Forgiveness for Haiti? We should be begging theirs

The very idea of Haiti as debtor needs to be abandoned. We in the west should pay arrears for years of violations

• 
• • Naomi Klein
  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday 11 February 2010

If we are to believe the G7 finance ministers, Haiti is on its way to getting something it has deserved for a very long time: full “forgiveness” of its foreign debt. In Port-au-Prince, Haitian economist Camille Chalmers has been watching these developments with cautious optimism. Debt cancellation is a good start, he told al-Jazeera English, but: “It’s time to go much further. We have to talk about reparations and restitution for the devastating consequences of debt.” In this telling, the whole idea that Haiti is a debtor needs to be abandoned. Haiti, he argues, is a creditor – and it is we, in the west, who are deeply in arrears.

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Tags: foreign debt, Haiti, Jean Bertrand Aristide, Naomi Klein, the Duvaliers