The Black Alliance for Peace again brings attention to the Dominican Republic's human rights violations against Haitians and Haitian descended Dominicans.
Press release originally published in Black Alliance for Peace.
The Haiti/Americas Team of the Black Alliance for Peace Stands in Solidarity with the People of Haiti and Haitian Migrants Against Racist Harassment and Mass Deportations in the Dominican Republic
In Support of the Day of Solidarity with Haiti and Haitian Migration in the Dominican Republic and Around the World
For Immediate Release
Media Contact
communications@blackallianceforpeace.com
(202) 643-1136
NOVEMBER 30, 2022—Haitian people, Haitian-descended Dominicans, and Africans from other parts of the globe are being harassed, detained, and deported across the Dominican Republic. The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) stands in solidarity with Dominican and Haitian organizations in denouncing Dominican President Luis Abinader’s campaign of mass deportations under Decree 668-22. This decree enables the government to round up and deport people of Haitian descent who have been living in the Dominican Republic for years. Some sources say that this year alone nearly 20,000 people have been deported, including 1,800 children.
Decree 668-22 is just the latest in a series of racist, anti-Haitian orders, rulings, and actions that have scarred the history of the Dominican Republic. The most egregious example remains the 1937 Parsley Massacre, in which tens of thousands of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent were systematically killed. More recently, in 2013, under ruling 168-13, Dominican courts stripped over 200,000 Haitian-descended Dominicans of their citizenship, rendering them stateless and vulnerable to abuse and expulsion. Over the past few months, the Dominican Republic has been conducting mass deportations of Haitian people who had first arrived in the country after fleeing the instability and violence unleashed because of the deteriorating security situation in Haiti.
If the crisis in Haiti is a crisis of imperialism, the question of Haitian migration is clearly a direct result of the imperial crisis. The deportation, detention, abuse, and harassment of Haitians in the Dominican Republic—and, we must add, in the United States, Mexico, the Bahamas, and elsewhere—has structural and historical origins in the international community undermining Haiti’s sovereignty as well as brutally gutting its government and economy since 2004. Haiti has been under some form of Western foreign military occupation and control since that time, ruled by the Core Group (a body of Western countries) and administered by the United Nations through programs colloquially known as MINUSTAH and BINUH. Their policies have led to mass migration from Haiti and have further stoked the flames of anti-Haitian sentiment in the Dominican Republic as well as throughout the Americas. This “migration crisis” will not be resolved without the ability of the Haitian people to assert their sovereignty and decide their own fate without imperialist meddling.
BAP’s Haiti/Americas Team supports calls against the harassment and deportation of Haitians, Dominicans of Haitian descent, and all African peoples in the Dominican Republic, as well as action to end racist treatment and violence against Haitian people globally. The war on Haiti and Haitian people must be seen as part of a global war on African people.
In recognition of this situation, BAP’s Haiti/Americas Team endorses the Day of Solidarity with Haiti and Haitian Migration in the Dominican Republic and Around the World [Dia de solidaridad con Haità y con la migración haitiana en República Dominicana y en el mundo], being observed today. In solidarity, we share the following statement by the Haitian-Dominican civic organization Reconocido Movement. The Spanish version of the statement follows below.
Stop the Racist Harassment! No More Deportations!
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Visit Black Alliance for Peace’s Haiti page for additional resources on Haiti’s struggle against U.S./UN/OAS colonialism.
Day of solidarity with Haiti and Haitian migration in the Dominican Republic and around the world
On November 11, the Abinader government of the Dominican Republic approved decree 668-22, which creates a specialized police unit to pursue and expel from the country immigrants living on state or private lands. Since then, persecution, evictions and massive deportations, as well as violence against Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent who have been living for decades in bateyes in the country's sugar cane zones have increased. Images of destroyed homes, police and citizen violence, denial of medical attention, and hate speech towards the Haitian origin population have escalated to alarming limits, in an ongoing nationalist campaign, that already totals more than 85,000 mass deportations so far this year.
In the Dominican Republic there is a danger of perpetrating an ethnic cleansing similar to that committed by the Trujillo dictatorship who orchestrated the Parsley Massacre in 1937 killing more than 15,000 people because of their origin and skin color.
We condemn this policy of mass expulsions and violation of personal safety that affects Haitians and black people in the Dominican Republic and that is based on the ideology of racial and cultural supremacy of the State and the Dominican elite.
IT IS TIME TO ACT!
We call for a united voice against the racist state violence that the Dominican state systematically maintains against the most vulnerable population.
We call on the international community, Haitian and Dominican diasporas, churches, trade union, cultural and political organizations, and human rights organizations around the world to stand in solidarity with the Haitian people, with the situation of Haitian migrants and their families in the Dominican Republic and elsewhere in the world.
Let us remember that the Dominican Republic is a country that is sustained by tourism. We show the world the reality in which many people live because of their origin and skin color outside its beaches and resorts.
#HaitianLivesMatter #RDRacistState #NoMoreDeportationsRD #UnityAgainstRacismRD #LasVidasHaitianasImportan
If you want to learn more about this conflict:
https://www.reconoci.do/rechazamos-el-decreto-668-22-y-las-deportaciones/
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sd9n4twbaviefP8I6Y0U_9C1cFj8d6xr/view?usp=share_link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UkskV4JlCNlWyZpMp1K5GWk4RMw72S-W/view?usp=share_link
In English:
https://www.latinorebels.com/2022/11/17/antihaitiandecree/
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/11/21/americas/dominican-republic-expels-haiti-children-intl-latam/index.html
https://www.blackagendareport.com/statement-and-petition-against-inhumane-deportation-haitian-migrants-dominican-republic”
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