By Reginald Dumas
Reginald Dumas is a retired Ambassador and Head of the Public Service of Trinidad and Tobago. In 2004 he served as Special Adviser on Haiti to former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan. This column was first published in two parts in the Trinidad & Tobago Daily Express on March 10 and 11.
Last month, in the morning of the 11th, the corpse of a black man was found hanging from a tree in a park in Santiago, the second-largest city of the Dominican Republic (DR). The body had been beaten and the hands and feet bound by rope. It was subsequently identified as that of a Haitian who worked in the park as a shoe-shiner.
The scene was immediately reminiscent of the “nigger” lynchings of the old white American South. It quickly elevated to a new level of tension and mistrust the relationship between Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian origin on the one hand, and Dominicans of non-Haitian origin on the other. It is common knowledge, though many Dominicans will not admit it publicly, that this relationship has been bedevilled by the inflammatory and intertwined issues of race and history, and by an implacable denial of human rights to Haitians and to many, if not most, Haitian-Dominicans in the DR – they are black, therefore inferior, therefore undeserving of equal and equitable treatment.
Thus it was no surprise that in their first statements on the hanging some DR authorities dismissed race as a factor. Rather, they announced that the killing had resulted from a robbery – the victim, they said, had been set upon by other Haitians (or Haitian-Dominicans) who wanted the money he had earned earlier in the day. Two men, they said complacently, had been arrested and had confessed. Black men lynching black men! What’s the world coming to?
The confident first assertions were soon denied by other authorities. Just as well, because a week later another black man was found murdered, this time decapitated. I have so far seen no claim from Dominican officialdom that the perpetrators were black, and I probably won’t – I suspect such an explanation would be too far-fetched even for the spinmeisters of Santo Domingo.
The torment continues. A few days ago I received a video of a screaming black man, his arms placed around a pole and his wrists bound, being slapped and cuffed and whipped by a parade of passers-by. How civilised.
I haven’t been able to find any report on these events in the T&T press, obsessed as it has been with Carnival, Creed, Cooper, Kamla, Keith, kangkalang and kuchoor. Perhaps that is what we prefer: a laser-like focus on our navels to the exclusion of what is happening around us, even in the Caribbean. (Except, perhaps, for election shenanigans in St Kitts and Nevis. But that was kangkalang and kuchoor, too.)
The Haitian government has reacted sharply, though tardily (one wonders why), to what it recognises is a rapid escalation of anti-Haitian sentiment in the DR. It has called on the DR government to respect the fundamental rights of every Haitian in the DR, and has condemned the burning of the Haitian flag in that country. It has dismissed its Consul in Santiago, where the hanged body was found (his role in the aftermath was judged highly unsatisfactory). Passions among Haitians in Haiti are rising: large demonstrations have taken place; the DR flag has in turn been burned.
At least, however, some bodies in the international community have been vocal on the DR treatment of Haitians and Haitian-Dominicans on its soil. Last October, for instance, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ruled against a September 2013 decision of the DR Constitutional Court that, according to Amnesty International, “stripped thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent living in the (DR) of their nationality in a discriminatory way…leaving them unable to access basic rights such as work, health care and education.” The IACHR called on the DR to revoke the decision. No such thing has happened.
For its part, the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights has consistently inveighed against what it sees as deliberate discrimination by the DR state hierarchy – government and courts – against Haitians and Haitian-Dominicans.
Nonetheless, the agony continues, indeed intensifies. What of CARICOM, you may ask. It too has issued thunderous declarations on the subject, the latest on February 27 in The Bahamas. Once more it spoke of “maintain(ing) its posture of ‘no business as usual’ with the (DR).”
Since November 2013 CARICOM has been proclaiming many intended positions on the subject of Dominican Republic (DR) treatment of Haitians and Haitian-Dominicans. Not a single one, I regret to say, has so far been implemented.
At its most recent meeting, in The Bahamas last month, CARICOM was once more “condemn(ing)” and “reiterat(ing) condemnation.” And saying for the umpteenth time that it was “maintain(ing) its posture of ‘no business as usual’ with the (DR).” Could someone please tell us what is “usual” and “non-usual” business? Also, let’s be honest: the DR is not alone in its attitude towards Haitians. The Bahamas isn’t far behind.
Last September that country’s Immigration Minister, Fred Mitchell, unveiled a new immigration policy. Inter alia, the government would not, on pain of arrest and deportation, accept applications for people without legal status in The Bahamas. From November 1, 2014 all persons living in the country would be required to have their national passports. Those born in The Bahamas would get a residence permit enabling them to live and work in the country and allowing “access of children to school” – this “(would) not apply to the children of those (in the country) illegally.” Also from November 1, new work permit procedures would come into force. The practice of issuing Certificates of Identity to non-nationals born in the country would cease.
It has been widely assumed that the new policy is aimed at Haitians, many if not most of whom are in The Bahamas illegally and undocumented. The government has denied this: all it was doing, said Mr Mitchell in an address at the UWI Cave Hill campus early last month, was “enforcing the laws of The Bahamas”; immigration “must be through the front door…and must be documented.” He said also: “You cannot have a situation where the national security of a country, its national identity (my emphasis) is threatened merely because a society refuses to enforce its laws on immigration…What The Bahamas proposes is not unusual or unique or new.”
As for the fuss being made over children affected by the new policy, he protested he had said nothing about their exclusion from school – that was a matter for the Ministry of Education. He did, however, want to remind everyone that “tens of thousands of children were deported from the US over the past year when it became clear that they were being used to subvert the national security of the country.” What that apparent analogy might mean in The Bahamas context escapes me. And he added, strangely, that those who opposed the new policy were “people of questionable mental stability.” Comment fails.
The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights (The Center) has been unimpressed by the actions and explanations of the Bahamas government. Late last year it said it had been receiving reports that immigration raids were targeting Haitians. It stated that “thousands of children in The Bahamas now live in fear of arbitrary arrest or deportation.” The government was also “endangering the human rights of persons in immigration detention…”
The Center issued another stinging press release on February 23, charging the government with conducting mass raids on Haitian communities and detaining minors without their parents. (One hears of children being pulled out of classrooms.) It spoke of “squalid detention conditions and discriminatory treatment of Haitians and those of Haitian descent…” I might add that 10 days earlier the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) had requested the government to take a number of measures regarding persons in immigration detention.
Like any government, the Bahamas government has to be concerned about the country’s security. But it is significant that in his September 2014 statement Mr Mitchell appears to have mentioned by name only one country as causing difficulties: Haiti. Then, leaving no doubt, he spoke darkly about “so much criminality involved in immigration.”
On February 23 The Center asked CARICOM heads to use their Bahamas meeting “to urge the government to fully comply with the (IACHR’s) measures.” If this happened, it isn’t reflected in the meeting’s communiqué. Rather, the DR is once more lambasted.
Thunderous fulminations on the DR and thunderous silence on The Bahamas? Was this politeness to one’s hosts in Nassau, or solidarity with them? Or just plain and simple hypocrisy?
