independence, came to the fore through Prime Minister Ariel Henry and other leaders who attended the three-day summit that ended on Friday.
The Nassau Guardian newspaper had asked Henry whether he believes that France owes Haiti reparations not only for the slave trade but for also making it pay millions in compensation in exchange for diplomatic recognition of the newly independent Haiti.
Haiti was the first country to defeat European colonizers in the Americas and win freedom. Henry said he had had a discussion about French reparations with former president François Hollande. He intends to push ahead with its reparations agenda.
“And I will say what Hollande said; he recognized that he has to do some reparations for Haiti,” Henry said. “He said that France would engage itself in some education to do some reparations. There is something that maybe has to be discussed with France. We have a good relationship with France and when we have problems, we put them on the table. And we’ll put that.”
Other regional leaders, like Mia Mottley of Barbados and Rooesvelt Skerrit of Dominica, also say that Caricom has no plans to allow the French to escape for the way it has treated Haiti.
“We believe that as a community, this ought to be the subject of discussion and to the extent that those discussions take place, Haiti, of course, has to be at the center of it, as the first country to have declared independence and to have emancipated Black people as slaves,” Mottley said. “What we had was a society and an economy that had been sucked dry and wealth extracted from it for centuries. Now, if you start with a deficit, you have hell to catch up and that has been our experience in these 50, 60 years since independence.”
The regional team of leaders and support personnel on reparations is scheduled to meet in the coming weeks to continue the fight against Europe.
Haiti was the key agenda item at the summit. The participation of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as a special guest, helped attract international attention to the summit and the issue of the near collapse of the Haitian government, its economic standstill from weeks of gang-related riots, and its tenuous security situation. More than 100 officers have been killed in recent weeks.
Canada has a large Haitian diaspora in many of its provinces.
Announcing plans to help Haiti, Trudeau said Ottawa will send navy intelligence vessels to the Caribbean island to back up the work of local police in fighting heavily armed gangs and will also provide mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles for police to use. The assistance package to Haiti included a $10 million grant to the International Office of Migration to help Haitian women struggling along the border with the Dominican Republic and $12.3 million in direct humanitarian aid.
”Together with Caricom, Canada and international partners can help Haitians bring an end to the crisis and build a better, and more hopeful, future for their country,” Trudeau said. “The toll of human suffering in Haiti weighs heavily on me. As Canadians, our fundamental objective is to ease this suffering and empower Haitians to chart their own future.”