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30382: Pierre (Comment)
From: Kawonabo1500@aol.com
The following is a letter to the Editor formulated by the Batay Ouvriye
(Workers' Struggle) Solidarity Network(Caribbean Life, April 11, 2007 issue)
in
response to a letter to the Editor by Concerned Dominicans (CD) in the March
21, 2007 issue of Caribbean Life newspaper. Corbetters are getting the
full-length letter. An abridged version of the letter went to the editor.
M. Pierre
April 3, 2007
To Mr. Kenton Kirby, Editor
We are responding to the letter to the editor by Concerned Dominicans (CD)
in the March 21, 2007 issue of Caribbean Life. We don’t know who the letter
was referring to at all. There was no reference in the letter to any
statements
that could help identify the author of the articles and what they said. The
reader has no idea what the Concerned Dominicans are talking about or what
they are answering to. In ‘Stop Spreading Hate about the D.R.’, the
authors,
Concerned Dominicans (CD), generated nothing but hatred and ill-will.
We prefer to take a different approach, a working-class and progressive
approach to look at the common problems that we share on both sides of the
Island
of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. We have a very long history on this
island originally called Hayti, Quisqueya or Bohio by the Aboriginal People
before the Europeans colonized the land in 1492. However, as Haitian
Progressives, we would like to address some assertions made by the Concerned
Dominicans
(CD) in their letter to the editor. We will respond to them point by point.
1) (CD): “…the Dominican government does not have any moral obligation
nor consideration of any kind toward the citizens of Haiti.”
(R): The Dominican Republic is a signatory to International Conventions
requiring countries to commit to respect the human rights of all citizens and
immigrants living in their territory. According to the U.N. International
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, “…
the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims that all human beings are born
free and equal in dignity and rights and that everyone is entitled to all the
rights and freedoms set out therein, without distinction of any kind, in
particular as to race, colour or national origin.”
(_http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/cerd.htm_
(http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/cerd.htm) ).
So far, the Dominican government has not lived up to this commitment when it
comes to Haitian Immigrant Workers on Dominican soil. It prefers to bow down
to the xenophobic hysteria of the reactionary ultra-nationalist fascist
factions of the Dominican ruling classes against the Haitian Immigrant Workers
and Dominicans of Haitian Descent. They promote the most extreme forms of
racism and hatred toward Haitian Workers and Dominicans of Haitian Descent as,
for
instance, the way they are treating Human Rights activist, Sonia Pierre,
Director of MUDHA, right now in the Dominican Republic where they threaten to
nullify her Dominican citizenship.
2) (CD): “The Dominican Republic and Haiti have been divided as two
countries over 540 years ago.”
(R): The Island was divided in 1697 by the Treaty of Ryswick when Spain
ceded the Western Third of the island to France which became Haiti. The other
part remained as a Spanish colony. It wasn’t the Dominican Republic, then.
That
was 310 years ago and not over 540 years.
3) (CD) “Let me inform you, 60 per cent of the Haitians who are living
in the Dominican Republic are illegal.”
(R): Immigration advocates in the United States are saying ‘No One is
illegal
’ in favor of all immigrants living in the United States. That includes
Haitians, Mexicans, Dominicans and others being deported to their country of
origin. If we win this struggle, many Dominicans would love that as would all
other immigrants actually living in the United States. Therefore, we also say
‘
No One is illegal’ in the Dominican Republic or Haiti or anywhere else
around
the world. We stand for Cross-border Solidarity on this Planet. The illegal
status only applies to workers and not to capitalists because they can go
wherever they want around the world and stay there as long as they want. They
give themselves the right to jump from country to country to rob, pillage,
pilfer, steal, and exploit the workers and natural resources as they please.
Workers should have the right to go anywhere around the world to live and
work.
4) (CD): “Furthermore, all Haitians are getting free medical care for
HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Do you know that 50 per cent of the HIV/AIDS in
the Dominican Republic are coming from Haiti? Do you know that many Haitian
women have their babies in city hospitals although they do not pay, they get
free medical care?”
(R): This is a ridiculous and quite inaccurate statement having absolutely no
scientific basis. Nobody has come up with an exact origin for the HIV/AIDS
virus. Yet, it is spreading around the world like wild fires. People get the
virus through sex and intra-venous injections. Opportunities for such contacts
exist everywhere because people travel around the world. In other words,
Dominicans travel around the world and the Dominican Republic is one of the
big
destinations of tourists around the world. So therefore, the sources of
HIV/AIDS in the Dominican Republic are vast. You cannot target Haiti as the
scapegoat in the spreading of the virus in the Dominican Republic at all. This
statement is simply too outrageous and out of place.
5) (CD): “Furthermore, many Haitian children are receiving free
education
…However, many Haitians are committing crimes, stealing from farmers, and
some are killing and raping children…”
(R): According to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, “… in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations has proclaimed that
childhood is entitled to special care and assistance.”
(_http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm_
(http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm) ). Yet, very
few children are receiving an education in the Bateys. They are used to work
on fields in the worst case of Child Labor in the Dominican Republic.
Moreover, the overwhelming majority of Haitian Immigrants in the Dominican
Republic are excellent workers who simply want to work and live in peace. As a
matter of fact, the whole Dominican economy rests on the Haitian cheap labor
as
those workers are indispensable to the economy. They work in agriculture and
in
construction.
As for your charge of killings and raping, we do not know to what extent and
how true this is but in every society, and community, there are some
criminal elements. However, you cannot over-generalize their actions to
include “many
” Haitians. That’s untrue, inaccurate and unacceptable. Remember, it was
in
1937, Dominican dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo barbarically massacred and
murdered 30,000 Haitian Workers in the Dominican Republic. He was part of
the reactionary and fascist sector of the Dominican ruling classes that
targeted the workers to spread hate and xenophobic hysteria against Haitian
Immigrants in the population in the Dominican Republic.
Recently again, in 2005-2006, Haitians Workers were victims of widespread
violence, and lynching in the Dominican Republic. Three young Haitians were
burned alive for doing nothing.
As thousands of Haitian Immigrant Workers are violently deported to Haiti
daily, thousands more are recruited across the border in a human trafficking
trade to replenish the low-wage labor supply in the Dominican Republic. Very
often, the workers are deported without getting paid their salaries. So the
deportations are also used to steal the workers’ earned salaries. The
reactionary and fascist Dominican ruling classes want the workers to remain
‘illegal’
to justify the extreme exploitation and eventual racist deportation of these
workers. The workers are not only underpaid, they are exploited to their
very bones by the Dominican Bourgeoisie. What they get in return is xenophobic
hysteria, disrespect, oppression, violence and humiliation.
6) (CD): “Let me inform you that the first evil and bad people are the
Haitians and the government.”
(R): If this is not “Spreading hate and racism”, we don’t know what is.
Yet,
we want to give the Concerned Dominicans the benefit of the doubt. It is
unfortunate that they feel that way even though they probably didn’t really
mean
it that way. To us, the Dominican and Haitian Peoples are very good and
hard-working. They are brothers and sisters sharing the same island, our land.
We, the People, should not let ourselves be influenced by the racist,
reactionary and fascist ruling classes’ prejudice against workers to push us
to
talk nonsense. They are trying to divide us because they want to keep us under
their reactionary, cruel and brutal domination. They do not want to see
Dominican and Haitian workers get united. So they want to maintain and
continue to
feed on this controversy over “illegal immigrants” for so long as we allow
them.
We have the obligation to promote cross-border solidarity between Dominican
and Haitian Workers. The border should remain open so that Dominicans and
Haitians can come and go freely to work, shop and live together. The Haitian
and
Dominican capitalists/bourgeoisie come and go as they please across the
border. Workers should be able to do the same. Let’s us not be the fools
fighting
and killing each other while the bourgeoisie on both sides of the island
unite themselves to oppress, exploit, and kill us all.
These revelations are not meant to smear the Dominican Republic. No, not at
all! We know, the racist and fascist Dominican ruling classes like to use
this to rally nationalist Dominicans. Our intention is to spearhead a call for
dialogue among Progressive Haitians and Dominicans to address our common
issues in an intelligent and civilized way.
Dominican and Haitian Workers have only One Future: They have to lead and
transform the whole island into a Workers’ Paradise without exploiters and
live
peacefully forever. If the Concerned Dominicans agree with these ideas,
please contact us so we can discuss our differences and work together for the
betterment of our Island.
Batay Ouvriye (Workers' Struggle) Solidarity Network
_bosolidarity@yahoo.com_ (mailto:bosolidarity@yahoo.com)
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