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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Mass Deportations of Haitians Condemned

Diógenes Pina

SANTO DOMINGO, Mar 22 2007 (IPS) - The prospects of the Haitian community resident in the Dominican Republic might improve if Dominican authorities were to adopt Amnesty International (AI)’s recommendations and change their “migration policies and practices.”

“Concerns over the collective and mass expulsions of Haitian migrant workers and the abuses that accompany them will remain a source of concern until the Dominican government takes decisive action to bring its migration policies and practices into line with its international obligations,” AI said.

The AI report “Dominican Republic: A Life in Transit – The Plight of Haitian Migrants and Dominicans of Haitian Descent” was launched on Wednesday, International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in Santo Domingo, where local human rights organisations regularly report abuses against immigrants from neighbouring Haiti. (The two countries share the island of Hispaniola).

AI called on the Dominican authorities to “refrain from any collective and mass expulsions of Haitian migrant workers and ensure that measures are taken to guarantee that the human rights of both documented and undocumented migrant workers are respected in any expulsion process.”

Unofficial figures indicate that there are more than 800,000 Haitians living in the Dominican Republic, which has a population of 8.5 million. And since the collapse of the Dominican sugar industry, many Haitians have abandoned rural areas and settled in the cities.

Over time, they have found employment in other sectors of the economy, such as construction, tourism, the free zones, and domestic service.

In the 1980s the Dominican state still owned 12 sugar mills, and hired thousands of Haitian temporary labourers for the sugarcane harvest under bilateral agreements with Haiti, which regulated the workers’ wages during their stay in the Dominican Republic and their repatriation to Haiti.

“Haitian workers were contracted in their own country and the Haitian government received (a fee) for each Haitian worker delivered. In 1986, when the last bilateral agreement was in force, the Haitian government received a payment of two million dollars for 19,000 braceros (sugarcane cutters),” the report described.

“The dire economic conditions that prevail in Haiti and the political turmoil that has characterised the country have contributed to continued emigration to the Dominican Republic,” AI added.

Indiscriminate deportations are occurring for a number of reasons, Chandrai Estévez of the Jesuit Service for Refugees and Migrants (SJRM) told IPS. “In our history lessons, we were taught that Haitians invaded our country, and that we have always had problems with them,” she said.

“Amnesty International’s report cannot be taken seriously,” said parliamentary Deputy Pelegrín Castillo, who belongs to a small party allied to the government of President Leonel Fernández. “What is really happening is that the Dominican Republic is opening its markets, and the border with Haiti is practically fading,” he said.

AI should look at Haitian reality from Haiti, “and see the political instability there, which they want to blame on us, when great powers like France and the United States are really responsible for it,” he said.

Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, is caught up in a complex period of violence and instability that erupted shortly before the overthrow of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide by armed rebels in February 2004. Aristide himself claimed to have been kidnapped and flown out of the country by U.S. marines. French and U.S. troops immediately took control of the capital.

In mid-2004 a multinational United Nations mission replaced these troops. Although it remains in Haiti, it has not managed to restore peace.

AI recommended that the Dominican government “take measures to ensure that arrests and deportations by immigration officials and military personnel are conducted with due respect for human rights and the rule of law and that all complaints of abuse are promptly, independently and impartially investigated.”

AI also urged the Dominican Republic to “stop summary deportations” and ensure that individual cases are examined fairly, and to “ensure that all prosecutions of undocumented migrants are conducted with full respect for international human rights law.”

The number of Haitians being repatriated is increasing. In 2003, 14,700 people were deported; in 2004, 15,464; and in 2005, 20,811, according to the report on Haitian Migration and Human Rights by the Support Group for Refugees and Repatriated Persons (GARR).