A specialist in the independence debt
In Haiti, Gusti-Klara Gaillard-Pourchet needs no introduction. This historian has been teaching since 1988 at the Ecole Normale Supérieure of the State University of Haiti (the UEH), the country's largest higher education institution, where she was a member of the Scientific Council. Her work focuses on the "independence debt," a financial indemnity (and the loans associated with it) imposed by King Charles X on his former colony in 1825 to compensate former slave owners. On Thursday, April 17, in the statement celebrating the bicentennial of Haiti's independence recognition, President Emmanuel Macron announced the creation of a "Franco-Haitian joint commission to examine [this] shared past." Composed of historians, the body will be co-chaired by the Haitian academic and the French diplomat and historian Yves Saint-Geours.
A family of eminent intellectuals
Born in 1959 in Port-au-Prince, Gaillard-Pourchet grew up in a family of scholars. Her father, the writer and historian Roger Gaillard (1923-2000), published several volumes on the occupation of Haiti by American forces (1915-1934). Her mother, Hedwig Kladekova-Gaillard (1928-2008), originally from Bulgaria, led the Haitian-German Cultural Institute. Her older brother, Micha, a biology professor, entered politics alongside President Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996; 2001-2004) and relentlessly fought for a democratic Haiti until his disappearance during the earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince on January 12, 2010. The historian has maintained close ties with many Haitian intellectuals, including Michèle Pierre-Louis: "She is respected by her colleagues as well as her students for her integrity and high moral values," said the former prime minister (2008-2009).
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