Join Haiti’s Demand for Reparations & Restitution July 15-22

  • Post category:Event
Photo credit: UNIFA

Take Action: Week Of Solidarity With Haiti

July 15-22nd: Let’s Make Some Noise!

Demand Reparations and Restitution

Two hundred years ago, in July 1825, French warships surrounded Port-au-Prince, threatening to reinvade Haiti if the Haitian government did not pay the French “reparations” for the crime of ending slavery and achieving independence from French colonialism. In the end, Haiti was forced to pay $115 billion to the descendants of French slaveholders and to French and U.S. banks. The payments on the debt decimated the Haitian economy.

In 2003, then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide formally demanded that France pay back its debt to Haiti. Years later, French officials admitted that this played a key role in their support for the U.S.-orchestrated coup d’etat against the Aristide government in 2004, a coup that is at the root of the current crisis in Haiti.

This year in Haiti, grassroots activists are demanding once again that France pay back its debt. At UNIFA (University of the Dr. Aristide Foundation), for example, students and faculty highlighted this demand throughout the recent school year. Haiti Action Committee is part of this campaign, along with Haitians throughout the diaspora and Haiti solidarity activists around the world. We are linking the demand for reparations and restitution from France with our opposition to the mass deportations being instituted by the Trump Administration. We urge you to join the campaign! 

How to join this campaign:

1. Banner drops for Haiti – Here are some slogans or develop your own!

  • Haiti: Reparations, Yes! Deportations, No!
  • France: Pay Your Debt to Haiti
  • U.S./France: Pay Your Debt To Haiti
  • Let Haiti Live: Reparations, Yes! Deportations, No!

2. Solidarity Videos: Have your organization make a short video and post it on social media. Hold up a sign, chant a slogan, send the video to us at action.haiti@gmail.com.

3. Write to the French consulate or embassy in your area, demanding that they pay back Haiti. (Click for TEMPLATE)

4. Invite Haiti Action Committee to meet with your organization.

5. Picket at a French Consulate or at Citibank (the bank that sparked the U.S. invasion and occupation of Haiti from 1915-1934 and stole millions from Haiti) – here’s a LINK to Haiti Action Committee’s recent demo at Citibank and the French Consulate.

6. Bring the issue of Haiti, the Trump travel ban, and the denial of TPS and humanitarian parole to Haitian refugees to the forefront in demonstrations at ICE headquarters.

Whatever you do, please get in touch with us and let us know. We want to build this campaign widely. Let’s make Haiti visible!

LEARN MORE:

Haiti: Reparations Yes, Deportations No! Counterpunch, June 19, 2025

Haiti and the Global Movement for Reparations, keynote address by Mildred Aristide at the Samuel Dash Conference on Human Rights, Georgetown Law Human Rights Institute.