SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: "See? They cannot govern themselves. They needed the stern hand." No.

https://x.com/nxt888/status/2053078646152429799

@nxt888

The debt.

This is the mechanism nobody talks about because it requires understanding how money works and most people find finance boring, which is exactly why it is the preferred instrument.

When colonized countries gained independence, they inherited:

Debt incurred by colonial governments: for railways built to extract resources, for administrative infrastructure that served the colonizer's needs, and for the costs of suppressing their own independence movements.

Debt denominated in the colonizer's currency and owed to the colonizer's banks.

Haiti's case is the most grotesque example on record.

Haiti defeated Napoleon's army in 1803.

The first Black republic.

The only successful slave revolution in history to create an independent nation.

France's response came in 1825: it recognized Haiti's independence only after sending warships and forcing Haiti to pay 150 million gold francs, later reduced to 90 million, as compensation.

Compensation for what?

For the slaves.

France demanded that Haiti pay France for the loss of the human beings that Haiti had freed.

Haiti paid.

For 122 years, Haiti paid.

The final payment was made in 1947.

That debt, and the economic strangulation it required, is a direct structural cause of Haiti's poverty today.

And today, when Haiti is poor, when Haiti struggles, when Haiti has political instability, some people look at it and say:

"See? They cannot govern themselves. They needed the stern hand."

No.

The stern hand is why they are where they are.

The invoice is still being paid.