was in Dominican 20yrs ago for a few weeks. beautiful place, different pace
maybe it’s the voodoo.
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Seven now , three critical. The place is an absolute tinderbox now.
Well the fact that part of the island has only farming from tabacco to sugar and indigo and practically no mineral wealth to speak. This being the major influence on that western side of the island being vunerable as long as it isn’t part of the whole island. Their despots making this the historical trait.
i must admit that the French formulating a law that in theory abolishes slavery yet manages to make it worst is quite shocking. Also 36000 slaves a year transported there just to replace those that died on the plantations due to conditions is a reminder of the shocking conditions in the days of sugar plantations.
Btw I couldn’t read the article you posted as it’s behind a pay wall however the desparation of the French to reestablish ‘order’ was frightening.
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They also used their diplomatic position in the early middle 19C to force Haiti to pay reparations(!) for freeing themselves. The amount demanded was crippling, the interest payments more so. I think there is a legitimate case for Haiti’s demand that France pay them reparations - simply the compounded value of what they extracted from Haiti (ex-slaves) for the value of the slaves runs into low hundreds of billions of Euros today. It is an absolute obscenity…
…and yet it is a real coin toss as to whether it is France or the USA that has fucked over Haiti the worst.
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If reparations for all colonial wrongdoings were paid, the entire western world would be bankrupt, which would lead to even greater domination by moneyed elites than we already have.
So no, thanks.
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In 2015 François Hollande used France’s national day to commemorate the abolition of the slave trade to seemingly make a promise to repay the debt , in advance of an upcoming trip to the country. He said ; "When I come to Haiti, I will, for my part, settle the debt that we have.”
Just imagine the surprise and excitement these words caused. But they were swiftly to be followed by a clarification by aides that he was in fact speaking of a ‘moral debt’.
As far as I am aware the question of the debt has never been revisited.
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Before being forcibly removed from power in 2004 ( facilitated by France and the US ) ) President Jean-Bertrand Aristide had submitted a bill of $20bn to the French government. (The figure was remarkably close to the figure that economists for the NYT landed on.)
That amount isn’t going to bankrupt France , but it could go a long way to putting Haiti back on its feet. (Or at least it could of at the time.)
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Take it from the moneyed elites maybe?
You mean make them pay tax ! pffft
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Jerusalem shooting: Thirteen-year-old held over second attack in days Jerusalem shooting: Thirteen-year-old held over second attack in days - BBC News
That was all over the news this morning . Also yesterday a Jewish settler shot three Palestinians in Nablus. It seems that story wasn’t deemed to be newsworthy enough to be widely reported , never mind having a terrorist attack label attached to it.
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I don’t disagree with that, actually - how do you put a price tag on human suffering over generations? But in this particular case, the French extracted a payment from Haiti that is simply staggering, and saddled the country with crippling debt that it has never shed. Simply undoing that easily calculable wrong seems to me an absolutely legitimate demand.
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There isn’t a great deal of dispute over the amount - it is simply a matter of what interest rate to use for two centuries, and how to deal with the compounded interest on the loans that the French subsequently forced Haiti to take to service the original payment, which was mostly paid in installments. That was first borrowed from French banks, later in the century it was American.
Aristide is far from the first Haitian leader removed from power for raising this question of France and the US
On that theme.
When they are the “terrorists” nothing they can do in defense of themselves can ever be considered justified, and everything that is done to them is justified
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As far as the Israeli far right (who now comprise most of the government) are concerned , all Palestinians are terrorists.
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Someone has hit Iran. A drone attack on ammunition facilities. Large and sophisticated attack. Rumours of Israel or the US. Iran’s dicatorship in emergency meeting.
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And as far as many of the (far)left of this word, all Israeli are terrorists who should stop speaking about the second world war and are basically no better than the nazi were …
You don’t have to be from the far left to recognise that Israel is an apartheid state and a non-functioning democracy.
These hardliners ( the new Minister for National Security was once a member of a party which was designated as a terrorist organisation) that Netanyahu has cobbled together in order to save his own skin have been in power for less than a month. In that time the country has witnessed its worst internecine violence in a decade and has been brought to the brink of another intifada and another ‘war’ in Gaza.
It’s not anti-semitic to point out realities.
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Yes it is. You’re antisemitic if you don’t think David Baddiel is funny, as well.
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