Haitian Workers Persecuted in the Dominican Republic
By MARTY GOODMAN
The Haiti Support Network (HSN), a New York-based coalition, visited the Dominican Republic April 5-11 to investigate the racist mistreatment of Haitian workers and Dominican workers of Haitian descent.
Thousands of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent working in the Dominican Republic are brutally exploited and then rounded up and deported en-masse. Many are beaten, robbed and sometimes shot dead. Their real crime? Being Haitian or just being Black. These conditions have been denounced as "modern day slavery" by human rights advocates.
Fuel hikes and other economic woes resulting from World Bank neoliberal policies have prompted the Dominican ruling class to scapegoat Haitians. Moreover, the social-democratic Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), under the leadership of the new president, Hipolito Mejia, is trying to show the PRD is as nationalistic as the right.
The HSN was invited to the Dominican Republic by the Movimiento de Mujeres Dominico-Haitianas. The delegation visited several border towns in the Dominican Republic and Ounaminthe in Haiti, interviewed human rights activists, and traveled to half a dozen bateys (work camps) near Santo Domingo, Puerto Plata, and Barahona.
The delegation included Lucius Walker, founder of Pastors for Peace, which sponsors aid caravans to Cuba in defiance of the U.S. embargo; Kim Ives, of Haiti Progrés newspaper; Ray Laforest, a union organizer for District Council 1707 (AFSCME) in New York; Dan Coughlin, formerly Pacifica's radio news director; Katherine Kean, director of the film "Haiti: Killing the Dream"; Elisa Chavez, an HSN organizer; and others.
The findings of the delegation
According to a report issued by the HSN entitled, "Growing Conflict on the Haitian Dominican Border," in March alone over 12,000 Haitians were deported, up from an average of 10,000 per month average during the last six months of 2000.
The HSN observed, "Behind these tales of human suffering and tragedy lie the dynamics of an unprecedented social and economic crisis sweeping across both nations, which share the island of Hispanola. ... Peasants are being uprooted, traditional economic sectors destroyed, and new sweatshop enclaves created, as capital, both local and foreign, seeks to ferret and squeeze out more profit from every back, piston and seed. As a result, exploitation, persecution, and violence are rocketing higher."
There are over 500,000 Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent living in the Dominican Republic. Haitian workers are concentrated in agricultural bateys in the sugar industry as well as in coffee, rice, and tomato harvesting. Haitians are also increasingly found in the assembly, construction, and tourist sector.
The delegation had five principle findings:
1) Violence and extortion toward Haitian workers and merchants has risen dramatically in the last month, particularly in the northwest border area. Dominican soldiers shot and killed three Haitians in March alone.
2) "Under the new Mejia government, expulsions have been more systematic, although more discreet. Under previous governments, there were sporadic waves of mass expulsions carried out by the military with media fanfare. Today, the expulsions are carried out with a lower profile in covered trucks and often "under cover of the night."
"Deportees are picked off the street, not allowed to gather their belongings or contact their families, are often beaten and terrorized, and are sometimes held in jails for days, even with their children." HSN delegate Dan Coughlin told Socialist Action, "If you have legal papers, they rip them up and you have to bribe to stay in the country. It's a racket."
3) Conditions in the bateys are worsening with the privatization of the sugar industry. The delegation found that cane cutters no longer have their cane weighed for payment but are subject to arbitrary estimates by bosses. Moreover, along with the overall decline in sugar production and the industry's privatization, the government is washing its hands of any commitment to humane conditions.
The bateys are "inhuman," says Coughlin. "Eight men to a 12 x 12 room with rain leaking in; rusty metal bunkbeds, no toilets, no running water. A typical workday is from about 5 a.m. to 6 p.m."
According to Coughlin, "the Dominican government is now talking about making Haitian workers legal because they can claim rights as immigrant workers that they wouldn't be able to claim as legal guest workers. Of course it sounds reasonable but in reality it will be the legalization of slavery."
4) The delegation found solidarity between Haitian and Dominican workers, particularly in the border areas. "April 5 was a day of solidarity and dignity between Haitian and Dominican workers," Coughlin said. "Several thousand demonstrated in Dajabon and several thousand in the Haitian border towns of Jimani and Malpasse."
In the coffee-growing town of Dajabon, Coughlin learned of a strike by members of a Haitian and Dominican union of truck drivers and others who transfer people and goods across the border. "Along that route they're extorted for funds, where they run the gauntlet of Dominican military checkpoints and are stopped at least a half a dozen times."
"The drivers were so angry at one Dominican military official who told them to get out and shot over their heads that they blocked the two important border roads. On April 2, they demanded that this military soldier be brought to justice and they blocked the border for two days ... [until] promised that this military officer be subjected to some kind of trial."
In Barahona, workers burned down cane fields owned by an abusive French privatized company. "What became clear to me," said Coughlin, "is that there is a real fightback by migrant workers in the Dominican Republic."
5) The delegates became aware of the growing U.S. role in training and supporting the Dominican military under the guise of a "war on drugs." The delegation learned that U.S. military advisors have been sighted along the border.
An unholy alliance
Washington has always turned a blind eye toward Haitian suffering. The U.S. supported Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo (1930-61) even after he massacred 30,000 Haitians in 1937.
Dominican President Joaquin Balaguer, a U.S.-trained Truijillo lieutenant, concluded the first formal agreement on Haitian migrant workers in 1966 with U.S.-backed dictator, "Papa Doc" Duvalier. Under massive pressure the Haitian government was forced to end the agreement in 1986, but injustices remained.
Despite its human rights violations, the Dominican Republic has received uninterrupted U.S. aid and favorable U.S. trade status. Even the 1991 expulsion of some 50,000 Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent failed to change U.S. policy.
A partner in this unholy triangle is Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a supposed "socialist" and friend of the poor. Aristide, who welcomed the U.S./UN occupation of his country, has remained silent.
