Oliver Twist in Hong Kong

On Friday morning, as I write, the Leviathan called Globalisation seems headed for the rocks in Hong Kong. Stark failure faces the Doha round of negotiations for a new world order in which imperialist capitalism would adopt a new persona - a kinder, gentler face disguising the same old rapacious exploitation of the poor of the world.

Among the rocks in Globalisation's seaway are the newly awakened giants of the Third World or so-called Developing World - India, Brazil and others as well as - Surprise! Surprise!! - the primary producers of the African, Caribbean and Pacific - ACP -former colonies of metropolitan Europe.

Marooned in their miserable alms houses, these minor mendicants are saying to the rich masters - "Please, Sir, we want more!"

The masters of the alms houses, the Americans, Europeans, Japanese and other members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) are bemused by these demands, not quite understanding what the little beggars want when they say they are demanding justice.

Absent from the global forum are the Haitians, the people who began the whole process of decolonisation and freedom from plantation slavery. And that is where the apparently intractable quarrel about economic justice began between the rich and the poor of the world.

The Haitian revolution began a 200 year long process of decolonisation which is ending, as it began, with the Haitians struggling to free themselves from slavery. They were not defeated by force of arms but by compound interest; to escape the French and American trade embargo of their newly independent country, the Haitians agreed to pay the French reparations for their war of Independence In neighbouring Jamaica, the planters were recompensed for losing their property when slavery was abolished.

Nothing was paid to the ex-slaves, guaranteeing, as in Haiti, the continuing supremacy of the usurers and the shopkeepers. Haiti was the first highly indebted poor country, having to pay the French a penalty estimated by President Aristide to equal US$25,000,000,000 in today's money.

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