France’s former ambassador to Haiti has admitted France and the United States effectively orchestrated the 2004 coup that overthrew Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s first democratically elected president. The former ambassador, Thierry Burkhard, told The New York Times that one benefit of the coup was that it ended Aristide’s campaign demanding that France pay financial reparations to Haiti. Over the weekend, The New York Times published a special section headlined “The Ransom,” looking at how France devastated Haiti’s economy in the 19th century by forcing Haiti to pay reparations for generations to former French slaveholders after a slave rebellion led to the 1804 Haitian Revolution.