France's debt to Haiti

A video produced as part of a Yes Men-inspired creative activist hoax, to draw attention to the illegitimate indemnity France extorted from Haiti following Haitian independence. This “independence debt” illegitimately forced a people who had won their independence in a revolution led by former slaves to pay again for their freedom. Imposed under threat of military invasion and the restoration of slavery by French King Charles X, to compensate former colonial slave-owners for lost “property” (including the slaves who had won their freedom and independence when they defeated Napoleon’s armies), this indemnity burdened generations of Haitians with an illegitimate debt, which they were still paying right up until 1947. In 2003, when the Haitian government demanded repayment of the money France had extorted from Haiti, which it calculated amounted at the time to the equivalent of 21 billion USD, the French government responded by helping to overthrow that government. In the hoax video, which was first released publicly on July 14, 2010, a woman identified as a spokesperson for the French foreign ministry announced that France would finally pay Haiti back. The video was produced by the Committee for the Repayment of the Indemnity Money Extorted from Haiti (C.R.I.M.E.), a group of activists who orchestrated the hoax in collaboration with the Yes Lab for Creative Activism.