10 January, 2004
First International Conference of the Batey Relief Alliance
DOMINICAN’S BATEYES: A NEW REALITY
February 28, 2001
United Nations, New York, USA
By Victor Manuel Baez
Executive Director of Dominican’s State Sugar Council (CEA)
THE SUGAR INDUSTRY AND THE BATEY SITUATION IN DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Mr. Ulrick Gaillard, Founder and Executive Director of Batey Relief Alliance; distinguished guests; Ladies and gentlemen; expositors and participants in this conference.
We will like to express our gratitude to Batey Relief Alliance for the invitation as expositor to this conference, because it gives us the opportunity to outline the policy to be apply in the bateyes by the new authorities of the Consejo Estatal de Azucar (CEA). This policy is frame in the Social Security Plan announced by the Government to fight against the poverty and achieve an improvement in the income distribution. In this plan, the bateyes? situation is underline in a special way.
Nevertheless, we are aware that to perform so difficult task, the authorities need the aid of institutions like Batey Relief Alliance and interested persons, as the persons that are participating in this event, in that way along with another NGOs, institutions and community groups will join efforts to improve the living conditions of the bateyes inhabitants as soon as possible.
INDUSTRY AND FIRM DESCRIPTION
The sugar agro industry at the Dominican Republic, counts on with a surface of nearly to 200,000 hectares planted with sugar cane and 14 sugar mills, which collectively have a grinding capacity of approximately 58,000 short tons of sugar cane per day.
Traditionally, the sugar production was distributed among a State firm the Consejo Estatal del Azucar (CEA) and two firms from the private sector, the Central Romana and Consorcio Vicini. CEA manufactured more than the 60% of the sugar produced in the country until the middle of the 80s decade.
CEA is the owner of ten sugar mills, distributed in different zones of the National District: Montellano and Amistad mills, at the Province of Puerto Plata; Barahona mill, at the province of Barahona; Río Haina, Ozama and Boca Chica mills, at the National District and the provinces of Monte Plata and San Cristobal; and Quisqueya, Porvenir, Santa Fe and Consuelo, in the province of San Pedro de Macoris.
The sugar cane supply to the sugar mills has basic sources: 1. Sugar cane from administration, which is cultivated by the mill in their ground; and 2. Sugar cane from the tenant farmer, which is supplied by administrative independent producers.
Until the 70s decade, the sugar industry used to be called ?the dorsal spine? of the Dominican economy, due to its important contribution to the composition of the Internal Gross Product (PIB), to the total exportation and the employment generation. Furthermore, by its distributive capacity of the income and by the fomentation of the demand in other sectors of the national economy.
In the first years of the 80s decade, the production levels were maintain relatively near to the ones of the 70s, notwithstanding that the industry started to present the crisis? symptoms that is suffering today as the same time, the decade was advancing with dramatic characteristics. Several elements influenced to provoke this crisis, among which we can mention:
First, the fall of the international sugar price from 19 dollar cents per pound, that was maintain at the beginning of the 80s, to only 4 dollar cents per pound in 1985. This drop of the prices, that has not recovered yet, was fundamentally due to the competence of the European beet sugar that receive a strong subside from the governments of the region.
In second place, the substitution of the cane sugar by the beet sugar for synthetic and corn sweetens, at the North American market.
In third place, the protection given to the United States? producers by the means of sustenance prices.
These three factors contribute to increase the offer and provoke saturation in the sugar market, which causes lowering in the prices.
When in the middle of the 80s, in the Dominican Republic was understood that the United States preferential market will be reducing and, that exporting to the world market will result in economic loss, the State began to apply a policy that tend to quickly diminish the joint action of the CEA?s sugar mills in the Dominican sugar industry.
The state inversion in the sugar cane plantation, as well as in factory, civil engineering and transportation, was reduced almost to zero. Shortage of resources resulted in deficient programs for cleaning, fertilization and renewal of the plantations. In the factory and transportation area, the lack of inversion restrained the necessary repair of the equipment and the acquisition of new machines in order to increase the efficiency.
The previous mentioned, provoked a drastic reduction in the country production, which went from 1,209,456 metric tons in the harvest time 1983/84, to only 510,127 in the harvest for 1997/98. The production experienced a fall around a 50% , in relation to the decade of the 70s and beginning of the 80s. The fall in the indicators of the national sugar production is due to the great influence that the State sugar mills have together with the sugar producers and, to the damage suffered by the CEA during the latest years. The Consejo Estatal del Azucar? production went down from 732,324 metric tons in the harvest of 1983/84, to 157,461 tons in the harvest 1997/98 and 59,000 tons in the last made by the State in 1998/99.
To the end of 1999, the ten sugar mills of the agonizing Consejo Estatal del Azucar were to four privates firms, for a four years period: Río Haina, Ozama, Boca Chica, Quisqueya and Consuelo were rented to Consorcio Azucarero del Caribe; Porvenir and Santa Fe to Central Azucarera del Este; Montellano and Amistad to Consorcio Agroindustrial Cañabrava; and Barahona sugar mill to Consorcio Azucarero Central.
Under this sight, the leasing of the CEA?s sugar mills demand the search for economic and social solutions for two population cores deeply-rooted into its structure: the illegal occupants of the ground belonging to CEA and the bateyes? inhabitants. In both cases, the State has performed studies that permits to define strategies and lately, show and execute projects to improve the life conditions of both human groups.
BATEY SITUATION
The batey is describes as a community which population works mainly in duties, at the field as well as in factories, linked to the sugar cane sown and sugar manufacturing.
Batey is born with the sugar mill. The mill owners, in the mill ground, to lodge their workers build their housing and infrastructure. Traditionally, these workers and their families had depended on the plantation almost totally. The mill provided precarious health services, education, drinking water, electricity, supplies sales, etc. This dependence still exists in a big measure, even though in many bateyes the sugar mill workers do not integrate the majority of the population anymore.
Usually, two types of bateyes are distinguished:
The agricultural batey, that is a rural community which population mainly works in sowing labor, cutting, loading, weight and transportation of the sugar cane at the mills. Actually, this profile has changed, because the agricultural bateyes are becoming into communities that have a socioeconomic dynamics that come out of the plantation.
One of the characteristics of the agricultural bateyes majority is the ethnic composition of its inhabitants, because high proportions of those is origin or have Haitian ascendancy. This characteristic began to conceive in the 20s years of the present Century, during the first North American military occupation to our country, due to the hiring of Haitians braceros, promoted by North American authorities.
The batey central is located at the environs of the factory and is urban or partly urban. Its population has the habit to be connected to the industrial labors proper to the grinding. Actually, families which income sources are not only from the mill settle the central bateyes.
It is important to point out that a high percentage of the families in indigent conditions in the country is located in zones where the sugar cane is produce. Typically, the human settlements known by the name of bateyes, are places where the poverty reaches extreme levels.
A study regarding the focusing of the poverty in Dominican Republic, performed by the National Planning Office in 1993, inform that in the country exist 633,806, persons in indigent conditions in the 30 provinces. It is reasonable to estimate that this amount is around 1,000,000 actually. Analyzing this data, it can be deduced that 20% of this people live in the 220 bateyes spread in the CEA?s sugar mills.
The leasing a year ago of the sugar mills belonging to the State, to private, national and foreign investors, fulfilling the law command No.141-97, of the reform to the public firm, has aggravated the misery situation at the bateyes, due to the private contractor tendency to maximize their productive and financial efficiency. With this reform, the customer and paternal politics of the State applied through the managing of the sugar mills, have finished. In the immediate, unemployment and hunger have increased in the influence areas of the State?s sugar mills. Basic services that are required by the population cores and that depend from the sugar mills pertaining to the State, must be now supply by other government and private instances. Survival of thousands of human being that moves between cane plantations and ravines, where the stacking and diseases prevail, depends on an extraordinary effort with that purpose.
GEOGRAPHICS AND DEMOGRAPHICS ASPECTS
The ten sugar mills belonging to the CEA, are distributed in nine provinces and occupied a total area of 164,941 hectares, including areas sown with cane, pasture grown, urban and tourist area, representing a 3% of the national territory.
The bateyes with an estimated population of 250,000 inhabitants, represent the 3% of the total population in the country.
At the territory of the CEA?s mills, there are locating 220 agricultural bateyes, where live around 43,154 families, for an average of 196 families in each batey.
The 51% of the bateyes have less than 100 families and houses, while the 39% have from 100 to 499 houses. The remaining 10% accumulate the bateyes with more than 500 houses.
Housing
The bateyes? residents have the following situation: 53% lives in independent houses; the 30% lives in ravines-like structures; and the 17% in duplex houses. It is a fact that these houses are in deplorable conditions and the inhabitants live in a stacking status. The 71% of the houses are property of the CEA and the 29% are private property, even though are built in land belonging to the CEA. Great majority of the houses was raised with bad quality materials and, when atmospheric phenomenon occurs, per example, cyclones, these are almost completely destroyed and its inhabitants have to shelter in makeshift huts, raised with remainder from the ravines.
Drinking water
There is no kind of infrastructure for the drinking water service at the 32% of the bateyes and, more than the 50% of this percentage seek for water at the nearest river or stream. One percent less receives water from the incidental reservoir trucks that are sent by the sugar plantation.
In the other 68% of these communities, there is some infrastructure for water service but this is usually deficient or unsuitable.
Only the 23% of this 68% have aqueduct; the 33% have whim; the 24% have public tap; the 11% have windmills; and only the 9% of this 68% have hole with electric pumps.
Almost all these systems has became in insufficient and inadequate, mainly due to the demand increase by the increment in population and, in many cases because these systems are useless and need to be substituted.
Environment Sanitation
Regarding the sanitary service, the 66% of the bateyes does not have a manner to eliminate excrement, been a rule that the residents make their sanitary needs in the sugar plantation. The remaining 34% count on with the following means: private latrines, 18%; public latrines, 14% and private toilets, 2%.
Health services
Health assistance in the bateyes belonging to CEA are shown in the following indexes: A 16% of the bateyes does not receive any kind of assistance, or has any health facility; in the 26% there are medical consulting room; rooms are present only in the 4% of the bateyes; rural clinics exists in the 3% and, the popular drugstore works in the 2%.
Education services
In the 30% of the bateyes, formal education is not offer and this shows that the 33% of the population of 10 or more years in the bateyes, does not know how to read or write.
Manual labor
According to the researches, in the bateyes belonging to CEA live 21,074 persons linked to agricultural activities in the plantations, which represents the 17% of the bateyes? economic active population.
The 83% of the Economically Active Population (EAP) does not have labor links with the sugar plantations and dedicate to activities like construction, motorcycle riding, retailer, free zones and independent agriculture, when is not unemployed. The 21% of the families have small farms in order to produce food in short scale.
PRD GOVERNMENT PROGRAM AND THE BATEYES SITUATION
The Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD), the political party that govern in the Dominican Republic since six months ago, sketched the guides to implement at the bateyes its government program with the following statement:
?With the objective to create more human conditions in the bateyes and the communities linked to the CEA?s sugar plantations, the Government will build the necessary constructions, such as low cost room projects and recreation and social aid centers, and will introduce substantial improvement in the education, health, electricity, drinking water, transportation and other essential initiatives to estimate the labor and raise the life quality and the general well being of all the employees and workers in that sector?.
SOCIAL SECURITY PLAN
The President of the Dominican Republic, Hipólito Mejía, announced to the country the denominated Social Security Plan, in his speech of February 5 this year. He initiated the practice of the established in the above-mentioned Government Program announcing that:
?As well as we bet to the future, we can not stay with crossed arms in front of the most critical situations of poverty that offend our humanity conscience. If we ask ourselves which is the case that best illustrate this kind of situations, I think that all of us will mention the living conditions at the bateyes.
Because of that, I am instructing the Presidential Plan against the Poverty to initiate immediately an environment sanitation, health and nutrition program, together with community organizations, churches and corresponding public institutions, addressed specifically to the families living in the bateyes.
This does not only treat about the material situation also is a matter of human dignity. For that reason, we will make efforts in order that the labor, migration and naturalization laws are fulfilled in the bateyes.
With these actions, we begin the rescue of the bateyes from the abandonment stressed by the indolent and failed privatization of the Estatal sugar plantations. The estimated total inversion for this program is 200 millions pesos?.
CEA?S SHORT AND MEDIUM TERM PLANS IN SOCIAL AREAS
The Consejo Estatal del Azúcar, aware of its historic commitment with the inhabitants of the bateyes and as part of the Presidential Plan against the Poverty, suggest to carry out a set of economic and social infrastructure work that guarantee the sustained development, at short and medium term, of that part of the Dominican town. These works will be combined with a series of actions that will have an immediate impact in the improvement of the life quality of the poorest.
Between the most important activities that the new government is going to develop, are highlighted:
A project in the world food program (PMA)
This project consists of the rehabilitation of the social and productive infrastructure in 48 bateyes of the sugar plantations Río Haina, Barahona and Ozama, pertaining to the national District and the provinces of Barahona, Independencia, Bahoruco, Monte Plata and San Cristóbal. Includes also, the food supply for 60,000 persons in year 2001 and 50,000 in 2002, through the World Food Program (PMA) of the United Nations and the Dominican Preinversion Fund.
The program was motivated by the food insecurity problems of the inhabitants in these bateyes, due to the partial or total loss of their possessions and employment source, because of the damaging effects of Hurricane Georges. Likewise, is contemplating a program for food supply to the most vulnerable population, such as children, lactating mothers and pregnant women.
Rehabilitation of housing and latrines construction
In the next four years, the CEA propone to rehabilitate 4,000 houses per year to a cost of 40 millions pesos, the construction of 4,000 latrines at a cost of 20 millions per year, in order to guarantee a most safety roof and avoid diseases, eliminating the infection focus carried by the fact of defecating in the sugar plantations.
These housing rehabilitation will be done with wood, concrete blocks, bars and zinc roof, in order to make them more lasting, considering that the existing now are made from old wood and batten , which make them more fragile to the nature?s beatings.
Health and education program
With the purpose to increase the educational services and reach to a major number of persons in scholar age, as well as the health services, the authorities of CEA have arrived to agreements with the Education Secretariat and the Secretariat of Public Health for join works. In this sense, the following measures have been taken: it was achieved that the educational centers pass to be controlled by the Educational Secretariat and it takes the responsibility of the rehabilitation and constructions of the classrooms; the supply of free scholar breakfast; donation of educational material and supplies; and the nomination of the teachers that were employed before by the CEA.
In the health area, some stays for the old people has been established in the different bateyes, which are provide with food and medicines; the health centers that were damaged are rehabilitate; there is a program for the installation of 75 popular drugstores through del Essential Medicine Program (PROMESE) for sale of medicines at a low price; and developing nutrition and infectious diseases prevention program as HIV and AIDS, that have a high incidence in the bateyes. For this last program, it count with the support of several international organizations and at this moment is under discussion with the Presidential Board a project against AIDS, that will be executed in the ten sugar plantations of the CEA, for a total amount of 34 millions pesos.
Improvement program and/or endowment of drinking water services in the sugar communities.
CEA is developing an extended program of drinking water endowment to the communities in the bateyes, that includes the cleaning and reparation of the holes, construction of multiple aqueducts, installation of the conduction lines, installation of treatment plants, reparation of storage tank, installation of submergible pumps, reparation of tubing and reparation of wind-mills.
Through this program, that will be executed in a two year period approximately 40,000 inhabitants of the bateyes will be benefited and the cost goes up to 50 millions pesos.
Others programs that CEA will promote in the bateyes.
Repair and put on operation of ten bakeries, one per sugar plantation, with the purpose to provide food at low price to the inhabitants of these communities and generate employment.
Plague control program in the 220 bateyes belonging to CEA.
Weekly medical missions will be carried out, in which medicines will be provide free of charge and participate 30 doctors and 15 dentists. In this medical mission, will be distributed food portions as donation 5,000 to the inhabitants of the bateyes near the site were the mission is perform.
Program to relocate the inhabitants with small parcel that stayed within the limits of the leasing land. These persons will be placed in other sites and their definitive property title will be granted.
Program of massive sowing of short cycle cultivation, to be applied jointly with the Agricultural Secretariat to obtain food that will be facilitate to the residents in the bateyes.
Program for nurturing and animal production such as goats, rabbits, chicken and bovines, with the objective to create a support to the family economy, by the means of increasing the incomes and the nutritional levels.
Improvement and endowment of electric services in the bateyes that are lack of electric power. This activity is coordinated with the Corporación Dominicana de Electricidad (CDE) and several NGOs that work in the bateyes.
Program of land sales at social prices to the inhabitants that have built houses in land belonging to the CEA and, that will be granted with property titles. In this program around 4,000 families will be benefit.
Agreements with the Program for Promotion of the Micro, Small and Medium Firm, to offer economic and technical support to enterprises initiatives of small size, as handicrafts, mechanic and sewing workshops; small business; and those firms developed by women association and other population disesteeming sectors.
Program for sports courts, multiuse court, parks and recreation area, which is coordinated by the Secretariat of Sports and the Secretariat of Culture, in order to perform theater drama and other cultural activities.
As you might heard, the new authorities of the Dominican Government, that is head by Engineer Hipólito Mejía, have named this year as ?Year for Fight Against the Poverty? and can not be talking about fight against the poverty, without speaking about the sugar bateyes, which penury situation had been aggravated by the privatization of the State sugar mills. The privatization of these sugar mills was necessary and convenient but it has the characteristic of contribute with its profit for the future and throw bigger social problems in the present.
The situation is difficult but for the first time the Government has plans to face the misery at the bateyes, which he expects to surpass with the cooperation of all of you.
Thank you!
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By Ruben Silie
Executive Director of Dominican’s FLACSO
THE BATEY IN TRANSITION TO A NEW KIND OF COMMUNITY
This speech resumes the results of two studies done at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO). One of them is regarding the effects of privatization of the sugar industry and the other one deal with the situation of the boys and girls at the bateyes and the difficulties to perform the right for a name and a nationality.
As these issues were performed as advice for both institutions and to the date, the results have not been shown to the public, we are not going to present data in tables or graphics and, will only make an oral description that highlights the actual situation of the batey and the batey?s people.
We must have to call attention regarding the new situation and the transition procedure to a new kind of community that these sites are involved.
ANYBODY WANTS TO RETURN TO THE SUGAR CUTTING
In the history, the transition from a sugar economy under the plantation system to an economy based in employment of free labor workers, was characterized by the common fact that, when the labor is finished, they escape of everything that could remains the slave job and the rigors of the sugar plantations, as happened in Haiti, Puerto Rico, Guadeloupe, Martinique and other Caribbean countries. These persons experienced a rupture with their immediate past time.
In a great measure, this was the cause for the creation of the countryman in many of the Antilles? Islands, because the antiques slaves took the empty ground for cultivate it under the simple commercial system, rejecting any kind of slavish subjection. This happened at the beginning of the modern sugar industry when after having finished the slavery, the production structure was technified and, even though did not discard the intensive use of manual labor and extent land, social relations were different than in the slavery period.
This behavior of the workers imposed the importation of manual labor at the end of the XIX Century and beginning of the XX Century. This was the time for the second big wave of immigrants to the Caribbean, arrives a big contingency of Chinese, Malays, Hindus and Mayan Indian.
This was the moment for the take-off of the American sugar industry developed all over the Caribbean, which will take benefit of the countrymen? poverty, whose ancestors escapes from the plantation in other time. Paradoxically, the Haitians that were the first to get free from the slavery, also were the first and, in large amount, that finished as workers in the modern sugar industry. This rural population converted into agricultural workers, pass as stationary immigrants to the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Puerto Rico; the places where the North American sugar mills were developing with more energy.
NEW STAGE OF THE SUGAR INDUSTRY
Lately, North American companies passed to individuals and to the State, maintaining the practice of importing foreign manual labor to work in the sugar fields and in some of the manufacturing work of the sugar industry, this was the case of the Dominican Republic.
As all we know, the sugar industry was developed under the financial joints, in which the production mechanisms and those that are related with the workers were totally controlled by the companies. These were micro States, where the owner law was ruled. That was a locked site where nobody but, the company had rights, all the others had duties. These companies when privates were managed with paramilitary staff and/ or by military when they were owned by the State. These people had the right to punish the workers like they want to, and also prohibited the right to move around once they were enrolled for working at the sugar mills.
After a century of the predominance of the modern sugar joints, as multinational firms, private or owned by the State, we are now going through a new stage in the sugar industry, in which the mechanisms for exportation used until now, can not be reproduced over the previous basis. Here are some of them:
a) Appropriation of the land through ravaging from its old proprietors;
b) Compulsory mechanisms for recruiting manual labor;
c) Collective and indifferent hiring of the workers;
d) Abusive ways of removing the surplus;
e) Construction of racist stereotypes to devaluate the cost of the manual labor:
f) No respect to the human and political rights.
Some inconveniences have raised also in the management of the world sugar market, where some ethics values are associated as condition for the products? purchase; all this obligate to change the working conditions and the production of the mentioned industry.
In the particular case of the Dominican Republic, the collapse of the old sugar industry took place at the end of the 70s, in which a variety of facts as the sweet price and mainly the imposition of new economics models, obligate the Dominican economy to a change of direction.
Changes that took place in the 80s reduce the preeminence of the old economics schemes directed to the inside part with traditional productive structures based in the agricultural industry and the mining.
We were passing to an economy based in services, where the main effort was directed to strengthen the tourism and develop the Free Zones; each time more open toward to the outside. Since that time, the sugar industry has been losing power in the national economic structure and, today we can say that it has become a secondary item in the Dominican economy.
The Dominican Government, which was the major sugar producer of the country, in its effort to reorient the economy defined a strategy to recover a good portion of the land for other activities. From non-traditional agricultural development, directed to the exportation and, free zones parks, to tourism facilities.
In that transformation context of the economy type, the reforms bring adjustment plans that includes a politic for privatization of the State institutions in order to make them more efficient and productive. The sugar mills went into these new politics and a privatization process was open for the institutions that belong to the Consejo Estatal del Azucar (CEA).
This changes phase in the economy coincided with important political transformation, because the country turned out from twelve years of authorities governments to enter into a process for strengthen of the democracy. At the same time, this issue open a space for fights for the respect of the human rights that included the sugar workers, Haitians and Dominican with Haitian roots because the previous authoritarianism did not allow to express their disagreement.
The Haitian workers? big fights for the respect of the Human Rights rise an extraordinary strength, finding a major audience in the international organizations specialized in the protection of the Human Rights, like big Labor Unions of the United States, Europe and Canada. This costs several legal sentences to the Dominican Government for been sponsoring this kind of exploitation and treat to the immigrants.
To all this, the political change in Haiti getting out from a dictatorship of more than three decades, was added. That political change rebound directly over the situation of the Haitian immigrants in Dominican Republic because the cruelties of the dictatorship reach the bateyes with the presence of ton ton macoutes that contributed with the vigilance and repression to the Haitians workers.
In 1991, when the Haitian nation participated in the first free and clean elections and, Jean Bertrand Aristide was elected President, the Haitian Government broke the agreement that was undergoing for more than 50 years, which benefits the exportation of Haitians journeymen to Dominican Republic.
All this tell us that from that date, all the traditional mechanisms that sponsored the exploitation of the Haitian immigrants under morally unacceptable conditions, disappeared at the same time that other factors related with the structure of the Dominican economy were becoming present. Therefore, something should change in the old sugar industry.
PRIVATIZATION OF THE CONSEJO ESTATAL DEL AZUCAR
The most important thing was the process of privatization of the CEA?s plantations. Something that seems to be far due to the tight bows of these firms to the economic development of the country, the facilities offered to the clients and, another types of business inherent of the Dominican political culture.
Although, the process began four years ago and, some of the sugar mills belong already to private hands. But, the manner in which this process was performed have to deal with the old mechanisms for treatment of the manual labor, because all the negotiations were done, as the case of the land and the industrial facilities but, the precarious living conditions of the bateyes population were not considered. These ones expressed their complaints for not being included in the negotiations properly.
Anyway, the privatization is ongoing and the traditional mechanism of dominating the worker to the productive activity disappeared with it. Now, the firms are trying to establish strictly economic relations, different from the past in which prevail the extra economics. But, this did not contributed to improve the situation of ?the bateyes? the communities that give lodging to the workers.
As the batey was a close area were the workers got together, the plantation was responsible for the few social services that were received by the people in the batey, because at the beginning the national authorities did not interfere in those sites. Now, at the moment of the negotiation, those communities stay alone, inclusive many of them do not correspond to the official territorial marks, which aggravate their situation because no authority assume the responsibility in front of those bateyes.
The batey has changed, stopped being the key that historically stamped a very particular confinement sense to that sugar community, where human being, lands and, animals belong to the sugar mills. Obviously, this is due to the fact that the Dominican society is not the same either because with all the changes occurred worldwide, it is impossible today to accept the slavery conditions that the mill workers were exposed for so many years.
Including the idea of close space is not useful to the rationality of the sugar industry. Now it is preferred to hire free workers that arrive to the firm from their own house to make their job. The recruitment of the manual labor is not done anymore by the means of collective agreements signed by the island governments. Neither the presence of the paramilitary groups that inspire terror between the workers and their families, are supported. Now, if they stay there it is because they do not have conditions to break with this social reality but they do it by their own choice.
The Dominican State managed the internal reality, including the legal nation?s structure, of those sites as work centers where barely other institutional actors could show up. Today, this reality is not the same but, the authorities and the new sugar mills? owner try to turn on the back to whole families that, were kept to the social exploitation under the coercion mechanisms.
THE BATEY IN THE XXI CENTURY
At the time of the privatization, the Consejo Estatal had ten sugar mills with around 200 bateyes, located in the towns of Bahoruco, Barahona, Independencia, San Pedro de Macorís, El Seybo, Monte Plata, Puerto Plata, Hato Mayor and Santo Domingo. The sugar mills were named: Amistad; Barahona; Boca Chica; Consuelo; Monte Llano; Quisqueya; Ozama; Porvenir; Santa Fé and Río Haina.
According to the CEA?s Home Bateyes Sugar Mills Survey, done by the Reform Commission of the Public Firm (CREP), the bateyes lodge 43,154 families with around 200,000 habitants, that represents the 2% of the country total population.
The same source reveals that the social conditions of these persons is between poor and indigents, because the 71% of the houses are CEA?s property and without the necessary comfort to consider them as adequate; the 49% of the bateyes have no electricity and only a 64% of the housing receive this service; drinking water is rare and the 52% of the residents have to collect the water outside the house, many times in rivers or flowing. The 66% do not count with system for elimination of excreted and where they do have latrines are collectives. (CREP, 1999).
Education and health are also precarious, because more than the 50%, including children, do not receive medical care. More than the 30% of the children do not attend to school, and only a reduced percentage of those that attend, pass from the Fourth grade. (CREP, 1999).
Actually, cannot be asserting that all the residents in the bateyes have something to do with the sugar activities, like in previous decades. As those restrictive and repressive mechanisms that prevail for years had disappeared, some of the residents were able to untie from those activities. The residents batey?s? people develop several strategies to guarantee their subsistence and we can distinguish them in the following way:
1. Agriculturists and breeders. Many of the sugar mill workers have shared for years their work during the harvest time at the mill with their agricultural activities during the low season. These persons in a general sense cultivate some agricultural products or combined it with the animal breeding. This production is used basically for home consumption and if there is some commercialization is in a small grade.
These persons usufruct the field of the sugar mills they work to but this is a customary practice from many decades, inherited from parents to sons. These productive activities are the one that helps to compensate the precarious income that the sugar work offers. But, also these activities do not develop in calm because in specific moments the sugar mills? inspectors come by in order to extort them, asking for part of their products or money in return for not destroying their production.
This is, actually, one of the biggest problems that the workers families have to hold up, because the lands were negotiated together with the new purchaser and some pressure have been done to force the residents to give back the ground that they are cultivating from years ago. This pressure over the land property affect their houses also because, a big part of the families live in their own houses although the property right is not recognized.
2. Casual work at the bateyes. An important percentage of the residents develop unconventional activities at the bateyes. These people tend to develop commercial activities, gambling, ambulant sales of food or any other handicraft occupation.
3. Another group works out the sugar mill. The youngest families have the habit to occupy the housing terrain, inherit by their parents always without the official legality but protected by the customary right. These families do not work in the sugar mills and more and more they look for work in the urban zones near the bateyes, in the casual business, domestic service and, the luckiest in the Free Zones and the Tourism facilities. Some of them travel to the big cities performing construction and other heavy works. These are the ones that mark the main tendency of the batey?s people because are exposed to the centrifugal power that put them farther away from the batey?s traditional drama.
THE PERMANENCY OF THE BATEY AND THE ?BATEY?S PEOPLE?
The precarious? sign prevails in the population at the batey, as much for their life and work conditions as well as the legal support that protect or unprotect them. The batey organization does not appear in any of the national laws related with the political markers and the human settling. All issues regarding these sites was left in hands of the sugar industries, which initially demand an absolute control over the occupied land and the persons under their authority. This fact conditioned that the bateyes became economics and politics joints.
It is evident that at the time of beginning a privatization process like this, the persons were not taken into consideration in the design and operation of the firms. For these, the men and women that work there are only numbers and tokens of a big engagement and that they have to move accordingly to a production scheme, where the sole rationality is to produce benefits. The human condition goes to a second level.
Nevertheless, there are legal arrangements related with the working conditions that protect the workers but, the exclusion rule is make in a way that no attention was given to the stipulated obligations of supplying good housing, protection and social securities, keeping the exclusion as a rule, above all for the Haitian laborer. The legal institution that fulfills the sugar industry has not left at least, that the debated national justice enters in its jurisdiction, it is recognized as a close space.
HAITIANS IMMIGRANTS AS SCAPEGOATS
The migratory matter takes part as a key factor to understand the situation of the human being at the batey. In the ideology context built by Trujillo?s dictatorship, the idea of a total scorn against the Haitian workers was inculcated, over a base of bias stereotypes that got into the Dominican Population, who finished accepting the discrimination to these inhabitants.
Haitian workers present a series of characteristics that convert them in a very attractive manual labor for the contractors, always with interest for the institutions: a) it is possible to pay them less than to the Dominicans, b) the procedures for over exploitation as well as the fraud with the weight of the sugar cane its better used with Haitians than with Dominicans; c) have less pressure to offer a proper housing; d) they were limited to move strictly in the area of the plantation that hired them; e) discounts for social security and other charges are done without any reimbursement of their renderings; f) they have a lack of liberty to organize in Unions or other mechanisms of representation; g) although they were taken here by the means of signed contracts between the governments, they were treat as illegal and this untie a way to treat them like persons that were not necessary to identify as immigrants, denying the rights that an immigrant worker can claim in any part of the world.
In this sense, as the idea that the batey population was mainly Haitian was divulged, solidarity and social sensibility should not arrive there, because this were second or third category people. Because of that, the batey stayed in the memory of the standard Dominican as a far and distant site.
The batey community has been historically establishing in function of the above-mentioned conditions and, although the imported population is seen as temporary, the firms encouraged always the stay of a group of Haitian workers. In first place, because the sugar mills were interested in counting with manual labor that works during the low season in certain labors requested for the maintaining of the sugar fields, the animal breeding and other related activities. That practice was creating a population remainder that, by the time assigned to the batey the characteristics that we know today.
This resident population took roots in the batey in spite of all the prejudices and mechanisms of exclusion against it. The study entitled El Batey directed by F. Moya Pons reveals that already in 1986, over the 30% of the residents in the CEA?s bateyes have over 21 years living there, more than a 50%, 11 years and 70% more than 5 years. This is that we are talking about an established population (Pg.226). If we add to this, that those persons in their perspectives do not the idea of moving to another place or country, thus is impossible to talk about transitory inhabitants.
POVERTY AND STRUCTURAL PERSPECTIVES OF THE BATEY
At the batey, which have more value is their poverty condition. This social status is what prepare them to handle the over exploitation, and at the same time limits their capacity to demand respect to the Human and Labor Rights.
The population agrees with all the indicators of poverty. They have precarious jobs, of very low income, high level of illiteracy, low levels of scholarship, houses in worst conditions and their stacked residents, bad feeding and high malnutrition, temporary basic services of very bad quality.
As what reveals the studies consulted, it can be assert that it treats of an indigence situation since the possibilities to obtain the basic food needs are distant for the majority of the persons.
The batey, nowadays, is set up by persons who has a tendency to escape from the sugar hell and, work in other kind of activity that do not causes the labor nightmare that was produced in the past, as happened in the XIX century with the transfer of the plantation to the capitalist modern economy.
Among the batey?s residents that work in the sugar industry, the old people represent a high percentage of the adult population. It is clear that the one of older age have few possibilities to move forward activities outside the sugar area.
It is evident that a good portion of the residents do not have the capacity to work in other labor, because all their life have be given to the work at the sugar mill, sharing it with agricultural labor or breeding what they can do using the sugar mill?s ground, in spice of the over exploitation they were exposed to.
The batey?s residents are abandoned to their luck, since neither the labor union leaders give proper attention to them, in order to be indemnified by the new companies that own of the sugar industries.
The bateyes population should be treat as one of the social categories most vulnerable from the social point of view. In consequence, is a moral imperative to go in their help and is an economic and social need to make plans for the incorporation of these families to the social and economic life.
The batey is a center of poverty and as such have to be treated by the national development plans, since can not be accept that they be excluded under the reasoning that they are Haitians or a responsibility for the sugar firms.
The limited social and political auto representation of the batey is a big weakness to be taken into consideration by the authorities making easy the instrumentation of that population by the political parties and social organizations of other kind.
The legal situation of the Haitian workers continue to be a pending problem because their right to a documentation is not recognized (many of them had spent more than 20 years with identification of the sugar mills). Morally, it is unacceptable that these people is wanted to be taken out of the country after having served to it giving the benefit of cheap manual labor. They cannot be thrown out as the straw of the sugar cane. It is urgent to regulate the situation of the workers although they came as temporary workers, the circumstances conditioned them to stay living in the country permanently. It could be observed that among the Dominican and Haitian or Dominican with Haitian roots, the social relations do not present problems, since a mutual acceptation exists. The marriages and unions are an example.
Mixed marriages are common, in consequence there is the problem to face the legalization of the foreign that are married with Dominican, besides the certain percentage of children that, for the fact of been born from mixed marriage, to obtaining their nationality, either Haitian or Dominican, gets more difficult.
SOCIAL ASSISTANCE OR INVERSION FOR THE BATEY
The beginning of the batey modernization can not consist in giving some bonus or haggle over the right of the precarious housing in the mill or the access to the ground that have been maintaining for years by those that cultivate it.
In this sense, is a mistake to continue living in the batey in the frame of that restricted institution that have ruled the life of those inhabitants, in the middle of the indecision regarding who is the responsible, if the sugar mill or the State. Whatever the State agreed with the sugar mills must occur in a negotiation between both of them, in which the State represented the Batey?s people, in front of them the direct responsible is the own State.
Although the sugar plantation had constituted in a joint of the autonomous power in front of the rest of the society, it never did in front of the State that was sponsoring it without losing its territorial and legality supremacy over itself. Because of that, the claim must be addressed to the State and this have to deal with the firms.
Historically, the Dominican State has consent to diminish the citizen condition of the batey?s people, whose by the weight of the Haitian population in their identity have been victims of all the prejudice against the Haitians. Due to this fact, the State must have to make the first step to recognize the right to the citizenship of its inhabitants.
The first problem shown in this level is that to the batey?s Haitian people and those with Haitian origin have been denied the possibility to receive any official identification. Per example, the Haitians work or that have worked deserve that an identification as immigrant be given to them in order to regularized their legal status in the country. To those born in the country, must be recognized its right to the Dominican nationality.
Of the latest ones, the main problem are the children; who have big difficulties to acquire their identification as Dominican citizens, with all the inconveniences that this produce in their life organization mainly at the school, where the birth certificate is required for registration.
The only way to surpass the actual situation of the batey is integrating it to the global social problems of the rest of the nation, so they can be taken into account by the social politics that are defined for the rest of the country.
It is time for the Dominican State to start paying the social debt it has with the producers of the batey?s wealth, without excluding the sugar firms that had been direct beneficiaries of the work done by the batey?s people.
It is necessary to surpass the assistance issue in which this situation has been managed to the date, in front of the bateyes. It is indispensable to obligate the strategy definitions of social inversion that support the socioeconomic dynamism of the families that live there. This must be done guaranteeing the participation of the respective communities.
Although, the politic toward the bateyes shall insert these people in the totally of the national plans, it is necessary to focus the efforts made by these population, since their conditions are so individual that they are not similar to the rest of the indigent in the nation. The effects that must be produced by the social inversion of these communities should have bigger that in the others because at the batey the conditions are much more deplorable.
The bateyes? development must be seen in an particular perspective that contributes to make more efficient the participation of the community, because this will assures that the projects can be negotiate by the own inhabitants, which among other factors should improve the administration and, will control in a certain way the clientele, that is part of the Dominican political culture.
Should not be taken out of sight that the batey?s people are affected by cultural barriers, originated by their low educational level and their traditional exclusion; besides, their low political influence. Therefore, if they are not incorporate to this development process taking into consideration these particularities, they could be an easy prey of those that always have been taking advantage of their lacks.
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By Edwin Paraison
Haiti’s Consul in Barahona, Dominican Republic
Prix Anti Slavery 1994
La Migration et les Relations Bilatérales entre Haiti et la République Dominicaine A la recherche d’une solution finale.
Nous aimerions, avant tout, féliciter le Batey Relief Alliance (BRA) en la personne de notre ancien camarade de classe et ami Maître Ulrick Gaillard pour la réalisation de cette conférence qui nous le souhaitons pourra être utile aux deux gouvernements de l’île qui sont obligés de chercher ensemble des solutions pratiques aux problèmes liés à l’immigration haïtienne en République Dominicaine.
Le temps imparti à cet exposé nous oblige à ne faire que l’esquisse de certains points pour enrichir les discussions. Il est aussi important de signaler que cette intervention est à titre personnel et n’engage pas le gouvernement haïtien.
Distingués invités,
La caractéristique insulaire de l’espace partage entre les deux républiques est au départ un élément révélateur de la mobilité humaine que l’île d’Hispaniola connaîtra au cours de son existence. Dans des circonstances historiques différentes les Européens, les Africains, dans un premier temps, les vagues d’immigrants afro-américains, jamaïcains, portoricains, Antillais du Commonwealth et arabes, dans un deuxième temps, les Nord-américains avec l’occupation et même des japonais et des chinois ont fait de cette île un lieu d’adoption.
Aujourd’hui, Haïti et la République Dominicaine, avec des indicateurs de développement plus favorables dans la partie orientale de l’île, exhibent les mêmes causes qui provoquent l’émigration de leurs habitants. Seulement aux Etats Unis et à Puerto Rico les migrants en provenance de l’île (Haïtiens et Dominicains) sont estimes à environ 3 millions.
Cette réalité binationale, qui fait partie d’un phénomène mondial ayant des racines d’ordre économique, politique et sociale, dépasse les capacités immédiates de réponse des deux gouvernements. Au contraire, cette situation contribue grandement au soutien de l’économie des deux pays avec des apports approximatifs annuels de près de 2 milliards de dollars.
Cependant, dans l’île même, il y a plus de 85 ans, un mouvement migratoire croissant s’effectue de l’Ouest à l’est. A l’origine, il s’agissait de travailleurs agricoles embauchés par des fermiers dominicains. Ils étaient utilises également sur les chantiers de construction des troupes d’occupation des Etats Unis en 1915-16. Ensuite, ils furent embauches formellement pour la coupe de la canne en vertu d’un accord signe par les autorités haïtiennes et dominicaines de 1952 à 1971. A partir de cette date, le Conseil d’Etat du Sucre (CEA) a pris la relève.
Parallèlement à cette migration légale s’effectuait une migration clandestine généralement appellee “anba fil”. Ces derniers temps, un trafic d’illégaux est organisé à la frontière avec la complicité de part et d’autre de civils et d’agents publics.
Durant les deux dernières décennies, l’incidence de la main d’ouvre migrante haïtienne est une réalité incontournable non seulement dans le secteur agricole dans son ensemble mais surtout dans l’industrie de la construction. Que ce soit dans le développement du secteur hôtelier ou dans les grands travaux d’infrastructure gouvernementaux, les travailleurs haïtiens apportent leur contribution, jugée inestimable par plus d’un.
Cependant, les propos suivants prononces par le Ministre des Travaux Publics l’Ing. Diandino Pena du gouvernement de l’ex président Leonel Fernandez en 1999, sont une reconnaissance de cette réalité: Les ouvriers haïtiens travaillent mieux que les ouvriers dominicains et ils sont indispensables pour l’industrie de la construction. Ces Haïtiens ont la charge de la production agricole et du développement infra structurel de la République Dominicaine. Cela devrait être positivement perçu des deux cotes pour la mise en marche d’une politique de coopération bilatérale dans ce domaine, vu que la R.D. absorbe de cette façon une main d’ouvre qui a émigré à la recherche d’un mieux être.
Qui pourrait nier, qu’aux Etats Unis ou nous nous trouvons actuellement, les immigrants d’une manière générale dont les Haïtiens et les Dominicains contribuent, substantiellement, à faire de ce pays le plus puissant de la terre?
Les conditions d’embauche, de travail et de vie dans les bateys dénoncées sur le plan international à partir des années 70, font jusqu’à présent l’objet d’un suivi systématique d’agences du système des Nations Unies et de l’Organisation des Etats Américains (OEA). Cette situation a été qualifiée, en 1996, d’esclavagisme par l’ex directeur du CEA de l’Administration Fernandez, le Dr. Antonio Isa Conde.
L’attention de la communauté internationale a été particulièrement attirée par le fait que: l’Etat dominicain, était directement concerné, ce, à travers le CEA et les Forces Armées, selon les conclusions d’organismes tels que: le Bureau International du Travail (BIT), d’organisations de droits humains comme Anti Slavery International (ASI), Americas Watch, la Coalition Nationale pour les droits des Haïtiens, le Comité des Avocats pour les Droits de l’Homme, et le Comité Québécois pour la Reconnaissance des droits des travailleurs haïtiens en R.D. pour ne citer que ceux-là.
Ce qui a également maintenu l’intérêt des Eglises Episcopale et Catholique Romaine sur la situation des ouvriers migrants haïtiens et leurs familles. De même des groupes de solidarité internationale, des chercheurs, des journalistes îliens et internationaux se sont penchés sur cette question.
Cependant, de 1970 à nos jours certains pas ont été réalisés on peut citer entre autres faits les suivants:
a.. L’éradication d’ une politique d’embauche forcée de l’Armée dominicaine pour la coupe de la canne
a.. L’extrême rareté des cas d’utilisation de la main d’ouvre infantile emmenée d’Haïti
a.. L’usage de véhicules adéquats pour le transport des ouvriers destinés à la coupe de la canne.
a.. La mise en marche de divers projets sociaux dans les bateys
a.. La reconnaissance par les autorités dominicaines des syndicats de coupeurs de canne haïtiens.
a.. La privatisation des usines.
a.. La remise de contrats individuels de travail (en créole et espagnol) aux coupeurs de canne. (avec beaucoup de failles l’année dernière)
a.. L’effort consenti pour la réduction du vol lors du pesage de la canne
a.. Le rapatriement aux frais des usines sucrières sur demande des ouvriers n’ayant pas accepte les conditions de travail
a.. L’obtention, actuellement, d’un permis de séjour de 6 mois délivré aux travailleurs haïtiens par la Direction Générale de l’Immigration (DGM sigles en espagnol) moyennant le paiement de US$ 18 (RD$300)
a.. L’annonce récente par le Président Hipolito Mejia de la lutte contre la pauvreté qui sévit dans les bateys.
De nos jours, la population haïtienne en R.D. n’est plus confinée exclusivement dans les bateys. Elle oscille entre 200,000 et 300,000 personnes, dont 30 à 40,000 travaillent dans la coupe de la canne selon les données estimatives de la DGM datées de septembre 1999 avancées par l’ex. directeur Mr. Danilo Diaz au programme televisé Matinal. Environ 3,000 ont un statut légal dont 600 réfugiés politiques.
D’autres sources, toujours estimatives, utilisent le chiffre de 500,000.
Les groupes suivants pourraient être énumères parmi les Haïtiens se trouvant en R.D. ou vivant entre les deux pays à la fois:
a.. Coupeurs de canne vivant dans les bateys
b.. Travailleurs agricoles (café, riz, cacao)
c.. Travailleurs saisonniers transfrontaliers
d.. Commercants transfrontaliers
e.. Ouvriers de la construction
f.. Vendeurs ambulants
g.. Gardiens de maison et de chantiers
h.. Gens de maison
i.. Artistes peintres
a.. Travailleurs communautaires et religieux
a.. Professionnels et techniciens
b.. Universitaires
c.. Entrepreneurs
Pour voyager en R.D., légalement le citoyen haïtien doit avoir un passeport valide, faire une demande de visa à l’un des consulats dominicains situes à Port-au-Prince, au Cap Haïtien ou à Ouanaminthe, présenter les pièces requises. Ce qui fait un coût total US$100 environ.
Dans le domaine politique, la chute de la dictature duvalieriste en 1987 et l’exercice du pouvoir par deux gouvernements démocratiques à partir de 1991 ont impose une nouvelle gestion des rapports entre les deux pays. Les nouveaux responsables haïtiens en synchronisation avec différents groupes de la société civile n’ont plus jamais renouvelle l’accord pour l’embauche des coupeurs de canne haïtiens. Les relations bilatérales à l’époque tournaient autour de cet accord dénonce comme un trafic d’êtres humains -impliquant les deux gouvernements- et le commerce à la frontière.
Les deux peuples à travers les échanges commerciaux ont tissé de par eux-mêmes des relations aussi fortes, que les villes frontalières des deux pays peuvent être considérées, non seulement comme des villes sours mais surtout comme des villes interdépendantes. Loin des décisions des centres de pouvoir, les humbles gens de Ouanaminthe, Dajabon, Elias Pina, Belladeres ou de Pedernales et Anses à Pitre comme de Jimani et Fonds Parisien ont des liens de bon voisinage et de solidarité qui constituent un exemple vivant pour le reste de l’île.
Seulement à Dajabon, les jours de foire, lundi et vendredi entre 5000 et 7000 Haïtiens se confondent avec la population dominicaine de cette ville pour un échange commercial mutuellement indispensable qui est aussi la preuve que la frontière, loin d’être un lieu de séparation est un espace de rencontre entre les deux peuples.
Les leaders de l’entreprenariat et du commerce des deux pays conscients de cette réalité et cherchant d’autre part l’union de volontés pour conquérir d’autres marches ont signe en 1998 un accord de coopération et d’assistance mutuelle paraphe par les présidents de la chambre de commerce et d’industrie d’Haïti et la Chambre de Commerce et de Production de Santo Domingo. Suivait en juillet de l’an 2000 l’accord signé entre les responsables de l’Association d’Industries d’Haïti et l’Association Dominicaine de Zones Franches.
D’autre part, depuis 1994, la classe d’affaires des deux sociétés, au-delà même de ses propres intérêts, étudie la possibilité d’un accord trilatéral avec les Etats Unis pour la création du Fonds International Hispaniola qui serait alimenté par la remise de la dette externe des deux pays face aux Etats Unis et dédié à des initiatives communes de développement dans l’île.
Des échanges se font à tous les niveaux entre les deux sociétés dont le tout dernier en date est la rencontre entre des journalistes haïtiens dominicains à Santo Domingo organisée par l’Association des journalistes haïtiens (AJH) et le Collège dominicain des journalistes (CDP sigles en espagnol). Cette réunion a donné naissance à la création d’un Forum Permanent des Journalistes dominico-haitien.
Pourquoi ne pas citer la meringue carnavalesque 2001 de Zaka Guinen qui traduit la prise de conscience d’importants segments de la population haïtienne sur les relations entre les deux pays. Haïtiens et Dominicains nous sommes des frères, nous sommes une famille, nous ne nous laisserons pas manipuler.non à la division, non à l’affrontement.vive la paix.lettres fredonnées sous le rythme contagieux du groupe pendant les trois jours gras.
Des raisons historiques et conjoncturelles expliquent que, bien des fois, les deux Etats et gouvernements passent par des périodes de crise liées à la situation des ressortissants haïtiens en R.D. spécialement:
a.. au moment de certains rapatriements jugés massifs, unilatéraux et sans contrôle d’identité
a.. au cours d’opérations militaires de routine contre le trafic d’illégaux soldées occasionnellement par la mort de ressortissants haïtiens
Les crises les plus aigues entre les deux pays durant les années ’90 ont eu leur origine lors des rapatriements effectues en 1991 et 1996. Le mois dernier, les rapatriements réalises à Barahona ont provoque un tollé dans l’opinion publique des deux pays. L’année dernière 11 Haïtiens ont été les victimes meurtrières d’agents en uniforme.
Tout en condamnant énergiquement ces actes poses à l’encontre de nos compatriotes, il faut dire, avec la même douleur dans l’âme et sans passion, que plus de 300 Dominicains ont été aussi victimes au cours de la même période des échanges de tirs entre policiers et civils selon les chiffres du Comité Dominicain des Droits de l’Homme et de la Commission Nationale pour les Droits Humains.
Ces crises naissent non seulement au niveau des relations formelles entre les deux Etats mais encore au sein de différents acteurs dans les deux sociétés réagissant, différemment ; certains manipulant le thème de façon démagogique et d’autres ayant recours avec tous les risques de dérapages, aux sentiments anti-haïtiens et anti-dominicains.
Paradoxalement, aux Etats Unis, les migrants haïtiens et dominicains s’unissent pour des manifestations pacifiques conjointes, pour défendre les droits des rapatries en exhortant les deux gouvernements à gérer de façon pragmatique ce problème cyclique.
Dans ce contexte les relations, entre les deux pays même lorsqu’elles n’ont connu aucun affrontement depuis 145 ans, en dépit de l’existence de plus de 200 accords, traites, déclarations conjointes, ont évolue dans un cadre de méfiance qui n’a jamais aidé à les rendre plus dynamiques.
Néanmoins, sur le plan international, la formation des blocs économiques régionaux, l’intégration des deux pays à des espaces de financement et de politique multilatérale comme Lomé IV par exemple, le Cariforum, le Caricom, créeront les conditions pour un entendement obligatoire entre les deux Etats.
En mars 1996 les deux présidents de l’île, René G. Preval et Joaquim Balaguer mettaient sur pied, formellement la Commission Mixte Haitiano Dominicaine (CMHD) dont les travaux portent sur un ensemble de thèmes, problèmes et besoins qui devraient faire l’objet d’accords entre les deux Etats.
A propos du phénomène migratoire, ils ont reconnu dans leur déclaration conjointe, la nécessite de rechercher une solution appropriée au bénéfice des Etats dans le respect des principes généralement admis tant par l’Organisation des Nations Unies (ONU) que par l’Organisation des Etats Américains (OEA).
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By Jocelyn McCalla, Executive Director
National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR)
ISSUES OF RIGHTS IN THE BATEYES
This document is the property of the BRA. Unauthorized publication is strictly prohibited. Copyrights 2001 © BRA.
