Devon Dick
LAST WEEK, the installed 'government' of Haiti brought charges of financial improprieties against exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. However, Aristide's allegation that he was kidnapped by French and American troops has been allowed to die. No international investigation, and no one knows the truth or even cares. Our Prime Minister and leader of the Group of 77 and China did not raise his voice at the recent United Nations on behalf of Haiti. What a sellout.
Our PM started well in offering Aristide exile over the objections of the mighty United States of America and CARICOM has done well in not recognising this 'government' in Haiti. But more should have been done for the Haitian people with all the killings and human rights abuses.
ACTIVIST SCHOLAR
In the last week of October, Professor Hilary Beckles, principal of Cave Hill campus, placed Haiti on the table as he spoke at the University of Warwick on the 25th anniversary of the assassination of Walter Rodney, activist scholar. His topic was reparations. He told the audience that a couple weeks after Aristide made the first formal claim of billions of U.S. dollars for reparations at a conference in Montego Bay he was ousted! And then the present unelected 'government' promptly declared that the claim is null and void. Them sell out Haiti.
But did Aristide have a case? Beckles, who led the Barbadian delegation to the world conference in South Africa that discussed reparations and who spoke on behalf of the Caribbean delegation, reminded his audience that on the 21st anniversary of Haitian independence, the Haitian rulers asked for international recognition instead of the European embargo. France said that they would have to be compensated for the loss of their enslaved cargo and property. The Haitian leaders agreed, and paid billions of dollars to France with the last payment in 1925, some 97 years later. The Haitian people had to borrow money on the French money market to pay the debt! What a wicked act. It is similar to the situation with the planters in the West Indies being compensated £20 million by the British Government for the loss of the services of the enslaved while the Africans got nothing.
REPARATION PAYMENTS
In 1952, Germany paid US$222 million for resettling 500,000 Jews who fled from Nazi-controlled countries. In 1990, Austria made payments to South Korea for acts committed during its invasion and occupation. In addition, Japan has made restitution of US$1.2 billion to Japanese-Americans. So why cannot the Haitians be compensated?
In 2003, Dr. Veront Satchell, speaking at Churches Eman-cipation Lecture, challenged the Church to support the cause of reparations. Reparation starts with an apology and then financial settlement based on one group being unjustly enriched at the expense and to the detriment of another group.
Reparation is a desire for compensation to address the wrongs of slavery so that countries and people who have suffered and are still suffering from the consequences of slavery will enjoy freedom and develop along equal terms as all other ethnic groups. In the Bible, it would be akin to the doctrine of restitution. The Bible records that after chief tax collector, Zacchaeus, had met Jesus, he who had enriched himself at the expense of the poor decided to pay back four times the amount he cheated them. That is a form of reparation.
REAPING THE REWARDS
Most denominations benefited from slavery. Dr. Horace Russell in a journal claimed that the Baptist pioneer was a slave-holder. I recently realised that, in my book, Rebellion to Riot, I overstated the contribution of the church to education. The Anglicans, the most outstanding, with 83 educational institutions, got their money not from offerings but from the iniquitous taxation policy! The traditional churches appear reluctant to touch reparations because it would open a can of worms.
On Sunday, former Cabinet minister and Gleaner columnist, Arnold Bertram, said that the Church and civil society and he himself were silent when the garrisons of Tivoli, Arnett and Spanish Town were built. Now we are suffering the consequences.
Enlightened self-interest should tell us that a prosperous Haiti would be a good market for us and a 'sellout' Haiti will be disastrous for Jamaica and the region.
The Rev. Devon Dick is pastor of the Boulevard Baptist Church and author of 'Rebellion to Riot: the Church in Nation Building'.
