How Haiti became a "gold mine" and "cash machine" for France and the United States

A paralyzed country. An aid trap. A land that seems to be cursed by nature and human nature.

When the world looks to Haiti, one of the poorest countries on earth, it often hears accusations and preaching about corruption and mismanagement there, and sympathy for its endless suffering is often drowned out.

It is known that in 1804 the Haitians overthrew the French slave owners known for their cruelty and declared their independence— Haiti was the first country in the modern world to be born out of a slave revolt.

But almost no one knows what happened 20 years later, when French warships once again came to a people who had bought their blood for freedom and issued an ultimatum: either pay a staggering amount of cash again, or prepare for war

For generations, the descendants of the enslaved paid the descendants of former slave owners, money that could have been used to build schools, roads and clinics, or to revitalize the economy.

For years, when New York Times reporters documented Haiti's suffering, one question lingered: What if...? What if the country had not been preyed upon by outside powers, foreign banks and its own leaders from birth? How much more money can it get to build the country?

For more than a year, a team of Times reporters scoured archives and libraries across three continents for long-forgotten documents to find answers to the question and what the price of the freedom of the Haitian people was worth. Here are the main points of this week's series

Double debt is the root cause of everything

In 1825, a French warship full of cannons sailed into the harbor of the Haitian capital, and an emissary of King Charles X landed and made a non-sub-demand: France wanted compensation from the people it had enslaved.

It is usually the defeated countries that pay reparations, not the victorious powers. It was only a decade earlier that France had been forced to pay reparations to its European neighbors after Napoleon's failed military campaign – and it was the Haitian people who had defeated napoleon, the emperor's army. But Haiti is largely isolated internationally and has no strong allies. Fearing aggression and anxious to establish trade relations with other countries, it agreed to pay reparations.

France's reparations demand is 150 million francs, paid once a year and paid over five years, far exceeding Haiti's ability to pay.

As a result, France forced Haiti to borrow money from French banks to repay its debts. This Sisyphus-like pressure came to be known as double debt

The real cost that Haiti paid then (and today).

The Times counted every payment made by Haiti over a 64-year period. In today's dollar terms, the total is about 560 million.

But Haiti's losses cannot be measured solely by the amounts paid to France and external creditors over the years.

Every franc shipped across the Atlantic to the vaults of overseas banks was never circulated among Haitian peasants, laborers and merchants, nor was it used to build bridges, schools, factories — and it was on this expense that the state became a state and prospered.

After reviewing thousands of pages of archival documents — some of which are hundreds of years old — and consulting with 15 of the world's top economists, our correspondent calculated that Haiti's reparations to France over time resulted in $21 billion to $115 billion in economic losses. That's eight times the size of Haiti's economy in 2020.

"It's debt-induced neocolonialism," said Thomas Piketty, one of the economists we interviewed. "This loss of assets completely disrupts the process of nation-building."

And that's just the beginning. Double debt pushed Haiti into a debt cycle that left the country in a predicament for more than 100 years

The French bank that dug into the gold mine

The French government's demand for reparations weakened Haiti's national power, but in later years, France used a different strategy against Haiti: the predatory hand of a business partner

After half a century of double indebtedness, Haitians finally have their own national bank, the kind of institution in Europe that finances railways and factories.

But the National Bank of Haiti belongs to Haiti only nominally. It was founded by Paris-based Industrial and Commercial Credit Bank (CIC) and its investors. They took control of the National Bank of Haiti in Paris, taking commissions from almost every transaction made by the Haitian government. The original records disclosed by the Times show that ICBC and its investors sucked tens of millions of dollars from Haiti and burdened Haiti with more loans.

Not long after the initial celebrations, the Haitian people realized something was wrong.

"A bank that claims to be saving public finances from depletion doesn't start saving money, it takes out everything of value," one Haitian economist wrote. ”

The United States sees Haiti as a cash machine

When U.S. troops invaded Haiti in the summer of 1915, the official narrative was that it was too poor and turbulent to be left to fend for itself. Secretary of State Robert Lensing made no secret of his disdain for "African races", describing the occupation of Haiti as an indoctrination mission aimed at ending "anarchy, barbarism and oppression".

But traces of other motives were revealed the winter before, when a small group of Marines entered the Bank of Haiti and took $500,000 worth of gold. Within days, the gold was in the vault of a Wall Street bank.

"I made Haiti and Cuba good places for the national city bank guys to generate income," the general who commanded U.S. forces in Haiti said years later, calling himself "capitalist blackmailers."

According to decades of diplomatic letters, financial reports and archival records reviewed by The Times, As the predecessor of Citibank, National City Bank joined other Wall Street forces in pushing the United States to take control of Haiti and its finances.

In the decades since, the United States has been the dominant force in Haiti, threatening to dissolve parliament by force, killing thousands of people and transferring a large portion of Haiti's income to New York bankers, while the farmers involved in generating these profits are often struggling to feed

Some historians cite tangible developments in Haiti during the American occupation, such as the construction of hospitals, a railway of about 1,300 kilometers, and more efficient administrative services. But they also noted that the United States used forced labor, with soldiers tying laborers with ropes, allowing Haitians to build roads without compensation and shooting people who tried to escape.

The Times reviewed more than two dozen annual reports compiled by U.S. officials, showing that over a decade, a quarter of Haiti's total revenue was used to pay off the debts of the National City Bank and its affiliates.

The Salaries and Expenses paid by U.S. officials who control Haiti's finances are sometimes even higher than public health spending in the 2 million-person country

Internal scourge: corruption

"They were betrayed first by their own siblings, and then by foreign powers."

This statement comes from the Haitian historian George Michel. Like many Haitian experts, Michel argues that haiti's predicament cannot be explained without acknowledging the deep roots of a culture of corruption.

The Haitian official who made a private deal with a French bank in the 19th century and then retired in France?

"He's not the first Haitian official to sell the country for personal gain," Michel said. "In my opinion, this is almost the norm."

From ancient times to the present, Haitian leaders have been plundering for personal gain. Elected lawmakers speak openly on the radio about taking bribes, and oligarchs sit on lucrative monopolies and pay very little tax. Transparency International ranks Haiti as one of the most corrupt countries in the world

This is already a chronic disease

In an 1875 loan, French bankers took 40 percent of the money. Much of the rest goes into the pockets of corrupt Haitian officials who, according to historians, covet glory and wealth at the expense of the country's future.

Nearly a century later, the bookish doctor François Duvalier was elected president, and the country's prospects were bright. For the first time in more than 130 years, Haiti has been able to emerge from a heavy burden of international debt.

That was in 1957.

For the next 28 years, Duvalier joined forces with his son in a dictatorship notorious for corruption and brutality. Professionals have fled Haiti. The desperate country became even more desperate, with the Duvaliers plundering hundreds of millions of dollars in assets.

Haiti may be poorer than ever

History that is not in French textbooks

Double debt is basically a thing of the past. Generations of French have made a fortune from the economic exploitation of their ancestors, but these things are rarely taught in the classroom. The Times interviewed more than 30 descendants of families who have received reparations on the basis of Haiti's double debt. Most people say they've never heard of it. "I never knew this family history," said the sixth-generation descendants of Napoleon's first wife.

This is no accident. France has struggled to bury – or at least downplay – this history.

Even in Haiti, the full picture of history has long been unknown. By 2003, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide had taken many Haitians by condemning and demanding compensation for the debts imposed by France.

France moved quickly to try to discredit his reputation. For a country where other former colonies are still exploited by its colonial heritage, talk of reparations is worth vigilance. The French ambassador to Haiti recalled that Haiti's compensation claims were "explosive".

"We have to find a way to resolve it," he said.

Aristide even came up with an accurate figure of France's arrears, which at one point drew ridicule. But the Times found that Haiti's long-term losses were strikingly close to his estimates. He may even be too conservative.

In 2004, under the influence of the United States and France, Aristide was deposed and put on a plane. The United States and France defended the move, saying the unrest-torn Haiti needed stability. But over time, another former ambassador acknowledged that there may be other factors at work.

He told The Times that the Haitian president's abrupt ouster "may also have something to do with his compensation claims".