Socialist Action /May 2001
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.
Socialist Action /May 2001 |