Les Caraibes

Dominican Republic: A short history of anti-Haitianism

Economist Miguel Ceara-Hatton speaks on the Constitutional Tribunal ruling [Translation of comments by Dominican economist Miguel Ceara-Hatton to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights as published in Espacinsular of Santo Domingo on December 8, 2013. See original here. Ceara-Hatton is a member of the Comité de Solidaridad con los Desnacionalizados, the Committee in Solidarity with the Denationalized.]

Almost from the beginning of the 16th century, the island of Santo Domingo was abandoned by Spain; their abandonment turned into depopulation in the 17th century, which gave rise to the French occupation of the northwestern part of the island and eventually to the establishment of the French colony of Saint Domingue, which became the wealthiest French colony during the 18th century.

Its wealth was created on the basis of sugar production, organized on the plantation system, which was based on an intense and cruel slavery. The cruelty was an integral part of the plantation system because it was the only possible way for a few thousand white landowners to live in the midst of almost 500,000 slaves.

Meanwhile, the eastern part of the island, the Spanish part, languished in the deepest poverty, with an economy based on contraband and the cutting of timber.

At the beginning of the 19th century, in 1804, Haitian independence was won in the most profound social and racial revolution of the Americas, while the eastern part went from being French territory to being Spanish, but then, with the neglect of the colonial powers, to be occupied in 1822 by the Haitians, who were well received to a great degree as a consequence of the generalized poverty of the eastern part. Nevertheless, as the occupation was prolonged and the population's expectations were not satisfied, a separatist movement was born, which was consummated in 1844. At that time Haiti was a country with almost half a million inhabitants while the Dominican Republic had barely 100,000.

The rest of the 19th century saw great changes in both countries, Haiti organized around a peasant economy, and coffee, having to pay a high price for being the first slave country to gain its independence, while the Dominicans were organized around tobacco, wood and livestock. Later, in the last quarter of the 19th century, the sugar industry began to be developed based on plantations but within the framework of a capitalist economy.

bateyThus began the 20th century, with Haiti having three times the Dominican population but with an economic trajectory beginning to turn around. The Dominican economy was accelerating, spurred on basically by sugar, while the Haitian economy lost speed due to the predominance of the peasant economy and the cycles in the coffee market.

In the second decade of the 20th century, they were both occupied militarily by the North Americans, who imposed iron-fisted military dictatorships in both countries but with different economic results.

In the Dominican Republic, a productive infrastructure was developed and sugar production was consolidated, while in Haiti the economic results of occupation were smaller and the profits were used to pay off the debt.

In this way, by 1916 the Dominican Republic had a commercial exchange with the rest of the world 1.5 times greater than Haiti's commercial exchange and beginning with the second decade of the 20th century the gap between the two countries began to grow at an accelerated pace.

In 1947, a UN mission declared Haiti to be the country with the lowest per capita GDP in the Americas.

In 1950, Haiti still had a population 1.5 times that of the Dominican Republic, but the Dominican Republic had a real GDP that was 1.4 times greater than Haiti's, exporting 2.3 times more and importing 1.4 times more than Haiti.

These differences in the levels of economic activity explain the migratory flow of Haitians toward the Dominican Republic.

The sugar industry experienced an impressive growth. It was initially foreign owned, then in the '50s came into the hands of dictator Rafael Trujillo and finally, in 1961, into state hands.

This industry made intense use of Haitian laborers, creating a system in which the states, the political elites and the military of both countries took part, as did both the private companies involved in sugar production in the Dominican Republic.

The system involved the annual importation of thousands of laborers whose movement was restricted and who remained under the control of the large sugar plantations, resulting in every kind of injustice and exclusion, the visible expression of which is the batey [company housing].

It was in the late '30s of the 20th century, with the killing of several thousand Haitians during the dictatorship of Trujillo that active construction of a Dominican identity began as a negation of what was Haitian. To the "black race" of the Haitian was counterpoised the "white race" of the Dominican. To Vodou was counterpoised Catholicism and to Africanism, Hispanicism.

This ideology was strengthened in the decade from the '40s to the '50s of the 20th century with Trujillo's attempts to "whiten the race" through the promotion of European migration.

canaNevertheless, in the following decades (from '60 to the end of the '80s) the topic slipped away, at least as part of the public debate; the racist elements were incorporated into Domincan culture, expressed basically as anti-Haitianism. Anti-Haitian tensions on the Dominican side remained latent except for spradic outbreaks of isolated border conflicts and, in some cases, conflicts of greater significance, involving both governments, with threats that first rose in tone but then fell again. It was a "cordially tense" relation.

After almost a century of essentially undocumented immigration, there were in effect three generations of Dominican descendents of immigrants. These Dominican sons of immigrant laborers were still subject to the rules of the sugar bateyes, vulnerable to all sorts of injustices and exclusions, in an environment of extreme poverty.

The crisis in the Dominican sugar industry in the '80s of the last century began to change the picture, since immigration became linked to agriculture apart from sugar and moved into the urban zones, above all into construction work and the informal urban sector. On the other hand, Dominican society became more open and plural, making the phenomenon of migration more visible as a consequence.

Those of Haitian descent born in the national territory were integrated fully and accepted as Dominicans, since most of them had become documented according to the practices of the time.

In 1994, the ideology of nationalism and anti-Haitian racism began to take hold again, but this time promoted by President Balaguer, who invented an alleged plot for fusion of the island, claiming that José Francisco Peña Gómez, opposition political leader and of Haitian origins, was an instrument of that plot.

This "ultra-nationalist and racist" view of the Haitian question is strengthened during the electoral campaign of 1996, but this time at the hands of the Partido de la Liberación Dominicana (PLD) and ultra-right groups associated with that party who once again promoted xenophobia as part of the political campaign. Never in the following years did the PLD distance itself from the ultra-right nationalists, who promoted an ever more conservative agenda.

Thus the Law on Migration, no. 285-04, attempted to disown three generations of Dominicans of Haitian descent, reinterpreting the concept of "transit" in Article 11 of the constitution of 2002, according to which irregular immigration was "in transit."

This interpretation was challenged and in 2005 the Supreme Court confirmed the interpretation of "transit" as the condition of non-resident immigrants, turning thousands of immigrants and their children, who had resided in the country for three generations, into "persons in transit."

In 2005, the ruling by the CIDH relating to Jean and Bosico established that, first, the migratory status of a person cannot be a condition for the granting of nationality by the state. Second, that the migratory status of a person is not transferred to his or her children, and third, that the condition of being born in the country is the only one to be considered for the granting of nationality.

Nevertheless, the Central Electoral Board began in 2007 to deny and/or withdraw documents from the population of descendents, who under the law were Dominican by birth. Identification documents were taken from thousands of descendents of immigrants, they were denied birth certificates and the tendency in general was to erase their status as Dominican citizens by bureaucratic means.

Under these conditions, the constitutional reform of 2010 established new criteria for granting Dominican nationality by which the children of irregular immigrants could not receive Dominican nationality, although it recognized that those who had had Dominican nationality to that point in time would continue enjoying the right.

In 2013, the Constitutional Tribunal reaches an in extremis interpretation and makes that constitutional concept retroactive, thereby denationalizing in effect thousands of descendents of immigrants born after 1929.

The preceding shows that ruling 168-13 by the Constitutional Tribunal is the product of a long chain of social and economic exclusion, violations of the judicial system in matters of law and, in general, reflects the reign of social exclusion in which Dominican society lives but which has reached an extreme in the case of Dominicans of Haitian descent.

Source: Lo-de-Alla.org