Crisis of Haitian deportations front the DR

Special to the AmNews Translated by KAREN JUANITA CARRILLO

Amsterdam News Staff

The historical tragedies suffered by the Haitian people - massacres, invasions, and deportations - have not ended.

One of the worst incidents to affect Haitians migrating to the Dominican Republic was the Parsley Massacre, perpetrated by former Dominican President Leonidas Tru-jillo in 1937, when nearly 67,000 Haitians were killed by Dominican soldiers wielding machetes, bullets, and knives because, according to President Trujillo, Haitians had conspired against his government.

For a deeper understanding of this situation, we spoke with Maribel Nunez, an Afro Dominican leader and defender of human rights. Nunez, a member of Accidn Afro Do-minicana, is working to stop the massive deportations of Haitians who were born in die Dominican Republic and whose families have been there for generations.

AmNews: Why is the Dominican Republic deporting Haitians on a massive scale?

Maribel Nunez (MN): I want to argue diat dehumanization is part of the aggression that Haiti is suffering and that the deportations being carried out are because die Dominican government is an absolutely fascist, racist, neo-liberal, and imperialist government.

In recent years, a fascist movement has taken shape in this country and its growth has been accelerating. Well-known fascist paramilitary groups - connected to those in power - influence the government's anti-Haitian policy. They incite hatred against Haitians and mobilize with complete impunity, perpetuating the anti-Haitian Trujillo ideology of so-called Dominican purity, which they say is polluted by Haitians.

President Luis Abinader has no qualms about harming the economic interests of large economic sectors driven by Haitian labor, which is responsible for 7.4% of the country's GDP. All the aggressions against the Haitian community, the persecution of Blacks, are part of the awful hostilities suffered by the Haitian nation, and that includes attacks by armed paramilitary gangs from Miami and the DR. The United Nations says the Haitian oligarchs use these gangs and are indicative of imperialism.

Efforts to destroy Haiti and perpetuate the suffering of its people should not arouse a sense of solidarity in the Dominican Republic. Abinader did this to keep the people calm while leading a neolib-eral government; he has spent the last 4 years blaming Haitian immigrants and their sons and daughters for all the social ills that capitalist societies traditionally reproduce in governments that only respond to the interests of their oligarchs. Abinader won election with a manipulative anti-Haitian discourse that called for military intervention in Haiti and promoted the superiority of the Dominican people and die danger that Haitian immigrants supposedly pose to the "Dominican identity." The ultimate goal behind all of this is total control of the island.

AmNews: What national laws and international conventions is the Dominican government violating in its expulsion of Haitians?

MN: From October 2 to date, approximately 60,000 Haitians have been deported to Haiti, where more than half of the population is hungry and more than 700,000 are displaced. Dominican fascism has chosen die worst moment to create the greatest damage.

The massive deportations violate human rights. Abinader has sent police and the military to hunt down Blacks: They enter people's homes at dawn; tiiey'll arrest children, pregnant women, and women with newborns, and they put them all in trucks without basic human conditions of decency, and transport diem to Haiti. They even release people at night at the border.

International law dictates that mass deportations must not be carried out and tiiat each case of an immigrant must be treated individually, as stated in Article 22.9 of the American Convention on Human Rights: "The collective expulsion of aliens is prohibited."

Mass deportations also violate the "principle of non-refoulment," which protects immigrants from being deported to a place where there is no food security and where their lives or freedoms would be tiireatened.

AmNews: What does your organization propose in the face of mass deportations?

MN: We have demanded "the immediate cessation of the massive and arbitrary deportations of Haitian immigrants" and that all migration processes be carried out following human rights standards and national and international laws. We also called for international groups to demand that Abinader stop the deportations and for solidarity actions with the Haitian people, demanding that the United States stop the arms trafficking to Haiti that feeds paramilitary gangs. We reiterated that if Haiti were free of violence, fewer people would seek peace in other countries, and that immigration is a human right.

Our demands included "an end to the mistreatment and attacks by migration officials (police and military) and a thorough investigation of the cases of violence and abuse to punish those responsible." We demand that racism, hatred, and xenophobia against the Haitian people be stopped, as well as that the rights of Haitian and Dominican-Haitian children be guaranteed.