Michaëlle Jean, born in Haiti and former Governor-General of Canada, now UNESCO’s special envoy to Haiti, being interviewed by the Toronto Star's Catherine Porter.
Talking about her adopted daughter, Marie-Eden, "She could have been illiterate. Dead.
"What about Lovely [the little girl found under the rubble after 6 days] and the many, many, many, many other Lovelys? Two little girls with the same potential and not the same opportunities. That is terrible. That, I cannot live with. ...
"The world owes this [financial help] to Haiti. Haiti has achieved something for humanity we can’t forget. It is the place in which slaves fought and triumphed over . . . slavery. When Haiti did that, they didn’t do it just for themselves. It was a legacy to humanity. But they paid a high price for that."
Catherine Porter: The price: first an embargo by its major trading partners worried the Haitian success would inspire their own slaves to revolt; then a crippling retribution fee for “lost property” to its former slave owner, France. That fee — set in 1825 at 90 million gold francs — took more than a century to be paid.
"We the world, we humanity, owe to this little country that really left us the legacy of fraternity, freedom, liberation, equality, human dignity," Jean says. "It means something. It’s about values."
Moved to tears, former GG reveals her plans to save Haiti.
It is often forgotten that in 1779 Haiti sent more than 500 volunteer soldiers to help America with its revolution. They now have a monument in Savannah, GA, but the world, especially the US, owes them much more than that.
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