10 January, 2004
Second International Conference by the Batey Relief Alliance
HAITI AND THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: NEW RELATIONS IN THE XXI CENTURY
February 27, 2004
Columbia University’s Barnard College, New York, USA
By Michele Wucker
Senior Scholar at World Policy Institute
As U.S. Marines and international troops moved into Port-au-Prince last week, there was great relief that a bloodbath had been averted. Now the international community must help Haiti rebuild a government and get back on the path to democracy. How smoothly that will go depends on many factors: whether the rebels make good on their promise to disarm; whether Aristide’s polarizing claims of a White House-ordered “kidnapping” have any consequences; and how quickly aid can be restored, to alleviate the nation’s wrenching poverty.
But whatever policy is pursued in Haiti, it cannot ignore the country’s conjoined twin on the island of Hispaniola: the Dominican Republic.
Policymakers too often view the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic only in the light of its turbulent, more densely populated and much poorer neighbor to the west. Yet even as order is restored in Haiti, the Dominican Republic is struggling with a political and economic crisis of its own, the outcome of which will be crucial to both nations. Failure to avert a democratic breakdown there could not only undermine any Haiti policy, but also increase the flow of boat people to the United States.
As Haiti’s crisis escalated last month, U.S. officials were preparing 50,000 new beds at our Guantanamo Bay base in Cuba to accommodate a feared wave of Haitians. Yet a steady stream of boat people was already leaving the Dominican Republic, in numbers dramatically higher than in previous years and larger than the number of Haitians. In January and February, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted 1,977 Dominicans, compared with 717 Haitians.
Over the past three years, 300 Dominicans have gone missing while attempting the dangerous 75-mile journey to Puerto Rico across the shark-infested Mona Passage aboard rickety wooden motorboats called yolas.
As the country heads toward presidential elections in May, Dominican democracy, barely a decade old, is in a tenuous state. The administration of President Hipólito Mejia has more than doubled the country’s foreign debt in less than four years — from $3.7 billion to $7.6 billion — and is already having trouble keeping up with interest payments. The country’s second-biggest bank collapsed last year, a $2.2 billion disaster that sideswiped the economy and devalued the peso from 17 to more than 50 to the U.S. dollar. The bank’s demise uncovered a vast network of corruption and payoffs; though Mejia’s Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) was not the only one implicated, Dominicans blame the ruling party.
In a poll last October of Latin American public opinion on their leaders’ performance, Mejia had the lowest approval rating in the hemisphere; even Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, often cited as the lowest at 7 percent, edged out Mejia, who scored only 6 percent. The PRD has fractured over who its candidate should be in May, but concerns have arisen that Mejia may try to steal the election. Recently, a local newspaper revealed that voter rolls authorized one man to vote at three different stations, only one small example of the kind of high jinks Dominicans fear could smear their recently won democracy.
An election crisis could jeopardize not only the country’s stability, but also international efforts to help Haiti at a time when Dominican support has been crucial. As Haiti’s crisis played out, the Dominican military helped evacuate foreigners. The Dominican Red Cross helped get needed aid to Haiti. Though it closed the border and doubled the number of troops posted there to prevent an influx of refugees, the Dominican government did allow Haitians in on market days twice a week to shop — very important for humanitarian reasons.
Before Aristide flew into exile last week, he was fond of saying that Haiti and the Dominican Republic were like two wings of the same bird. Similarly, Mejia likes to say the two are in a marriage with no possibility of divorce. These words bespeak a fragile, and now threatened, truce that has held for the past decade. In that period, Dominicans have taken the lead in pursuing joint border development projects and warming the tone between the two countries. Dominicans have worked with the Haitian government to legalize the status of several hundred thousand Haitian migrants living in the Dominican Republic, a long-standing sore point.
After international criticism of the mass deportations of Haitians and dark-skinned Dominicans it had periodically carried out, the Dominican Republic took steps to reduce abuses and signed an agreement with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Dominican investors even opened an industrial park in Ouanaminthe, on the Haitian side of the northern border, to employ Haitian workers.
The new crises in both countries have put this progress at risk, and Haiti’s uprising has stirred old animosities. Until former dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier gave an interview from France saying he wanted to return to Haiti, rumors swirled in Haitian cyberspace that he was living in the Dominican Republic. When Haitian rebel leaders Guy Philippe and Louis Jodel Chamblain returned to Haiti from Dominican exile last month, Aristide denounced the Dominicans for allowing them to cross back into Haiti. Rumors in late February, strenuously denied, insinuated that Dominican military officials had known of and condoned rebels training within their borders. The Dominicans, for their part, suspect Haitian rebels of killing two Dominican soldiers at the border. Meanwhile, the Dominican Republic is bracing for a potentially destabilizing flow of refugees.
Turmoil on either end of the island has always spilled over to the other. After Haiti expelled France in 1804, Haitian President Jean-Pierre Boyer encouraged Dominican independence from Spain, but then occupied the Dominican Republic for 22 years. In the 1940s, longtime Dominican dictator Gen. Rafael Trujillo, a master of meddling in Haitian politics, sent his spy chief to Port-au-Prince to root out Dominican political opponents. This tradition continued through Dominican support for the Haitian military leaders who deposed Aristide in a 1991 coup.
In 1994, after octogenarian strongman Joaquin Balaguer pulled off a massive
election fraud in the Dominican Republic, the international response to that crisis was muted because of the need for Santo Domingo’s cooperation on Haiti. Balaguer agreed to help police the Haitian border and was allowed to stay in office for half his term. When he stepped down in 1996, a concerted Dominican effort with international support carried off the country’s first-ever clean elections.
Not surprisingly, suspicions between Haitians and Dominicans remain. In 2000, a popular Haitian Carnival song warned that Dominicans wanted to take over Haiti. When Chamblain and Philippe returned to Haiti, a young Haitian reporter asked me whether I thought rumors that the Dominicans were using the crisis as a pretext to take over her country were true. No, I told her, laughing. For a long time, many Dominicans would have preferred exactly the opposite: that Haiti not share the same island. (Indeed, a Dominican reviewer of my book about the two countries complained on Amazon.com that I was wrong to include both in the same volume.)
Accusations that the Haitian exiles trained openly and received arms in the
Dominican Republic could undermine recent improvements in the countries’
relations, as could Aristide’s claims that the United States forced him out. In the unlikely event that Aristide’s accusations take hold — they died down somewhat after the Central African Republic asked Aristide to put a lid on it — the Dominican Republic could come under scrutiny due to the accusation by Aristide’s Miami lawyer, Ira Kurzban, that the United States armed the Haitian rebels with some of the 20,000 M-16s supplied to the Dominicans in 2002 for narco-policing and border patrol efforts — a charge the State Department denied to me as “absurd.”
Though an all-out military conflict has been averted in Haiti, the prospect of an exodus to the Dominican Republic will persist until a modicum of political and economic stability is established. A refugee processing center in Haiti or at the border to identify legitimate political asylum cases would reduce the number of Haitians trying to flee to the Dominican Republic. Restoring aid to Haiti quickly will ease the pressure on its neighbor from economic refugees. In addition, humanitarian aid plans should not neglect the border and other areas of the Dominican Republic with large Haitian populations. And the international community should offer support immediately to ensure clean elections in May, including financing for an independent audit of voter rolls as well as international observers.
The success of our Caribbean policy is often measured in the numbers fleeing its island nations. By that measure, Hispaniola’s tally is discouraging: The Dominican Republic and Haiti have each sent more than 1 million migrants to the United States. In recent months, desperate Haitians and Dominicans have often been found, quite literally, in the same boat: not the most encouraging metaphor for their two nations, but an apt description of the mutual challenges that lie ahead.
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By Nexcy DeLeon
BRA Dominicana President
Vision and contributions from the Batey Relief Alliance to improve the conditions of those living in the bateyes, including those identified as Haitian migrants.
Distinguished audience, reflecting on the sugar industry in Haiti, in the Dominican Republic, and in all other Antillean countries, it is painful to see the poverty state in which these populations have been left to struggle after dedicating their lives to work on the sugar mills.
At the end of the 1960s, I remember running through the railway yards of the Central Romana by Products Corporation, among the ?Congoses?, name by which the group of Braceros brought from Haiti to cut sugar cane were known. They were strong men who used to come to the Dominican Republic alone or accompanied by their families.
The children of the workers at the Central felt always happy at the beginning of the harvest. We used to stand by the edge of the yard waving our hands to say hello to the Braceros. They would arrive in wagons that would later be filled with sugar canes from their labor.
At the end of the harvest season our hearts were filled with sadness because we knew that we might never see again the friends we had made during that time. These goodbyes made us think of how insecure the Braceros? work was.
During those years, the union movement demanded better work conditions for the sugar industry laborers. Unions used to denounced the low wages paid to the workers and the cheating going on during the weighing in order not to pay the exact amount of cut sugar cane, among other injustices and human rights violations carried out by the sugar companies.
I distinctly remember a phrase used by the unions in a radio show designed to call attention to the injustices to which the sugar industry workers were subjected: ?Sugar, how bitter you are!? They were referring to the huge profits made by the sugar companies every year, but that the owners refused to share with the workers.
The inhuman administration of the sugar mills made them employment areas in which work was low paid and poverty was continuously multiplied. This is evidenced today by the state of misery in which the sugar industry workers find themselves in all 220 bateyes throughout several provinces in the Dominican Republic.
Foreign companies established themselves in our countries only to increase their capital, riding on the laborers? sweat and hard work. Companies did not take into consideration the well-being of the workers or analyzed the consequences their actions would have on the development of the economy, the society, or the laborers? future.
The drastic dehumanization of our sugar industry?s history started with the North American invasion of Haiti and the Dominican Republic between 1914 and 1934, and 1916 and 1924, respectively.
The fall in the production of sugar beet in Europe during the First World War, and the first few years after it ended, caused a spike on the international market prices of sugarcane.
This period was characterized by the expansion of the sugarcane frontier and the installation of large sugar companies, such as the Central Romana Corporation and the Consorcio Vicini, in the Dominican Republic.
The world economic crisis of the 1920s resulted in bankrupted ?colonos? (sugar planters) and sugar mills owners. Their properties were concentrated in a few large North American owned corporations. These corporations then moved to recruit Haitian labor, which was cheaper than Dominican labor or from other immigrants coming from the Lesser Antilles.
A note from the Labor Secretary to sugar businessman Juan B. Vicini (son of an immigrant Italian family), who had asked for authorization to bring one thousand Haitian braceros to the Dominican Republic, serves as proof of the sugar mills owners selling the idea of an insufficient local labor force for the success of the industry.
The Labor Secretary answered to Vicini?s request with the following words: ?The country has an abundant labor supply, and people filled with necessities, but that also aspire, within the natural law of progress, to a salary which is not a sad misery, insufficient even to sustain life.?
According to a study on Haitian immigration to the Dominican Republic carried out by Jose del Castillo, the importation of labor from Haiti originated the bateyes as a result of the massive arrival of Haitian immigrants to the country.
According to Del Castillo, the nations sharing the island of the Hispaniola and the United States of America established a triangular relationship, linking both island nations to the powerful influence of the U.S. not only politically and militarily but also economically. This was because of the fact that the sugar industry had been built with North American capital and required manual labor from Haiti for both this industry as well as for the reconstruction program on public works carried out by the navy in Santo Domingo.
The sugar industry saw its golden years during the 1970s, a time during which it was considered the spinal cord of the Dominican economy. However, sugarcane workers were left like the plant after the sweet juice has been squeezed out of the cane and only the husk remains. They are today living in below poverty conditions in the bateyes. They are the ones whom we must help improve their lives by appealing to the solidarity of all peoples with a common human spirit.
The manner, in which sugar companies used Haitian manual labor, without systematic supervision from the state in charge of regulating labor conditions, has contributed to the mass presence of Haitian immigrants in the Dominican Republic. This has created distrust in both population groups, a gap in their relations, and their refusal to understand and know each other.
These attitudes have tinged our nations? relations with misunderstandings and prejudices preventing them from building the supporting structure necessary for a harmonious coexistence as neighbors of the same geographic enclave.
A change in interstate relations was initiated within the context of the negotiations on integration and commercial treaties along with the other Caribbean countries as well as during their participation in the Lomé IV Convention. These negotiations served as an international framework to create change in Haitian-Dominican relations in order to coordinate a joint action to take advantage of international cooperation.
This reality has given birth to a group of people who believe the Dominican Republic and Haiti are joined by a common destiny, who want to dedicate their time and actions in order to allow their citizens to live together in peace and harmony.
Inspired by a humanistic view, the Batey Relief Alliance has linked its efforts to those of other persons and institutions who want to facilitate a mutual understanding as the first step in the search for a solution to the problems that have caused Haiti and the Dominican Republic to distance themselves from each other.
The relations between the two countries will not be fruitful as long as these nations refuse to know each other and to understand their common histories. Only by being conscientious about their realities, will they be able to overcome the prejudicial gap that separates them.
President Jean Bertrand Aristide of Haiti, and President Hipolito Mejia of the Dominican Republic have referred to their nations as ?two birds from the same wing? and as ?a marriage without a divorce? as evidence of both leaders being aware of their common destiny and the way in which events in one country affect the other.
After the end of the dictatorships in both republics, relations between the Dominican Republic and Haiti have followed a fluid path of dialogue and meetings between their respective heads of States. Their presidents have met in Port-au-Prince and in Santo Domingo, and have become aware of the need to formalize commercial and cultural trades. Agreements have been reached in common areas such as health, tourism, sports, youth, agriculture, security, the environment, drugs, crime, and border issues, among others.
This opening in their relations gives hope for change in the future of the batey communities made up of a considerable number of Haitians, people of Haitian descent, Dominican-Haitians, and of Dominicans, specially children, who are not recognized by either country, as well as for the hundreds of working families who have spent all their strength working in the sugar mills and cane fields in the past and that now lack even the most basic services.
In 1999, the Commission for the Reform of Public Enterprise (CREP, for its acronym in Spanish) carried out a poll within the homes of the bateyes in the sugar mills of the State Sugar Council (CEA). This poll showed that these communities include 43,154 families, or the equivalent to 200,000 people ?2% of the country?s total population.
The same poll revealed that the socio-economic conditions of these communities can be classified somewhere in between poor and indigent. About 17% of the dwellings belong to the State Sugar Council (CEA) and cannot even be classified as adequate; 49% of the bateyes lack electricity, and only 64% of the actual homes receive electrical service; drinkable water is scarce at best and 52% of the residents has to get it outside of the home, in rivers and springs.
66% of the bateyes don?t have a sewage system, and where there are toilettes, they are usually to be shared by many. Education and health are also very precarious with more than 50% of the population, including children, without any medical attention. More than 30% of the children are unable to go to school, and of those who do attend, only a small percentage actually finishes 4th grade.
Along with these precarious conditions, the batey populations have endured other difficulties no less painful, since they affect directly their human conditions: these are the injustices derived from the lack of labor protection, of migration laws, and of naturalization rights.
Even though many Haitians have been living in the Dominican Republic for over 30 years, their stay has not been legalized, nor have they been provided with any official documents. Their children are usually the most damaged by this situation since they are not extended a birth certificate, their citizenship is not recognized, and are not allowed to enroll in school easily.
The reality of their physical, human, and status conditions has resulted in communities with a series of problems that need to be treated as a whole, with plans and programs which require the participation of the Haitian and Dominican authorities, the sugar companies, the U.S. government, NGOs, humanitarian societies, churches, and cultural and civil organizations.
The Batey Relief Alliance is concentrating on the reduction of the human tragedy experienced by the families in the bateyes, who are without work, without homes, without social security, education, food, health, and protection. This tragedy has been exacerbated by the privatization of the Dominican Republic?s sugar mills in 1997, following the politics of structural adjustment ?recommended? by international entities (such as the International Monetary Fund) to Latin American countries.
With this goal in mind we have tried to reach those institutions dedicated to human promotion and community development, not only in Haiti but also abroad, in order to share our commitment to a variety of projects which will help address the needs of the people who now live in the former sugar mills and their surroundings.
We have implemented projects in the Dominican provinces of Monte Plata, in the northern region, and of Santo Domingo. We have a mobile clinic providing permanent medical attention and medicines to residents in more than 20 bateyes of Sabana Grande de Boya, and a Medical Center, in construction, at batey Cinco Casas in the Municipal District of Don Juan, that will provide sustainable health services to more than 30 bateyes ? a population of 20,000 annually. We also carry out a Blindness Prevention Project called ?I Can See!? restoring vision for thousands of women, men and children through basic care, prescription of eyeglasses and cataract surgeries.
Every year we carry out Medical Missions that allow us to help many of the bateyes residents. These missions are realized providing emergency care thanks to the participation of volunteer doctors from the U.S., France, Spain, and Canada. Furthermore, BRA funds training and educational activities for the communities, where services are needed, as well as for the health promoters and Dominican doctors who also receive training from foreign specialists in different areas.
We collaborate with public and private institutions from Haiti and the Dominican Republic, with professionals and volunteers members of our Medical Committees, and with 13 other organizations that are part of the BRA Alliance. It is to these organizations that medicines and food are distributed among the population, and health education activities are organized among women, children, men, the elderly and the youth.
The Batey Relief Alliance believes that these actions of social and human promotion being materialized in the bateyes would not make any sense unless they are integrated with other cultural activities that allow for the residents of both nations to get to know each other and unify themselves based on their origins, their believes, their languages, and their environments.
This is the reason why BRA seeks to promote the exchange of ideas and constructive debate around areas of common interests for both countries. This conference is the perfect example of a forum in which we aspire to create a space to bring together all of those who share our belief that in between the Dominican Republic and Haiti there should exist a relationship of peace and confraternity.
For this purpose we are in need of binational development plans to correct the injustices placed upon the bateyes communities where thousands of workers, both men and women, find themselves completely forgotten, living their last days in infrahuman conditions. This situation has been one of the main causes that have cooled down the relations between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
We need programs that give priority to investment that promotes employment and profits in the border zones; recovery programs and natural resources conservation projects, with special emphasis on waterways, sustainable agriculture, and forest production in the border areas; the creation of educational; cultural, and national identity reaffirmation programs, based on a sincere and opened relationship; to strengthen and institutionalize bilateral commissions in order to take on the most urgent problems.
Besides the joint creation of initiatives that allow for the development of common funds to reduce poverty and its effects on the most vulnerable communities, it is also necessary to define structural policies to reorganize both economies in order to stop and reverse the growth of our foreign debt.
We are aware of the fact that in the last few years the authorities have demonstrated concern about the problems the batey populations are facing. They have allocated some resources and put into effect various programs to improve their homes and health, and donated land, among other measures. Without discounting these programs? positive impact, it is important to say that they are not sufficient to end the horrible conditions in the bateyes.
The efforts to improve the lives of those who live in the bateyes, the frontier zones or the urban and rural slums could be affected by the political crisis in which President Aristide?s government finds itself at this moment, as well as by the acute economic crisis in the Dominican Republic.
This series of circumstances emphasize the need for the people and entities that work together to bring a better life to these communities to stay firm in their decision and commitment to continue to support those who need help the most.
Note:
Two days later after the conference, on Sunday, February 29, 2004, the democratically-elected President of Haiti, Jean Bertrand Aristide, was forced out of the country. Many analysts believe ?this was a coup d?etat orchestrated by the United States, France and Canada.? It is also believed that the ?rebels? may have been trained inside and crossed over into Haiti from the Dominican Republic to destabilize the Aristide?s government leading to its downfall.
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By Ruben Silie
Executive Director of Dominican’s FLACSO
BORDER & MIGRATION
I. INTRODUCTION
Border relations, as everywhere in the world, imply certain levels of sociability or contact between the neighbouring inhabitants which, for human reasons, is impossible to prevent, above all if (as is well-known) the majority of border divisions have been made according to political criteria which do not necessarily correspond to the geographical or spatial lie of the land.
On our border, since it was defined, a history has developed which, although it might respond in general to the historical notions of both nations, it is true that in this space a local history has been built which assigns its own identity to the place and the people which, without denying each side its national culture, depend on its neighbour to define its existence.
The migratory process of the area has also acquired its own features. Essentially the physical movement of the people happens for short periods of time or relatively long periods because the majority of the people who cross the border maintain their permanent residence in their own country.
To this we can add the fact that this area has never had a great economic development, which would generate a big demand for workers and therefore attract a surplus population. What has happened there is actually the opposite; the border towns are going through a process of progressive depopulation, which has been more noticeable in the last few decades. In this project we have proposed to explain the issue of migration at the border but we feel it is necessary to provide a general explanation of Haitian migration towards the Dominican Republic with the aim of being able to establish a comparison between both processes, as well as the point of view of the two governments on migratory management.
II. THE MIGRATORY ISSUE IN THE CONTEXT OF NATIONAL POLITICS
In spite of the efforts to change the nature of relations between the States of the island, the treatment of the Haitian issue in the Dominican political context has not managed to overcome the ideological control introduced during Trujillo’s dictatorship. Up until now the issue has been subject to the manipulation of Dominican internal politics, above all because of the intensification of the migratory flow of Haitians towards the urban areas of the Dominican Republic.
There is no doubt that the migratory issue has been the “apple of discord” between the two countries. For the Dominican government because of the social pressure exerted by the immigrants and for the Haitian government because of its interest that, without closing the migratory breach, the labour and human rights of its emigrants are respected. Just as we pointed out earlier, from the beginning of the twentieth century to the end of the eighties, the governmental authorities handled the absorption of Haitian workers by the Dominican economy as a peaceful invasion rather than a migratory phenomenon. This made it difficult during all those years for migratory politics to be defined in an explicit way. This contributed in the same way to politicising the Haitian issue using as a reference José Francisco Peña Gómez, the dead leader of the Dominican Revolutionary Party (DRP) who, because he had Haitian ancestry, was accused of dreaming of the unification of the island or producing a policy of open gates for the Haitians. In two opportunities in which he was on the point of winning the presidency of the Republic, the electoral campaign of the other side worked by stressing the “Haitian danger”. This reached maximum expression in the last campaign Peña Gómez participated in, where ? to avoid his victory ? the Dominican Liberation Party (DLP) and the Reformist Social Christian Party (RSCP) joined together to form what was called the Patriotic Front. This unusual union of two adversaries who seemed to be irreconcilable was presented to the Dominican people as the sacrifice it was necessary to make in order to prevent the Haitianisation process into which they would fall if the DRP won. This using of the Haitian issue is what makes the Dominican leaders and political parties tend to avoid actually referring to the problem, making it difficult to establish an adequate migratory policy because the only argument which is accepted as valid faced with the supposed expectations of the neighbouring country is the immediate expulsion of Haitian nationals and open confrontation with Haiti. Such a situation is openly contradictory because in the meantime, they have never stopped using Haitian workers and doing so independently of any type of agreed contracting. Until 1991 this was done on the basis of agreements between the governments, and since that date by the private or individual means of the Haitian workers who moved following the directions marked out by the social networks which support them in the transit process to the neighbouring country until their insertion into the Dominican labour market is achieved.
The illogical thing about such a radical attitude is that it even succeeds in preventing the regularisation of migration or migratory regulations being discussed because by the sectors of radical nationalism it is all seen as weaknesses and concessions to an enemy which disguises itself as an immigrant in order to penetrate the territory and reproduce the action of the “Trojan Horse”.
Facing such attitudes a lot of courage and political support is needed to dare to go down the road of reconciliation and harmonious relations between the two States. Such an attitude means walking along a “knife edge” because whatever the case, one would be acting against the ideas sustained by an important percentage of Dominican society.
In different and well-known sources one can observe the arguments which are used by the different sectors that oppose Haitian immigration from a chauvinist position. These are nothing more than supposedly justifying reasons for rejection and little interest in acting in favour of a policy of effective control of the migratory flow on the basis of respecting the human and working rights of the immigrants.
These arguments are generally the same as are usually used in other parts of the world when constructing a fear of migration. Historically, the way that the Dominican Republic was dominated by Haiti for twenty-two years is an argument which carries a lot of weight. They intend to once again impose this situation to respond to the idea of the invisibility of the Island (slogan of the Haitian revolutionaries during the nineteenth century). Accordingly, the Haitian presence is part of a peaceful invasion which uses the workers as a “Trojan Horse” until the opportune moment arrives. Together with the domination argument, it is argued that this situation of dependence will end up erasing the essential characteristics of our cultural identity, as well as imposing their primitive religion. All this was brought up again with the idea of the supposed plans of the friend countries of Haiti (United States, France and Canada) to fuse these two peoples into just one nation and State.
On another topic, it is argued that the Haitian workers put a lot of pressure on the work market, deforming it by lowering salaries and displacing the Domincans from specific production sectors, affecting the social security because of the excessive use of the health services, and the same with education. To the last two arguments can be added the fact that the Dominicans finance the Haitian nationals to a large extent. Another limitation of the traditional handling of this issue is that it does not take into consideration the change which has come about in Haitian migration. It began as a resource of the sugar industry, whose crisis in the seventies contributed to reorientating Haitian immigration towards other agricultural activities. It also contributed to the change of economic model from that of an agricultural export economy to one of services in the eighties, which ended up placing a large quantity of Haitians in urban areas. Nowadays they can be found in all areas although a predominance can be seen in urban activities.
The ideological handling of relations with Haiti have been a limitation for setting up policies on the issue; although in fact implicit policies on the matter have always existed, derived from others with a more global reach and referring to other areas of development. In a general sense, when specific measures have been taken it has been motivated by circumstances which oblige some sort of action.
Among the explicit measures we have the decree No.417-90, issued in October 1990, through which it was ordered that the situation of the sugar workers be regularized, awarding them an identity card which specified their work condition and residence. But it is necessary to point out that this administrative provision was the consequence of the great international campaign, which since the mid-eighties has been carried out against the violation of human and labour rights which the labourers of the sugar industry and other production areas suffered. Important organisations of national and international civil society, including unions from the United States and religious and human rights organisations, joined this campaign which, by the way, was treated by the Dominican government and the more conservative sectors as a campaign to discredit the Dominicans who had contributed to the fight against the economic poverty of the Haitians.
Later, in 1991, when Jean-Bertrand Aristide came to power and, in his position as president of Haiti, complained in the United Nations Congress that his nationals were being enslaved by the Dominican sugar industry. President Balaguer considered this complaint to be inadmissible and issued decree 233-91 in June 1991, which ordered the repatriation of a large quantity of Haitian workers. This was done with such cruelty that a general panic broke out in the immigrant population and even among Dominicans of Haitian origin. Since this date repatriations have been the order of the day and they are adopted as the mechanism par excellence for controlling Haitian immigration. They have been carried out in such a manner and with so much abuse against the repatriated people that it was necessary for the governments of Fernández y Preval to regulate them, by means of the “Protocol of Understanding About the Repatriation Mechanisms” of 1999.
Driven by the atmosphere of international complaints, the Dominican government received a quantity of aid from the international cooperation, which included an initial consultancy to formulate a new migratory statute (1991). During the government of Fernández, in 1996, a migration law project was drawn up to substitute the law in force which dates from 1939 and in the year 2000 another law project was formed which reformulated the previous one which never got to the National Congress and even though the latest one was introduced in Congress it was not debated in depth. Nor was it passed. Currently (2003), The Chancellery has presented another migration law proposal which tries to correct a certain xenophobia which was noticed in the previous projects, but so far it has not been discussed in depth or passed.
Another situation which makes the technical management of Haitian immigration difficult is the lack of existing institutional coordination. The State Migration Office is the institution which is most directly involved but, because it lacks broader and more explicit policies, its efforts are essentially directed towards controlling the immigrants by means of deportations. The Armed Forces are empowered with border control and their actions are similarly orientated towards controlling the passage of the immigrants but with no coordination with the State Migration Office. The State Employment Secretary, on his part, has everything related to the contracting of immigrants but he does not coordinate with the aforementioned institutions. In the same way, the State Secretary for External Relations awards entry visas but he also has no institutional links with the other sections.
Up until the eighties, the structure of the migratory system was based on a scheme of restricted participation or entry which was controlled by both governments (the Haitian government received a payment of around two million dollars for each annual contract). In this way, the importing of labourers was done through agreements between these powers. This gave shades of forced labour to the contracting of labourers. Also, it was the soldiers who handled the movement and position of the workers.
Apart from providing tangible benefits for the governments and their followers, the import of workers was a resource for reducing the costs of sugar production by means of employing a docile and cheap workforce.
All this brought as a consequence the social devaluation of the Haitian workforce by constructing a series of prejudices which made the Haitian out to be an inferior being and a worker who was granted entry in the work market for supposedly humanitarian reasons. This meant that the Dominicans were running the risk of receiving the supposedly negative influences of a population considered “primitive”. At the same time a process of ethnisization of the Haitian immigrants was developed as they were stigmatized as only being good enough to do those jobs that the Dominicans did not want.
The new Haitian immigration, which began to appear towards the end of the seventies, shows different characteristics to in the past insofar as that the repressive mechanisms of state restriction no longer exist. Now the immigrants enter the work market by individual routes based on informal networks of friends and relatives which are directly connected to the people in need of this workforce. The new mechanisms of restiction operate through the repatriations with the aim of dissuading illegal immigrants from entering or staying in the territory. These deportations, even if they are carried out highly efficiently, are not effective in dissuading the immigrants.
The absence of the governments in the contracting mechanisms highlights other actors in the migratory business, as in the case of “phantom” consulates that sell false visas; the border controls; the migration agents in charge of internal control; the searchers (in charge of placing the workers), all of whom form an informal chain which relies on corruption to assure the passage of the immigrants without going through the institutionally established formal channels.
On the other hand, in Dominican society it is debated whether the Haitian workers supplant the Dominican workforce or create new jobs. The owners of the businesses argue that, from their point of view, the Haitians accept jobs that that Dominicans are unwilling to do, helping therefore to make the economy more productive. And to those who say that if they paid better salaries, the Dominicans would do the jobs, it is argued that if it were not for the low salaries that the Haitians receive, the areas in which they are employed would not be competitive.
The Dominican economy benefits from the cheap workforce because of the process of social devaluation to which the Haitians are submitted. Also, the levels of informality with which the immigrant is introduced into the production activity allows the owners of the businesses to avoid paying labour benefits and other costs which lower the investment in the composition of the salary; direct benefits and the competition gained from the small development of the production forces increase. While the Dominican State does not finish regulating and putting the migratory proecess in order, there are certain charges on the social services received by the immigrants (mainly education and health) which are assumed by schools and public hospitals, with no contributions fron the employers. This is a situation which, although maybe it is not an amount as big as is declared by the media, does not cease to be a burden on the public sector.
Paradoxically, the atmosphere of rejection and exclusion against the Haitians and the whole political and ideological montage which operates in the Dominican Republic favours the devaluation of the Haitian workforce, making their employment profitable in multiple sectors of the Dominican economy. Meanwhile, the Haitian government maintains an undefined or uncommitted attitude towards the trafficking of emigrants when, really, it would be of benefit to them to resolve a factor of social pressure by this route. On the other hand, this is a discussion which conceals the advantages that the Haitian economy receives by freeing itself from the strong social pressure generated by the demand for employment from a relatively young population who realise their aspirations by emigrating to the eastern part of the island. This guarantees the receipt of the money that these emigrants send to their families, whether it be cash or small investments in the building of houses and the setting up of small family businesses.
It is clear that the politicised handling of Haitian immigration prevents it from being technically attended to. Even though it is complained about so seriously and insistently, it is not attended to with the same seriousness and, far from being resolved, the problem is growing. At the same time, the actors entertain themselves playing at radicalism through actions which are not conducive and which do not lead anywhere or produce a certain lack of movement.
III. HAITIAN MIGRATION IN THE BORDER AREA
Studies on the migratory issue, those we have at the moment, have not stopped to study the characteristics of border migration. The studies have been orientated towards the economic areas which most attract the immigrants, like the sugar industry in its time and almost simultaneously other agricultural products like rice and coffee. More recently, since FLACSO aroused interest by studying what is known as New Haitian Immigration orientated towards the urban areas, where they have jobs in public works, construction, tourism, transport, travelling sales and other activities, all of which are carried out with economic and labour informality.
Migration in the border area has historical roots because it has existed ever since the territory of the island was first shared by the two metropolises, each one with its colony, between which a certain economic complement arose. The contact between the two nations was also maintained throughout the nineteenth century in spite of the wars staged between the two national States. It was in the thirties, with Trujillo’s dictatorship, that the regime politicised and ideologised relations with Haiti and that the crossing of the border took on a different character to before. Since that moment, the crossing of the Haitians was identified as a source of instability and insecurity for the Dominicans of the area and the Haitians were accused of being the scourge against the agricultural estates and cattle ranches. Such a situation was the context for the killing of Haitians which occurred in October 1937.
As one can see from the bibliographical surveys about this subject, the supporters of the dictatorship dedicated a lot of texts to dealing with the border issue but it was done to impose a conflictive view on the area. They also stigmatised the area as being Haitianised, far from Dominican culture, and as a part of the territory, which every day was on the point of being lost because of the supposed pretensions of the Haitians. Likewise, in the aforementioned texts Haitian immigration is not mentioned anywhere because, for the intellectuals of the dictatorship in the Dominican Republic, immigrants were of other nationalities like the Arabs, Spanish, Chinese and others; those who entered from the neighbouring country were simply Haitians. This term corresponded to a category which gathered together all the prejudices and stereotypes built up in order to discriminate against them.
The dictatorship changed the border into an area of military control and security and even though the traffic continued after the horrendous event of 1937, it happened under a shadow of fear and terror imposed by the authorities. This situation was maintained until the nineties when, the dictatorial governments of both sides of the island having disappeared, an opening was produced in the border, motivated by the increase in trade in both directions and the assumption by civil society of a more predominant role in international relations. Today we can say that the transit of people is intense and, in spite of the fact that it does not correspond to an adequate set of rules, we are dealing with something that neither of the governments intend to give up because that would mean both sides giving up the profits from commercial activity worth fifty million dollars and a trafficking of people who work in tourism and other social activities.
As in any border space, the dividing line between the Dominican Republic and Haiti corresponds to a political notion which does not necessarily acknowledge the geographical characteristics of the space. Neither does it respond to conflicts generated by racial or ethnic differences. What it actually does is influence the existing economic, commercial and monetary differences as well as other historical and social determinants to be taken into account, because we are dealing with two different currencies with a different value against the American dollar which serves as a standard for both, just as with the price system, measures and consumer habits. Another important factor is that due to the institutional weakness the presence of the treasury is nonexistent. All these factors make commercial interchange profitable. These characteristics are the basis of the existence of the five existing transborder markets in which the products that are sold depend on prices, quality and availability.
This commercial exchange, which at the moment is mainly carried out from the Dominican side, moves thousands of people to both sides of the border twice a week (Fridays and Mondays) with hardly any demands from the migratory authorities.
The case of the flow of people for work is influenced by the proximity of the two countries, the ease of transit and the porousness of the border. However, the most important factor is the offer of work which exists on the Dominican side, attracting the Haitian workforce to employment in agricultural and livestock activities. It should be pointed out that we are not talking about economic activities with the features of plantations but rather medium-sized and small properties which need a bigger availability in the constant use of workers and a cheaper workforce than the Dominican one in order to make their production profitable.
In spite of the undoubtable tensions which are generated between the two countries because of migration, the border area is a special case due to the strong historical roots which exist among the inhabitants of the area who in many cases reach levels of familiarity. Also, the number of inhabitants who enter the area is not considered high in relation to the number who enter other areas of the country with more economic activity away from the border. In this sense we should not lose sight of the fact that the border is not the focus of great migratory attraction but rather a place with a high concentration of poverty and in the majority of cases the jobs that the Haitians do in the area allow them to return home each day to their country. Basically, if they sleep in the Dominican Republic, they do so for short periods of time.
But it is important to note that, in spite of these characteristics, poverty among the Haitians is greater than that of the Dominicans. For this reason, although the Haitians gain relatively little from the Dominican side, they are relatively close to home and they can always gain more than in Haiti. It is the same with the consumer possibilities.
The time factor is very important with regard to the characteristics of this immigratory flow because it deals with people who, in the majority, keep their main residence in Haiti and cross for relatively short periods of time which could be only hours for those who help in the markets or work on the border itself, or days and weeks for others who enter into places further from the border. As a result we are dealing with a circular and temporal migration which reflects a pendular movement of the workforce.
This is what is called “transborder movements which include multiple displacements of reduced duration and circular character carried out by Haitian inhabitants from the neighbouring border areas towards the border provinces and the equivalent displacements on the part of the Dominicans with the aims of trade, business, visits and similar things”. (?One Island For two?)
The activities in which the transborder migrants become involved are essentially agriculture, livestock and domestic service, this last being where women mainly enter.
As you can see, the movement of people on the border maintains forms of sociability which are very different to the rest of the Haitian immigration to other parts of the country. For the residents of both sides the local authorities tend to establish tacit agreements with a wide margin of tolerance with regard to permitting the border crossing because the inhabitants on both sides feel that they belong to a similar natural space in which they are the main actors and they do not take on the political conflicts produced from the capitals, Puerto Príncipe and Santo Domingo.
It is important to point out that in the latest population census the Dominican border provinces have shown a reduction in the number of inhabitants, which must in some way be the reason why we have detected a new style of this border migration. It is the presence of Haitian peasants installed in little smallholdings, which are lent to them under the form of partnership by Dominicans who have decided to emigrate from the border with their whole family. We need to pay attention to this new variety because it would seem that we are facing a change in the migratory patterns of the border area. In this case we are dealing with an immigrant who, in principle, comes to stay in the country for a long time as opposed to what was described earlier and was happening up until a few years ago. This variety is much more similar to the type of border immigration that was going on up until the famous killing carried out by Trujillo’s dictatorship in 1937, which means that we could say we are returning to the old style.
Since the years of Trujillo’s dictatorship (1930-1961), which stirred the Haitian and border issues up so much, we still do not have a clear legal framework which awards the transborder workers and residents with a category and therefore the handling of this situation has remained in the hands of the national authorities who assume direct control of the area.
It was only in 2001 when the category was granted formally for the first time. The project of the General Migration Law proposed by the State Secretary for External Relations takes into account this category and defines it in this way: “Transborder workers and residents linked to labour activities such as, respectively, foreigners who reside in the border areas and who enter the country in areas of the border in order to offer his labour services (either self-employed or contracted), or who carry out activities of a non-labour nature and return each day to his place of residence. This category is established reciprocally.” (Article 36, paragraph 6). The taking over of the border by the military sectors and some of the highest local authorities changed the border into a booty which these people take advantage of and use to make private profits because control of the border means money and power because they have the authority to control everything that enters or leaves through the border. And if we add to this a precarious establishment, it means possibilities for business which revolves around corruption. It frequently happens that in order to make a profit, the same people who run the business tend to present themselves as the strongest supporters of a hard-line approach towards controls because if access were easy the reasons for corruption would undoubtedly be weakened. In this case we are talking about actions which do not belong to the border but which use it as a place to pass to the interior of each of the two countries. This also tells us that the actors of the aforementioned activities are not exclusively residents of the border area but people who go there to carry out some action, be it legal or not. In such cases, what people need is to pass through the border control with some type of merchandise, either legal or contraband. Also the crossing of people who could be the transborder flows which occur in everyday life, irregular immigrants, children and trafficked teenagers.
So as not to move away from the specific issue we are dealing with, we will leave to one side everything related to contraband, the traffic of people, transport and military security; although it should be made clear that to a large extent the most popularized image of the border is formed by the actions of these actors who are unconnected to the ordinary life of the area.
Nevertheless, the border area is perceived as an area of great migratory activity and this is due to the fact that it is there that the actual migration is performed, when the person crosses the border line. The border is also where the irregular immigrants are placed who are deported to their country of origin. Even though it is the dividing line which is perceived as the scene of the migrations, there is no specialised body there to apply a migratory policy. Given that this is understood to be resorting to the control, persecution and depotation of the Haitian workers, the migratory authorities directly rely on the Armed Forces whose actions have proved to be very effective for the deportations but not at all efficient for establishing migratory order in the country.
We can even affirm that this lack of policy is what makes it easy for those who have “taken over” the border to organise the controls to suit their private interests which, in the end, contribute more to the increase of irregular immigrants than to the governability of this process of social movement.
The border demands the setting up of a modus operandi which formally organises the crossing of these limits by the inhabitants of both sides, being aware in each case of the historical roots of the transborder movements which have existed since the very moment the limits were established, as long ago as the eighteenth century during the colonial period.
SUMMARY OF MIGRATION AND BORDER
In the border area the migratory movement acquires its characteristics as a reflection of the dynamics and happenings of social life in this geographical area which serves as a setting for the complex and historical relations that are developed there. Without a doubt the border is the decisive point for characterizing the global migratory movement which is produced between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, both because it is the area of crossing and because it is there that all the actors who play a part in relations between the countries come together.
One of the main characteristics of the border is that as many integrating actions are produced there as conflictive. The first belong to the actors who are actually from the area and the second correspond to actors whose interests do not necessarily coincide with the border.
The size of the border territory, its lack of institutionality and the tradition of a flow which is historically established because of the demand for a cheap workforce by important sectors of the Dominican economy have been diversifying and widening since the beginning of the twentieth century, when this movement practice began. The migratory movements and the circulation of the population in the border area show great diversity, complexity and interconnection due to the nature of the border space, the political-administrative position and the migratory dynamics of the border area in a national context.
In the provinces of the border multiple currents and circuits are developed which interlace with the dynamics of the localities in Haiti and which reflect and reinforce the interactions and interdependencies of social-economic occurences between neighbouring areas.
At the same time, and given that the movement of the people on the island is mostly on land, the border area is permanently involved and integrated in the social-economic dynamics of the different migratory flows orientated towards other parts of the country. Finally, the border provinces show singular characteristics in their internal migratory movements compared to the other regions of the country and international emigration processses directed towards various countries.
The diverse migratory movement to and from the border provinces basically includes internal immigration in the border provinces and the emigration of the inhabitants of these provinces, both internal (between border provinces and inter-regional to other provinces of the country) and international emigration to other countries. The tendencies which most stand out about the internal migration of the border provinces historically reflect the progressive reduction in the power of attracting immigrants to such provinces and, on the other hand, the strong increase in expulsion of people.
The inter-border movements include the displacements of people through the border for short periods of time (for tourism, business, visits and similar things) directed towards other provinces and regions of the country, and the equivalent dispalcements from the Dominican Republic to Haiti.
Such movement is of considerable magnitude although we only have private studies and official published statistics with which to evaluate its volume and tendencies in an approximate way. The commercial movements which are carried out twice a week in each of the local markets move tens of thousands of people in the short space of time in which the markets are open.
The transborder movements include the multiple short-term circular displacements of Haitian inhabitants from the border area to the border provinces and the equivalent displacements of Dominican inhabitants, for trade, business, visits and similar things.
The said movements reflect the permeability, interdependence and social interactions formed in the border context of both countries, being favoured by the complex connections of social relations established on the border a long time ago.
We must draw attention to the new phenomenon which has come about in the last few years. A slight increase has been noted in the number of Haitian immigrants moving towards the agricultural and livestock areas of the border, motivated by the fact that Dominican rural inhabitants are leaving and escaping to the free trade zones of the cites and other urban activities and leaving their land to Haitian workers. While at the beginning these Haitians arrive alone, they end up bringing their families.
With respect to estimating their numbers, it should be pointed out that part of this movement is of an informal nature and not subject to the migratory controls and records.
In this way, even if the general figures about the above mentioned international movement on land of entering and leaving were only to record a fraction of the real movement, they only refer to the teritorial areas where the border posts for migratory control and registration operate, Jimaní and Dajabón, whereas these movements happen along the whole border.
Furthermore, and still on the matter of these official localities of registration and control, a part of these movements is done in an informal and unrecorded manner, as in the case of transborder movements for trade in the periodical markets on the border.
One of the big problems of border migration is usually precisely the lack of institutionality with which this flow of people is managed. This makes it easy for the military authorities to be the ones who monopolize the transit of people in the area.
To this we can add the lack of an explicit migratory policy. Measures are often taken about this (generally restrictive or controlling), but the governability of the migratory issue is not taken as seriously as is needed. This style of sporadic control, based on repatriations has proved to be inefficient at limiting the flow of Haitians towards the productive areas of the Dominican Republic. Such a situation favours an atmosphere of corruption which has been reported by authorities like the State Secretary for External Relations, like Hugh Tolentino did in his time in order to hold responsible military groups who profitted from this administrative malpractice.
This situation is essentially produced because of the fact that for the Armed Forces the migratory issue is an issue of military security which means that migration is included as a part of national security. This explains why the efforts made to control migration have been effective for repatriations but inefficient for stemming the flows, since the reasons lie in the Dominican economy and not in a particular strategy of the Haitian State or the immigrants with regard to affecting national sovereignty.
The tendency of the military authorities has been to criminalize migration because of the lack of an up to date migration law which reflects the present characteristics of the current flows. At the same time, as we have said, there is no explicit policy on the issue and the system is not ready to guarantee ordered entry to the immigrants, who have no choice but to enter the work market informally. At the same time the difficulties of regularizing the condition of working immigrants puts them in the ranks of irregulars or illegals, providing a motive for their persecution. But as it has already been stereotyped as a problem of national security the illegality becomes a crime, generating a vicious circle which makes regulating the migratory process more difficult.
On the other hand, this lack of definition places the immigrants in situations of vulnerability, generating a problem of human security which affects those who try to cross the border line because the crossing is done without legal protection.
The migratory issue has been one of the main reasons why the country is condemned as a human rights violator because, due to the lack of an adequate migratory policy, the immigrants’ human rights are often violated. This happens especially in the border area which is where there is the most contact between authorities and immigrants, both when they try to enter the country and when they are returned by the same way.
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