En January last, Rosita Destival, a Guadeloupean descendant of a slave, decided, supported by the representative council of black associations in France (CRAN), to take the French state to court and asked for compensation for crimes against humanity. For this, it relied on Law No. 2001-434 of May 21, 2001, known as the “Taubira Law”, which recognizes that the slave trade and slavery constitute a crime against humanity.
On May 10, on the occasion of the Day to commemorate the abolition of slavery (the Taubira law was adopted by the Senate on May 10, 2001), the CRAN announced that it was suing the Caisse des Deposits and Consignments asking him for compensation for having enriched himself in the XNUMXth century at the expense of Haiti, by taking advantage of crimes against humanity: the slave trade and slavery.
Slavery was definitively abolished in France in 1848. It is surprising that legal actions were brought in 2013, 165 years after the abolition. But isn't it absurd that it was not until 2001 that a French law recognized that the slave trade and slavery are crimes against humanity?
The law of May 2001 represents a step forward, it is undeniable, but should we stop there?
Can the descendants of the victims of the slave trade and slavery obtain reparations? And if so, of what nature?
The question of “reparations”, raised for several years, remains a subject of dissension. Thus, the proposed Taubira law included an article 5 including a paragraph concerning reparations: "A committee of qualified persons responsible for determining the damage suffered and examining the conditions of reparation due for this crime" is set up. This article was repealed in the law committee and it was only after the deletion of the part concerning reparations that the law was unanimously passed by the Assembly [1].
In spite of the actions carried out in this field for several years, the answers to the requests for repair have not changed much. This is why CRAN, which wants a debate on this issue, has decided to take legal action.
What are repairs?
In law, reparations are defined as “legal, moral, material, cultural or symbolic devices put in place to compensate after a large-scale damage, a social group or its descendants, individually or collectively” [2]. International regulations provide for reparations in the event of large-scale damage: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity…. Thus, following the First World War, France obtained reparations from Germany for war damage.
Crime against humanity is imprescriptible
Louis-Georges Tin [3], president of CRAN, opposes the idea that reparations linked to slavery are undue because they relate to a fact that is too old [4]. In French and international law, a crime against humanity is imprescriptible:
Far 64-1326 of the December 26 1964tending to note the imprescriptibility of crimes against humanity: "Crimes against humanity, as defined by the United Nations resolution of February 13, 1946, taking note of the definition of crimes against humanity, as it appears in the charter of the international tribunal of August 8, 1945, are imprescriptible by their nature. " |
Therefore, asking for compensation 165 years later does not pose a problem from a legal point of view. In addition, LG Tin recalls that one of the reasons for the imprescriptibility of a crime against humanity is that because of the enormity of the damage caused, a long period of time is often necessary for the population who have it. been a victim, to recover and be able to file a complaint. It often takes several generations. And this is indeed the case for slavery. After the abolition in 1848, the lives of freedmen working on the plantations changed little. No financial means having been granted to them, they continued to be exploited and to work for their former teachers for poverty wages. However, paradoxically, in 1849 compensation was paid to slave owners to compensate them for the loss of their “working tool”… free! It was the slavers who received reparations…! For the former slaves, being “free” was enough…
- Abolition of slavery in Martinique 23 May 1848
Repairs at the international level
This subject, little discussed in France, gave rise to many discussions at the international level. Thus, during the third world conference on racism organized by the United Nations, which took place in Durban (South Africa) from August 31 to September 8, 2001, States recognized that "slavery and the trafficking of slaves, in particular transatlantic, constitute crimes against humanity ”. That they are the “main sources and manifestations of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance” and that the “victims of these acts continue to suffer the consequences”.
World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. Durban (South Africa)
31 AUGUST - 8 SEPTEMBER 2001 Article 13. |
However, when a number of African countries requested reparations from states that participated in slavery, the European states opposed this request ...
One-off repairs have been put in place in the United States
In the United States, the question of reparations has been raised many times: in 1865, during the abolition of slavery, bills were tabled on this subject, but President Andrew Johnson (pro-slavery southerner) who replaced Abraham Lincoln after his assassination, fiercely opposed it [2]. Since then, many actions have been taken to obtain reparations for the descendants of slaves. However, only a few individual lawsuits resulted in compensation.
Martin Luther King, in favor of reparations linked to slavery, recalled that “slavery was both a deprivation of liberty and a deprivation of wages [1]. While the slavers were able to bequeath a fortune to their descendants, the slaves could only bequeath their misery. … No pile of gold, however large it is, will be enough to compensate for the exploitation and the humiliation suffered by the blacks of America during the centuries… But one could however fix the price of this “delay of wages” … The reimbursement of the damages suffered would result in a vast government program instituting compensation measures. "
More recently, the bill first tabled in 1989 by Democratic MP John Conyers called for the creation of a Commission to assess racial and economic discrimination against African Americans as a result of slavery (the repercussions of the slavery and discrimination in their lives today), the legitimacy of compensations, their amount and their eligibility conditions [1]. This law, redeposited regularly since 1989, has always been postponed. However, J. Conyers' proposal has the merit of having revived the debate regularly in civil society.
Perhaps in relation to this, a law of transparency concerning slavery was passed in 2000 in California [1]. This law required insurance companies wishing to work with the state to reveal whether they had benefited in the past from the slave trade. Research has shown that, indeed, many companies have sold insurance coverages to slavers to insure the loss they suffered when slaves were injured or killed. So these were profits from slavery.
In the years that followed, similar texts were passed in other states or American cities without becoming a federal law. In 2005, following the law in force in Chicago, the company JP Morgan Chase, one of the first global investment banks, was forced to recognize that two banks of Louisiana which it was born, had owned slaves between 1830 and 1865. As slaves were accepted as guarantors when loans were issued, the bank became the owner of the slaves when plantation owners found themselves in default. Following this, JP Morgan Chase set up a million-dollar 5 repair program, consisting of scholarships for Louisiana's African-American youth. Similarly, several US banks (Bank of America, Wachovia Corporation, Lehman Brothers ...), convinced of having benefited from slavery in the past, have put in place repair programs.
These examples show that it is not absurd to seek and obtain reparations for slavery-related harm even though many years have passed since the abolition of slavery.
Haiti, a particularly troubled history
To understand why CRAN sued the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations (CDC) for having enriched itself at the expense of Haiti, a historical reminder is necessary [5].
In 1776, the island of Santo Domingo was separated into two parts, the eastern part, French colony and the western part, Spanish possession, larger but less populated. The middle of the nineteenth century was a period of great prosperity for the French Santo Domingo, the first exporter to Europe of coffee, sugar, indigo and cotton. The work of slaves, subject to particularly severe oppression in the plantations, played an important role in this accumulation of wealth.
In 1789, around 25.000 whites coexisted in the French part of Santo Domingo: “Grands Blancs”, owners of plantations, and “Little Whites”, bourgeoisie and people of the towns, 25.000 Mulattoes or free blacks and 400.000 black slaves. The French Revolution provoked deep upheavals on the island: opposition from the big landowners allied to the nobility, egalitarian claims of the “Little Whites” and the “Free of color”, slave insurrections. This resulted in a very violent war of independence from 1791, with the intervention of the English and Spanish armies, and the coming to power of Toussaint Louverture.
Some important moments of the Haitian revolution
• The Convention grants Blacks freedom in 1793 and equal political rights in 1794. |
In 1825, France recognized the independence of Haiti but "on condition that the inhabitants of the French part of Saint Domingue pay the sum of 150 million francs intended to compensate the former colonists who will claim compensation" (ordinance of April 17 1825 signed by Charles X). This order is accompanied by the sending to the Caribbean of a fleet of 14 warships and the President of Haiti, Jean-Pierre Boyer, is forced to accept. This compensation represents an overwhelming burden for the young republic devastated by twenty years of internal strife. It will be reduced to 90 million germinal francs (ie 6 years of budgetary revenue for the Haitian state) thanks to the “Treaty of Friendship” signed in February 1838 with Louis-Philippe. The eastern part of the island, a former Spanish colony, refused to participate in the payment of the compensation allocated to the former French colonists and separated in 1844 to resume its previous borders of 1776.
Do you like the website ?
Access all our Premium content. More than 2000 articles and ebooks
SLAVERY AND REPAIRS: How to deal with the crimes of history ...
🛒 I order mine 👇
Release Date | 2013-04-24T00:00:01Z |
Language | Français |
Number Of Pages | 176 |
Publication Date | 2013-04-24T00:00:01Z |