Human-rights abuses along the Dominican Republic border zone with Haiti have provoked a war of words in the capital 305km away between journalists and public officials who failed to visit the area to verify the events.But Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) photographs and testimonies filtered to the public through the press and television in Santo Domingo could not be stifled by the same racist and anti-Haitian paranoia present in many aspects of Dominican politics and public opinion since its separation from Haiti in 1844.
The efforts of JRS and other groups in advocacy, communications and accompaniment on both sides of the border on this Caribbean island, seem to be the only sign of light amid the mass expulsion and repatriation of Haitians, Dominicans of Haitian descent and other Afro-Dominicans in various rural communities. Between 13 and 15 May, Dominican military and immigration officials expelled an estimated 2500 people, the majority being women and children. Other organisations in both the Dominican Republic and Haiti, such as GARR (Repatriate and Refugee Support Group) and MOSCTHA (Haitian Workers’ Socio-Cultural Movement), have also been battling hard to support the legal, social and economic rights of refugees and migrants.
The expulsions follow the machete murder of a Dominican woman on 9 May during a robbery allegedly committed by two Haitians in Hatillo Palma near the northern border. The incident provoked the rage of townsfolk, and subsequently an armed group of Dominicans used death threats to force many members of the local Haitian minority to leave their homes, which were then ransacked. The military took advantage of the situation to initiate the indiscriminate mass expulsion of Haitians under the guise of protecting them from threats by Dominicans. Public opinion seemed to support these repatriations, fuelled by a fear that poverty-stricken Haitians are flooding the already burdened Dominican economy. But things changed when photos taken by JRS staff started appearing in the press, portraying Dominican citizens of Haitian descent being forcibly sent to the Haitian town of Wanament, where they have no family ties, or other means of support. JRS workers report that among those repatriated are people with Dominican birth certificates, adults with Dominican identity documents, Haitians with valid passports and visas, and migrants with valid work permits.
Expulsion operations are more conveniently carried out on weekends when there are fewer newspapers and less media coverage to create scandal. So it’s understandable that a timely Saturday front-page story and photo revealing