30311: Pierre (Comment) (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Kawonabo1500@aol.com


Elizabeth – please allow me to call you Lizie- this  is my thinking on your
presentation:
Dominican  society must undergo a deep spiritual soul-searching to uproot the
deep-seated  racism fueled by the racist and ultra-nationalist fascist ruling
classes, the  hierarchy of the Dominican Catholic Church, the right-wing
media, government  authorities and army high command against Haitian Immigrant
Workers. Their  anti-Haitian propaganda has poisoned the rest of Dominican
society to the point  where the possibility of the recurrence of the massacre 
of
1937 by Dictator  Rafael Leonidas Trujillo resulting in the murder of 30,000
Haitian Workers is  real. The level of hatred they further generate against
Haitian Workers in the  Dominican  Republic is not justified. In perpetrating 
this
level of hatred and racism against people of Haitian Descent, the Dominican
authorities violate their own constitution which recognizes children born on
Dominican soil as Dominicans. The cause of these violations is clear. The
Dominican economy is in desperate need of cheap labor. The source of such cheap
labor must be people in great desperation. The way to keep people in such
degrading desperation is to rob them of every inch of rights. The way to 
deprive
them of rights is to create conditions to keep those people permanently in an
“illegal status”, therefore generating an under-class that is equivalent to
slavery. Such is the plight of 800,000 Haitian Immigrant Workers in the
Dominican  Republic. To keep Haitian Immigrant Workers and  Dominicans of 
Haitian
descent in such adverse conditions, the Dominican  authorities make all sorts
of ridiculous claims and invocations, namely,  “National Identity”, 
“Border
control”, “Sovereignty”, “Haitian invasion”, etc.  Furthermore, to 
consider
all these  people who have no intention of going back to Haiti or who do not
even know  Haiti as “migrants in transit” is ridiculous. The whole story 
boils
down to  abject exploitation of cheap labor. The deportations have absolutely
nothing to  do with so-called concerns over illegal immigration but rather
have a lot to do  with renewing and replenishing the pool of cheap labor in the
Dominican  Republic. Case in point, everyday, thousands of  people are
recruited from Haiti in a human trafficking chain to go to the  Dominican 
Republic
to work. Both the Dominican and  Haitian governments and ruling classes are
complicit in creating this  under-class in the Dominican  Republic. This helps
bring down wages in the  Dominican  Republic generally. However, they rather
blame  the Haitian Immigrant Workers who are the victims of this human
trafficking. It  should be clear that this is not going to change completely 
without a
radical  transformation in the structure of society on both sides of the
island. However,  national and international progressive forces must bring 
enough
pressure on the  racists and fascists in the Dominican ruling classes to make
things better for  the Haitian Immigrant Workers and Dominicans of Haitian
Descent in the  Dominican  Republic. In 2007, “il faut que ça change!” 
(That
situation must change)
Mr. M. Pierre



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