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July 15, 2010, 9:10 pm — Updated: 2:33 pm -->

France Will Not Repay Haiti Reparations

By ROBERT MACKEY

Video of a person pretending to be a French foreign ministry spokesperson, posted on a fake Web site on Wednesday.

Updated | Friday | 9:13 a.m. Some Haitians suspected the announcement was too good to be true: that France would pay their nation $22 billion to make up for forcing the former French colony to pay an equivalent sum in exchange for its independence in the nineteenth century. Well, those who were suspicious were proved right Thursday when an elaborate hoax was revealed.

The French government confirmed on Thursday that the statement, in the form of video and text posted a day earlier on a Web site that was a near replica of its official foreign ministry site, was a prank, Agence France-Presse reported.

The fake site, diplomatiegov.fr — which looks similar to the official site, diplomatie.gouv.fr — includes a video in which someone posing as a ministry spokesperson announced that France had decided to repay “the historic debt of 90 million gold francs Haiti paid to France following the former’s independence at the dawn of the 19th century.” The actor impersonating a French official added, “the 90 million gold francs, which Haiti paid France from 1825 until 1947, will be reimbursed in a yearly budget over the course of 50 years. Economic advisors working with the Ministry have calculated that the total sum amounts to €17 billion including adjustments for inflation and a minimal interest rate of 5 percent per annum.”

According to AFP, “France has no plans to repay Haiti this sum, and a foreign ministry spokesman confirmed that the press release, video and website were all fake.” The spokesman, Bernard Valero, told reporters the hoax site, “broadcasts false news and fraudulently copies the foreign ministry site.” He added, “We are studying what legal steps we can take to remedy this situation.”  

Several hours later, both the video and the complete text of the hoax statement, with English translation, were still available on the fake Web site.

Whoever is responsible for the hoax might have been inspired by a real attempt to get France to repay the debt Haiti was forced to pay to reimburse the owners of French plantations whose property was seized in the successful slave revolt that earned Haiti its independence in 1803. Seven years ago, during the nation’s bicentennial celebrations, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s government asked France to right this historical wrong.

As The Los Angeles Times reported from Port-au-Prince in 2003:

France owes this country exactly $21,685,135,571.48, the government figures — not counting interest, penalties or consideration of the suffering and indignity inflicted by slavery and colonization.

Paris swiftly rejected the demand for restitution when Haiti raised the issue in April, on the 200th anniversary of the death of Toussaint Louverture. A revered figure here, Louverture led fellow slaves in throwing off their French colonial oppressors.

Haiti is making a bicentennial spectacle of refusing to take no for an answer. In one of the most colorful campaigns to galvanize citizens in years, the country is awash in banners, bumper stickers, television ads and radio broadcasts demanding payback.

Update | Friday | 8:52 a.m. The French newspaper Libération reported that the Web site Whois offers these clues about the fake site: it was created on June 21 by someone using the name of the Haitian revolutionary hero Toussaint Louverture and an address on Quai d’Orsay in Paris, where the French foreign ministry is located. For readers of French, Libération also offers details about the debt Haiti was forced to pay in the nineteenth century in exchange for the lifting of an international embargo after it won its independence from France. A reader points to  a video report from France 24’s English-language site on the “ransom” Haiti was forced to pay to deposed French slave-owners, starting in 1825. The same reader notes that there is an online petition movement calling on France to pay back this debt.

It remains unclear who was behind the stunt, but in its precise execution and spirit it is not unlike similarly pointed pranks carried out by a group that calls itself the Yes Men. This trailer for a documentary on the group includes a selection of some of their hoaxes:

Last October, as The Times reported, “the group held the fake press conference at the National Press Club, where an activist posed as a spokesman for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and announced that the business lobby had changed its position and would no longer oppose a Senate climate change bill.” Video of that fake conference is featured on the group’s video site.