A group of prominent academics and activists, including Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein, have published an open letter in the French newspaper Libération calling on France to repay an “independence debt” it imposed nearly 200 years ago after Haiti successfully won independence from France. The appeal to the French president Nicolas Sarkozy says the debt could help cover the rebuilding of the country after a devastating earthquake that killed more than 250,000 people seven months ago. The Montreal-based journalist Isabel Macdonald helped draft the letter.

Isabel Macdonald: “With 1.6 million Haitians still homeless seven months after the earthquake, it’s really vital that we recognize that not only are Haitians owed aid money by the West, they are also owed tens of billions of dollars in restitution. This is because Haitians were forced to pay the French government 90 million gold francs, a sum that amounts, according to some analysts, to $40 billion US today, adjusting for inflation and a minimal interest rate, as compensation for the lost property of former French slave owners.”

The letter is being published at a time when the international community is coming under increasing criticism for failing to send aid money pledged at the international donors’ conference in March. According to the UN-sponsored Haiti Reconstruction Fund, only two countries — Brazil and Estonia — have paid the fully pledged amount, while the United States, France, Canada and others have failed to send their pledged aid to Haiti.