Theo Sitther writes about Haiti in Third Way Cafe:
Ben Depp/MCC
More than two hundred years ago Haiti shed the brutal bonds of French slavery and created the first free black nation and the second republic in the Western Hemisphere. Haiti’s abolition of slavery happened at a time when the United States and other western governments continued to profit from the slave trade. Haiti has been paying the price for its freedom ever since.
After Haiti’s independence in 1804, France, with support from the U.S. government, imposed a massive debt of 150 million francs on Haiti ($21 billion in today’s dollars). Haiti struggled to pay off this debt while suffering under several military interventions, dictatorships and economic policies imposed by the IMF and the World Bank. These have destroyed Haiti’s ability to take care of itself and its people.
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