Sarko seeks to re-establish France's colony in Haiti

France, which previously snarked that the US was "occupying" earthquake-stricken Haiti, is now trying to get in the game through a four-hour visit by President Sarkozy.


The French president bore a reovery plan that was little different from the US/UN plans except that it was French. According to a New York Times article, France truly laid a curse upon the island nation that threw off its colonial yoke:

In 1825, crippled by the U.S.-led international embargo that was enforced by French warships, Haiti agreed to pay France 150 million francs in compensation for the lost ''property'' -- including slaves -- of French plantation owners.

By comparison, France sold the United States its immensely larger Louisiana Territory in 1803 for just 60 million francs. The amount for Haiti was later lowered to 90 million gold francs.

Haiti did not finish paying the debilitating debt -- which was swollen by massive interest payments to French and American banks -- until 1947.

But Haiti's wealth already was destroyed. It had been the world's richest colony, providing half the globe's sugar and other exports including coffee, cotton, hardwood and indigo that exceeded the value of everything produced in the United States in 1788.

By the early 1780s, half of Haiti's forests were gone, leading to the devastating erosion and extreme poverty that bedevils the country today.

France's other former colonies in the region -- Guadeloupe, Martinique, St. Martin, St. Barts and Guiana (in South America) -- all have voted to remain part of France and send legislators to the French parliament.

The human cost of the colonial exploitation in Haiti was staggering. Slaves lasted little more than 10 years under brutal conditions. Haitian slaves who displeased their masters were boiled to death in vats of molasses, buried alive in piles of biting insects, crushed by heavy stones or simply starved to death. Just before the rebellion, Haiti had some 450,000 slaves, 25,000 whites and several thousand freed blacks and a mixed-race elite.

The uprising was as brutal as what had gone before.

Haitians asked about their independence today quickly recall the bloody Creole slogan ''koupe tet, boule kay'' -- cut off their heads, torch their houses.

Homeless Haitians who had not heard of Sarkozy's visit said they would welcome help, wherever it comes from.

''I hope he can bring me a tent, and the food, medicine and houses that everybody needs,'' said 19-year-old Joint Dewendsca, who expects to give birth to her first child under a tent made of bed sheets and wood poles on the grounds of Quisqueya University.

Many remain wary, however, in a country where people still describe a deceitful politician as ''speaking French.'' The vast majority of Haitians speak Creole.

''France still has its eye on Haiti,'' said Evens Dangervil, 31. ''It might want to control us politically and economically.''