What colonial legacy are we speaking of ?

Former colonial powers are regularly confronted with the sudden looming up of the past in their relationship with their erstwhile possessions. The diplomatic crises between Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom or between the Ivory Coast and France, the debate between Paris and Algiers on the colonial undertaking, the invocation of the atrocities of conquest by Colonel Kaddafi to obtain financing for the Tripoli-Benghazi highway from Italy are some illustrations, amongst many others of this statement. Japan – an underrated colonial power – is no exception, whose crimes during the Second World War and territorial expansion from the end of the xix century continue to burden its relations with South Korea and China. In Bolivia, President Evo Morales, entirely absorbed in his nationalization of hydrocarbons singled out the Spanish firm Repsol denouncing « five hundred years of despoilment of natural wealth ».