The Dominican Republic’s 'Ethnic Purging' Through the Mass Deportation of Haitian Families

[polly7]

The decision to possibly send half a million legally stateless people to Haiti has been met with condemnation.

By Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez / Democracy Now!

June 17, 2015

The Dominican Republic’s decision to denationalize hundreds of thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent has sparked international outcry. In an interview with Democracy Now!, Haitian-American novelist Edwidge Danticat spoke about the significance of the government’s campaign—she is among several writers who condemned the decision in a letter to The New York Times.

Below is an interview with Danticat, followed by a transcript:

(VIDEO)

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The Dominican Republic is set to begin what some are calling "ethnic purging," placing the fate of hundreds of thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent into limbo. Half a million legally stateless people could be sent to Haiti this week, including those who have never stepped foot in Haiti and don’t speak the language. In 2013, a Dominican constitutional court ruling stripped the citizenship of children born to Haitian immigrants in the Dominican Republic as far back as 1929, retroactively leaving tens of thousands without citizenship. This is Dominican migration minister Ruben Darío Paulino.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The Dominican Republic’s decision to denationalize hundreds of thousands of people has sparked an international outcry. Haitian President Michel Martelly has denounced it as "civil genocide." The United Nations protested the ruling, and the U.S. State Department voiced measured disapproval. Meanwhile, Dominican-American writers Junot Díaz and Julia Alvarez, Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat and American writer Mark Kurlansky have united to express their shared condemnation of the decision. They wrote in The New York Times, quote, "One of the important lessons of the Holocaust is that the first step to genocide is to strip a people of their right to citizenship."

Full article: http://www.alternet.org/immigration/dominican-republics-ethnic-purging-through-mass-deportation-haitian-families

[gwheezie]

1. This is horrible

Cold and heartless

[Judi Lynn]

2. And if they don't go? The next step is they will start being found dead, no doubt about it.

As long as the two countries have shared the island, there is NO reason for this attempt to racially purge the Haitians in the D.R.

As we've read, many Haitians provide services in the work areas D.R. people don't want to touch, as being either too hard, or beneath their "dignity" just as it is here in the U.S.

What a filthy shame, especially considering how many Haitians were either born in D.R. to Haitian parents, or came as tiny children.

What they really intend to do is send away the darker skinned people to make the D.R. look more like the Spanish landowners who used black slaves in the first place. Evil people.

[craigmatic]

3. They just want to purge the blacks. Why is this not being reported more in media?

As if I didn't know the answer.

[Judi Lynn]

4. It would be reported if the corporate "journalists" were actual journalists. This is horrendous.

So much control was gathered up when the newspapers, tv stations, radio stations started getting consolidated and taken over by conservative owners in the last few decades. Apparently there are still many people who don't know what the heck has happened, and that the very core of respectable, honorable journalism was sold away long ago.

What a shame so many were sleeping, pre-occupied with making ends meet, their individual crises, etc., and haven't awakened to the fact so much of the world has changed while they were looking the other way.

[Judi Lynn]

5. U.S. silence on Dominican deportations troubling, yet familiar

U.S. silence on Dominican deportations troubling, yet familiar

June 22, 2015 by Erin Wright

On the Sunday-morning segment of her weekend news show on MSNBC, Melissa Harris-Perry broke briefly from covering the reopening of the Charleston, S.C., church in which nine African Americans were gunned down last week to discuss the “social cleansing” happening in the Dominican Republic.

In addressing her guests — Dr. Edward Paulino, a history professor at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and France Francois, a spokeswoman for the Association of Haitian Professionals and a former fellow with the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund — Harris-Perry said that, if not for the church shootings, the pending deportation of thousands of Dominicans of Haitian ancestry would have led her show.

“I’m horrified,” she said. “And I think most Americans were horrified when they heard about this. (But) it seems that, in actuality, U.S. policy has a hand in this.”

Clearly, she was not speaking of those currently in government in Washington. After all, the U.S. State Department has roundly denounced the planned deportations. And yet, neither President Barack Obama nor Secretary of State John Kerry has made any personal comment on what some observers fear is a matter of life or death for those about to be deported to a country that, in many cases, they’ve never visited despite its proximity to the only homeland they’ve ever known.

More:
http://blogs.blouinnews.com/blouinbeatworld/2015/06/22/u-s-silence-on-dominican-deportations-troubling-yet-familiar/

[Judi Lynn]

6. ‘It’s the Day Without Haitians in Dominican Republic’

‘It’s the Day Without Haitians in Dominican Republic’

Roberto Lovato | June 19, 2015

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic—On most days, the simple act of walking down Duarte Street gives social worker Suzie Chery relief from the stress that is the life of any Haitian living in Santo Domingo. But on this muggy, overcast Thursday, her daily Duarte stroll only added to the tightening of her back and entire body.

“Usually,” she began, pointing at a crowded corner bus stop that looked, smelled and felt like northern Manhattan’s storied Dominican neighborhoods, “you see an older lady paletera [ice cream vendor] here, several friteros [fried food vendors] there and lots of men selling water over there.”

Haitians in the Dominican Republic have dominated the informal, urban economy since the decline of the sugar industry in the 1980s and ’90s. “On this strip here,” Chery said, continuing her tour, “there were three or four men selling clothes and a half a dozen men and women selling pikachu [creole for hot dog with mayonnaise on a stick], juices and other food.”

“All of this would have so many Haitians you’d be bumping into them left and right,” continued Chery, who feeds her love of this city’s streets by studying architecture and urban planning. “But now all those spaces are empty, because today is the first day the government said it would start deporting people, so some people have already left for Haiti, and others are hiding in their homes because they’re scared.”

As we headed towards Centro Bono, the Jesuit-run social service and advocacy agency where Chery is a social worker, she got several calls. The calls were from university students from around the small island nation whom she has organized to monitor the effect of the Dominican government’s deportation announcement [1].

“People in San Pedro Macoris are saying that Dominican businesses that sell 50,000 to 100,000 pesos of merchandise to Haitians are only selling 3,000 pesos worth,” she said. “Reports from Santiago and other cities are saying there are lots of abandoned streets and people in hiding. We’re hearing that many people are already leaving because they prefer leaving for themselves rather than having the humiliation of the government kicking them out.”

Looking out at the empty spots on Duarte, she squinted, looked up and nodded her head. “It’s the day without Haitians in Dominican Republic.”

* * *

More:
http://www.thenation.com/print/article/210417/its-day-without-haitians-dominican-republic