French Leader's Haiti Visit Revives Bitter Legacy

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Feb. 16, 2010
French Leader's Haiti Visit Revives Bitter Legacy
First Haiti Visit By French President Revives Bitter Memories Of The Cost Of Independence

AP) PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - Nicolas Sarkozy's visit Wednesday, the first ever by a French president, is reviving bitter memories of the crippling costs of Haiti's 1804 independence.

A third of the population was killed in an uprising against exceptionally brutal slavery, an international embargo was imposed to prevent slave revolts elsewhere and 90 million pieces of gold were demanded by Paris from the world's first black republic.

The debt hobbled Haiti, it seemed for life.

A country plagued by natural and unnatural calamities of Biblical proportions was desperately poor and mismanaged even before a magnitude-7 earthquake smashed up Port-au-Prince, killing more than 200,000 people and leaving more than a million homeless.

Haitian politicians this week diplomatically skirted the question of reparations - a demand put to Paris by ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. That suggests Sarkozy's four-hour visit could herald a new era.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/16/ap/latinamerica/main6213742.shtml

[bikingaz]

1. bitter memories ? 206 years ago ? BS

that's not memories, that's history.

this is just sensationalism