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(PHOTO BY RICK DELVECCHIO/CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO)

An Oct. 21 confrontation over illegal charcoal production on the Dominican frontier left four Haitians dead. “We know there would be a lot of people who would be more than happy to do that,” said Haitian migrant rights advocate Leonard Jean

December 2nd, 2009
By Rick DelVecchio

Ouanaminthe, Haiti – Reporters went to the Jesuit-run center for newly arriving deportees to hear the stories of undocumented Haitians sent back from the Dominican Republic. But Leonard Jean, an advocate at the center, said there were no deportees that day: Expulsions had been halted because of an incident on the southern frontier.

Four Haitians had been killed in a confrontation earlier in the week near Jimani on the Dominican side. At least some of the victims’ bodies had been burned, prompting Jean to speculate that the men had been lynched.

As the story emerged in Dominican and Haitian reports, the Haitians had been illegally gathering wood for charcoal, which is the household fuel of the poor in a country that can’t supply its people with energy.

Jean said he couldn’t speculate on who was behind the killings. “But we know there are a lot of people who would be more than happy to do that,” he said.

There were no deportees that day to speak about their lives, but in a way the dead spoke for them. The Jimani incident symbolized the plight of desperate Haitians spilling over to the Dominican Republic to find the means to survive, and it reflected the difficulty the two countries are having in dealing with it separately and together.

The way the incident was portrayed on the two sides showed the tension.

Dominican authorities condemned the crime and vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice. But Dominican press reports focused on the problem of charcoal racketeering and deforested Haiti’s growing pressure on the Dominican environment.

In Haiti, the Senate observed a minute of silence for victims of border violence, and the Haitian Support Group for Refugees and Repatriated Persons called the Jimani incident “disgusting, intolerable.”

Haitian intellectuals wrote a letter to Dominican President Leonel Fernández Reyna, pleading with him to bring the countries together before something worse happens. The intellectuals, alarmed by the number of critical Dominican press reports on Haitians’ presence in the country, also said they feared for the safety of Haitian migrants.

The fears are well-grounded, Belius Saint Marc, a Haitian who spent 25 years in the Dominican Republic and was repatriated in 1994, told a reporter at his home outside Ouanaminthe.

“Whatever happens in the Dominican Republic, they blame a Haitian,” said Saint Marc, 66. “Somebody died, they blame a Haitian. They rob a house, they blame Haitians. You might be lying on your bed and next thing they come and get you because they accuse you of a crime.”

He said older Haitians warn younger ones to stay home, “but they still go and they end up being killed.”

Haiti isn’t the dictatorship in was in Belius’ day, but its government has failed to develop an economy that can absorb even a fraction of the energies of its growing population. The lack of work drives illegal migration to the Dominican Republic.

“They’re just going over there to work, to see if they can make a little bit of money,” Saint Marc said. “Here, there is no work.”

Nearly all Haitians in the Dominican Republic are undocumented, and their status primes them for victimization. They get little help from their own government.

“Haitian authorities do little or nothing to help their citizens regularize their status in their host countries,” Jesuit Refugee Service said in a statement after a conference in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince Oct. 25. This further marginalizes Haitians and puts them at risk of human rights violations and deportation, the group said.

Haiti’s incapacity has long been a source of irritation on the Dominican side. The Dominican vice president and attorney general, responding to the letter of the Haitian intellectuals decrying Haitians’ treatment in the neighboring country, defended their nation’s policies and said Haiti should work harder to control its borders.

Humanitarian workers interviewed in both countries said human rights on the frontier remain fragile despite some positive steps by the Dominican government over the past 10 years. They said the risks to migrants include violence, labor exploitation, trafficking, extortion and deportation abuses.

Incidents such as a the multiple killings in Jimani are unusual, labor rights lawyer Alejandro Robles said. But he noted that in the first four months of 2009, seven Haitian bodies turned up on the northern frontier. He said none of the cases has been solved. The bodies were not identified and were buried on the spot.

On the northern border last July 24, a mob “beat up whoever Haitians they could find” and put four in the hospital, said Sister Nidia Victoria Zuluaga of the St. John the Evangelist, or Juanistas, community in Ouanaminthe. The incident was a response to the killing of a Dominican by a Haitian in a nearby town.

“No one ever gets convicted of these things,” she said. “Not so long ago a Haitian professor was attacked in the market because he was coming to the aid of a child who was being attacked. People said, ‘Shut up, you’re Haitian.’”

The Dominican Republic has “a profound problem of racism and discrimination,” in particular affecting black Dominicans, Dominican-born Haitians and Haitians, two United Nations experts reported in 2008. They urged the nation’s leaders to recognize the existence of racism and express the political will to combat it. The Dominican government, rejecting such criticisms as evidence of an international conspiracy against the country, said the report was based on subjective and inaccurate statements and emphasized that it has no policy or practice of racial discrimination.

Even though Haitians may be targets, they are also valuable. Everywhere they move, someone makes money, advocates said.

Haitian workers earn less than Dominicans doing the same work but risk being underpaid, denied vacation pay or fired when they're due a holiday bonus. For seasonal workers, crossing back and forth costs them heavily in illicit payouts at a chain of border stations.

“You have to think you are going to spend 5,000 in pesos just to get back,” labor organizer Johnny Rivas said.

Border guards “get rich so fast,” said Robbins Joseph, a Haitian college student in Santo Domingo, the Dominican capital. “Haitians that are living in the Dominican Republic illegally, that’s very, very good for soldiers.”

Migrants aren’t the only Haitians at risk. A 21-year-old Haitian teacher was fatally shot in a confrontation with border police Nov. 7 at Anse-a-Pitre, the Haitian Support Group for Refugees said. The group denounced what it called the increasing incidence of extortion of Haitian travelers. The Dominican government isn’t doing enough to stop it, and the Haitian government “abandons border users to their fate,” the group said.

To give migrants more protection, Robles’ group has begun equipping more than 5,000 Haitian workers on the northern frontier with a “moral identification” badge. It shows the authorities that the Haitian who carries it has proper business and that his rights will be defended.

Trafficking, where middlemen charge for helping people move over the line, is rampant. In 2008, the United Nations warned about a rise in reports of trafficking because of the high demand for cheap labor in sugar cane, tourism and construction.

“There’s more trafficking than rice is eaten here,” Robles said.

Robles said that although there is a general will in Dominican society to address the problem, there is no political will.

“There is a law that deals with human trafficking, which comes out of an international scandal,” he said. “Even though the law exists, not even 10 cases have been processed. What does that tell you? It tells you there’s no will.”

Robles said: “The problem here with migration is it’s a business.”

The Dominican government has shown a heightened awareness of the problem. It has removed 45 migration inspectors since August 2008 for suspected complicity. But no senior officials have been accused and no one has been convicted under the trafficking law since 2007, according to the U.S. State Department.

Human smuggling, which involves a coerced victim, is a separate but related problem. Dominican law against smuggling is extremely tough but “doesn’t work,” Robles said.

Relatively little is known about the victims of smuggling, who often transit over the Dominican border to destinations in third countries.

“This (migration) phenomenon is not alone,” said Jesuit Father Kenel Senatus, who promotes migrants’ rights on the northern frontier. “It has to do with other phenomena such as trafficking and smuggling.

“It’s mainly human smuggling we’re concerned with,” he said, adding that the crime is routine in the north.

The advocates also were critical of the Dominican government’s handling of undocumented people picked up and sent back to Haiti. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights exposed this problem almost 10 years ago, but advocates said abuses remain.

Repatriations are discriminatory and people are selected mainly for their skin color, according to the most recent report on a Haitian repatriates’ aid project funded by Catholic organizations and other donors.

New arrivals “usually are really in bad shape” physically, said Jean, the advocate at the Ounaminthe center. “We usually take them to a hospital.”

Jean added that deportees have told him that some are allowed to stay at the last minute after paying the authorities.

Haiti and the Dominican Republic have never had an easy relationship. Haiti’s independence from France in 1804 created “an extreme and enduring fear” and the demonization of Haitians throughout the hemisphere, according to a United Nations summary of the roots of anti-Haitian feeling. The summary said anti-Haitian sentiment in the Dominican Republic reached its strongest expression during the Trujillo regime from 1930 to 1961.

From the time of Haiti’s birth, nationalists in the Dominican Republic have worried that Haitian pressure holds back Dominican progress. But Eduardo Saint Jean, who heads the Haitian ministry for the Archdiocese of Santo Domingo, said the nationalists are wrong about Haitians’ contribution to Dominican society.

“All the work that goes into domestic national production – sugar cane, rice, construction, security guards – are things Dominicans won’t do for any price,” he said. “It’s the same thing that happens with Dominicans in Puerto Rico: They do what Puerto Ricans won’t do.”

Instead of working in the fields, young Dominicans, Saint Jean said, “prefer to buy a motorcycle and work as taxi drivers.”

Catholic San Francisco Assistant Editor Rick DelVecchio and two other Catholic journalists recently spent eight days in Haiti and the Dominican Republic to report on migrants and refugees, whose vulnerability as they cross national borders in search of a better life is a growing humanitarian concern. The trip was organized by Catholic Relief Services. The itinerary highlighted CRS-backed efforts to aid migrants – efforts involving personal courage and risk by people in the Church and their beneficiaries. This is the second installment in a five-part series. Part 1, “Once someone exists, they always try to find a better way,” appeared in the Nov. 20 issue.

 

From December 4, 2009 issue of Catholic San Francisco.

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