Noami Klein: Forgiveness for Haiti? We Should be Begging Theirs

Forgiveness for Haiti? We Should be Begging Theirs, by Naomi Klein, The Guardian, February 11, 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. Our debt to Haiti stems from four main sources: slavery, the US occupation, dictatorship and climate change. More...