Did the U.S. steal an island covered in bird poop from Haiti? A fortune is in dispute

[Zorro]

For more than 160 years, the United States and Haiti have disputed the ownership of tiny Navassa Island.

When the eccentric rapper Kanye West made headlines last month claiming the president of Haiti had gifted him an island to which a Texan had already laid development claims, it was not the only island off Haiti’s coast in dispute.

For more than 160 years, the United States and Haiti have disputed the ownership of tiny Navassa Island at the southwest entrance of the Windward Passage covered with what was once worth a king’s ransom. More than a century later, the question remains: Who owns the poop?

Known as La Navase in French, the pear-shaped island is located about 35 miles west of Haiti’s southern peninsula, 85 miles northeast of Jamaica and 95 miles south of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Covered in bird poop and managed as a national wildlife refuge by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, it is claimed by Haiti and included in the very constitution that President Jovenel Moise is currently trying to rewrite.

“The United States has no valid claim over Navassa Island,” said Fritz Longchamp, a former Haiti foreign minister who in 1998 had to deal with the U.S.’s revived claims to the deserted outpost while serving in then-Haitian president Rene Preval first cabinet.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/2020/11/26/did-the-us-steal-an-island-covered-in-bird-poop-from-haiti-a-fortune-is-in-dispute/

[eppur_se_muova]

1. I have never passed up a chance to cite "The Great Guano Rush", my favorite book title.

It's a principal source for this article !

[LeftInTX]

2. The island's area is 2.1 sq miles. For scale,: Midway Island is 2.4

The article failed to mention the size!

My dad has been to Midway and I assume other DUers are familiar

The lighthouse on Navassa is abandoned .

Interesting article