Stateless in theCaribbeanIn the wake of the catastrophic

earthquake of 12 January,2010, something exceptional

happened on the island of Hispan-iola. Despite its long, fracturedand often difficult relationshipwith Haiti, the Dominican Repub-lic (DR) was the first nation tocome to the assistance of its neigh-bour. Acting as the main conduitfor international aid into Haiti, itprovided first-hand emergency aidand offered supplies. Trained med-ical staff arrived to tend to the in-jured. The solidarity shown by Do-

minicans was historically signifi-cant. The long-standing frictionsbetween Haiti and the DR – in par-ticular the vexed question of racerelations – were glossed over. For

its part, the international commu-nity was eager to emphasise the in-terconnectedness of the two islandnations and to congratulate the DRfor its stalwart efforts. Ever-present on committees, ea-

ger to be seen as promoting “dia-logue” and slapped on the back byinternational NGOs for their “par-ticipatory” and “collaborative”approach to Haitian development,Dominican diplomats found a newrespectability in the internationalarena. The earthquake was theDR’s ground zero in rebranding itsrelationship with Haiti. But this honeymoon was short-

lived. In September 2013, the DRConstitutional Court dropped a le-gal bombshell with far-reachingconsequences. High court judges

passed Judgment 0168-13, a rulingwhich retroactively rescinded thecitizenship of tens of thousands ofDominicans of Haitian parentageborn after 1929. The decision ren-dered them stateless.

Not Haitian; No Longer DominicanJuliana Deguis Pierre, the daughterof Haitian parents born and raisedin the DR, had struggled to obtainbasic documentation from the au-thorities for a number of years.Told that her French-sounding (i.e.Haitian) name aroused suspicion,she was prevented by the authori-ties from renewing her original DRbirth certificate.Juliana’s native tongue is Span-

ish. She is not Haitian. She is nolonger Dominican. “I am 28 years

old and…not once have I beenthere [Haiti]. I don’t know what it’slike…because I’ve never been be-cause I was born here,” she statedin an interview with El Caribenewspaper.Now arbitrarily deprived of her

nationality, Juliana cannot chal-lenge the decision in the DR courtsdespite a ruling which is in clearbreach of international law. She,and tens of thousands like her, hasno identity and nowhere to go. Formany now, their DR passports, na-tional ID cards and even birth cer-tificates are not worth the paperthey are written on. The government is annulling

people’s basic documentation,claiming that it should have never

BRIEFING

“I’ve never been to Haiti. I have nowhere to go.”

www.haitisupportgroup.orgNumber76 ● April 2014

continued on page 2 ➤

Photo: Juan Carlos González, El País

“I'm Dominican and I have rights” – “We're not foreigners.” Activists demand the right to be recognised as Dominican citizens as part of the nationalReconoci.do campaign.

been issued in the first place. If the Constitutional Court’s

judgment is to be believed, for over80 years the DR has apparentlymisunderstood and been misapply-ing its own constitutional law. Au-thorities – in their attempt to ad-dress this – are rejecting accusa-tions that the ruling applies the lawretroactively by claiming that it istaking the necessary steps to cleanup and modernise the country’scivil registry system.Although her birth certificate

may state otherwise Juliana – in theeyes of the law – was never really aDR citizen in the first place.Without the correct documenta-

tion, Dominicans of Haitian de-scent and, more worryingly, those“deemed” to be un-Dominican bythe authorities, are barred from ac-

cessing a range of services. Theseinclude what most would assumeto be basic citizenship and resi-dency rights – including the right toa state education, the right to ac-cess to healthcare, the right to vote,the right to own property, the rightto claim an inheritance and theright to work. Estimates of how many people

are affected by the ruling have beenanywhere from a few hundred tothe hundreds of thousands. Thislack of clarity is understandable. Ifthe authorities choose to measure aperson’s “Haitianness” selectivelyand apply it to a largely undocu-mented group of citizens then theexact number of people affectedwill be very difficult to assess.The current struggle faced by

Dominicans of Haitian descent togain access to basic documentation

such as birth certificates bringsback terrible memories of the 1937Parsley Massacre when tens ofthousands of Haitians and “Hait-ian-looking” (that is, dark-skinned) Dominicans were hackedto death on the orders of then dic-tator Rafael Leónidas TrujilloMolina. “El Benefactor”, as he was

known, made concerted efforts toportray the Dominican Republic asa white, Spanish-speaking,Catholic country, effectively defin-ing a national identity that is self-consciously the antithesis of per-ceptions of Haiti. The Parsley Mas-sacre was so-called because afailure to pronounce the word“perejíl” (“parsley” in Spanish)correctly, when stopped by sol-diers, constituted a death warrantwhich was executed on the spot. A

similar approach to “Haitianness”is still used in the Dominican Re-public today, where a “suspicious”sounding name can see a personstripped of their statehood.

Legal Limbo; Enforced SilenceThe wave of panic the ruling hascreated is palpable: “I get worriedthat the immigration police willstop me and demand my ID card. Ifyou don’t have one, they take youaway and if they send me to Haiti Idon’t know where I will go becauseI’ve never been”, says Juliana. The conscious decision by the

DR to create and criminalise agroup of citizens and non-citizensmeans that its members will nowbe more dependent than ever be-fore on those who profit from theircheap and backbreaking labour.Anxious not to draw attention to

➤ from page 1

By the end of last year, grassroots organi-sations on both sides of the Haitian-Dominican border protesting the racist

denationalisation measures taken by the Do-minican Republic (see main story) had everyreason to believe that the tide was turning theirway.Their tireless condemnations were finding an

increasingly loud echo in international circles. Former Prime Minister of Antigua and Bar-

buda, Lester Bird, had denounced the ruling as“so absolutely racist that it’s almost pathetic”;CARICOM had suspended the DR’s applica-tion to join, citing the “abhorrent and discrimi-natory ruling” and the Organisation of EasternCaribbean States also expressed its abhorrenceat the “repulsive” decision. The Inter-AmericanCommission on Human Rights had just com-pleted a visit to the DR, and issued highly criti-cal preliminary observations. Furthermore,many nations who attended the United Nations’Human Rights Council openly condemned theDR for its “lack of judgment” and urged it totake the necessary steps to ensure that peoplewere not discriminated against on the groundsof skin colour, ethnicity or nationality.The DR government may have always shown

itself to be impervious to moral condemnations,and even international legal rulings in matters ofhuman rights, but it is highly sensitive to its owneconomic interests. Which is why, when St Vin-cent and the Grenadines Prime Minister DrRalph Gonsalves, announced that he would beleading a call for the DR’s suspension from thehighly lucrative Petrocaribe scheme of sub-sidised oil supply at the body’s forthcomingsummit in Caracas, the Dominican governmentjumped, and hastily organised a high-level dele-gation to the meeting.For the first time, the DR authorities were on

the back foot, and would have to defend the in-defensible in an international forum that actu-ally mattered to them.

Defeat from the Jaws of VictoryThose expecting fireworks at the summit willhave been disappointed, as the Venezuelanhosts were keen to avoid any show of dishar-mony among the ‘Bolivarian Brotherhood’. In-stead, Venezuelan President Maduro an-nounced that he had brokered an “historic”decision by the heads of state of Haiti and theDR to form a “high-level bilateral commis-sion” to find “a just, proper and balanced so-lution” to the problems affecting both govern-ments. But Haitian migrants’ rights organisations,

much closer to the issue, and more familiarwith its history, were sceptical: why had theHaitian government been silent on the issueuntil now? What was “historic” about thedusting off of a bilateral forum that had beeninstituted in 1996, but since fallen into disusedue to the lack of commitment on either side?Shouldn’t Haiti be condemning the illegaltreatment of Dominican citizens by their owngovernment before entering negotiations thatmight afford such treatment some legitimacy?Above all, they expressed the concern that thedistinct issue of international law at stake wasat risk of being subsumed into the issue ofHaitian migrant labour in the DR, along witha raft of other matters that were the sole con-cern of the governments involved. Further-more, if the DR was prepared to ignore agree-ments signed with the OAS and the UN, howcould it possibly be trusted to respect one itsigned with Haiti?Their concerns proved justified when a joint

declaration was issued after the first of a prom-ised series of monthly summits, held in theHaitian border town of Ouanaminthe on 7 January. In it, both governments confirmedthat this was merely the ‘reactivation’ of a jointbilateral commission that would be dealingwith questions as varied as reforestation,cross-border markets, customs enforcement,

visa requirements for Haitians studying in theDR, security and intelligence cooperation, aswell the ‘migratory’ question. The Haitian sideaffirmed that it “recognised the DR’s sover-eign right to determine its migratory policyand its rules for granting of citizenship”, in ex-change for an unspecified ‘guarantee’ that therights of “people of Haitian origin” would besafeguarded. An equally unspecified commit-ment was given that the Haitian governmentwould provide “temporary Haitian workers”in the DR with the necessary documents to en-able them to obtain a visa under a new pro-gramme.The Dominican government must have

breathed an audible sigh of collective relief.Not only had the Haitian side not even men-tioned the flagrant breach of international law,it had explicitly acknowledged its own “sover-eign right” to do as it pleased on issues of citi-zenship and immigration, echoing the Do-minican far-right’s assertion that internationalhuman rights bodies should not interfere intheir domestic affairs.Haitian rights organisations, notably

GARR, the platform created to supportrefugees and deportees, mainly from the DR,were quick to decry the fact that the Haitiangovernment was muddying the waters by con-flating the issue of Haitian migrant workerswith that of Dominican citizens being strippedof their nationality, thus risking confusing anddemobilising international critics just as theirvoice had been getting louder. GARR alsoquestioned the Haitian government’s willing-ness and ability to issue undocumented Hait-ian nationals in the DR with “necessary” doc-uments, when a vast number of its citizens athome remained unable to obtain such basics asa birth certificate.The second meeting of the commission was

held in the Dominican border town of Jimaníon 3 February, and confirmed GARR’s pre-

Haiti and the DR – Partne

their “origins”, those with accessto resources will pay whatever ittakes to regularise their status. Anice, profitable little earner for thealready atrociously corrupt DRgovernment. Fear of losing citizenship is lead-

ing to the suppression of society’smost vulnerable people and silenc-ing those who may have a loudervoice to condemn the authorities’actions. With the new ruling, peo-ple like Juliana – who once be-lieved that they were Dominicancitizens and who had neverthought their citizenship would bequestioned – are now in possessionof original birth certificates andidentity cards that have been tornup by the state and are effectivelyworthless.Juliana’s parents were brought

to the DR under an agreement with

Haiti. Throughout the twentiethcentury, the DR, pre-revolutionaryCuba and the United States madehuge profits from the cheap (oreven unpaid), irregular and oftenillegal Haitian labour that theysourced to work on plantationsfrom bateyes, Haitian sugar caneworkers’ communities. Both coun-tries were at a similar level of devel-opment, relying on subsistenceagriculture and the export of cer-tain commodities: indigo, coffee,sugar, timber. The local businesselites, based in coastal cities, hadcontrol of the external trade thatensured the profits acquired guar-anteed governments compliant totheir interests, while the hinterlandsaw little development. In more re-cent years, Haitians and people ofHaitian parentage have becomethe backbone of the Dominican in-

formal labour market, working indomestic service and on construc-tion projects.Whilst the DR made huge profits

on the back of cheap Haitianlabour, it cynically bypassed the le-gal requirements and the paper-work that the state is now demand-ing from those same workers. Ex-President Leonel Fernández’sdream of converting the capitalSanto Domingo into his “NuevaYork Chiquito” (Little New York)was realised by this informallabour which he used to build hismetro, new highways, skyscrapersand tourist resorts. The lack of reg-ulation and social security protec-tions and the informality of em-ployment contracts were nevermatters of concern for his adminis-tration. Still less the appalling liv-ing and working conditions en-

dured by the labourers. Anxious to distance himself

from accusations of racism, Fer-nández, when confronted by jour-nalists in New York, stated: “If it[the ruling] is retroactive then thiswould mean that there has been aproblem determining the legal sta-tus of people living in the country.They have been under the impres-sion that they are Dominican andat some point were even in posses-sion of DR paperwork. Somethinglike that can lead to other types ofproblems.” Indeed. Such as the po-tential removal of tens of thou-sands of voters from the electoralrolls. Fernández is standing for re-election in 2016 and can expectfew votes from that quarter.When Fernández accepted an in-

vitation to speak at the National

continued on back page ➤

diction regarding demobilising internationalcritics, as CARICOM representative ColinGranderson, whose presence as an observerat the first meeting had been much trum-peted, did not attend. The final declarationmakes no mention of Ruling 0168-13 itself(see main story, page 4), mentioning only theDR government’s intention to establish a“special law dealing with those born on Do-

minican territory who have no kind of docu-mentation” – which is certainly not the casefor the estimated tens of thousands whosedocumentation is being retrospectivelydeemed invalid.GARR founder Colette Lespinasse wrote

on 10 February that both governments hadused the bilateral commission to bury theburning question of Ruling 0168-13 and were

negotiating away the sufferings of thousandsto benefit the economic and political interestsof the elites on both sides of the island and thatit would “now be difficult to explain to theworld what is happening.” Thanks to the Haitian government interven-

tion, the DR government has found a breathingspace and ammunition with which to prepareits propaganda counter-offensive, as well as in-tensify the intimidation of domestic opponents.

A Community of InterestsWhy have Haiti’s ruling elites proved so ready,now and in the past, to sacrifice the interests oftheir population in favour of those of the Do-minican elites? What is the driving factor in thedynamic?The interests of both sides actually dovetail

quite neatly. Notwithstanding the racist dema-goguery that characterises Haiti as a backwardnation and a drain on the Dominican economy,Dominican business benefits massively fromthe relations between the two countries. Theyshare the same interest as Haiti’s elite in keep-ing Haiti underdeveloped and the mass ofHaitians powerless, whether as a pool of easilyexploited labour, or as a captive and highlyprofitable market. While frictions may occa-sionally occur between specific business inter-ests, Haitian monopoly importers’ interestsneatly dovetail with those of Dominican ex-porters, pricing becoming merely a question ofdivision of the spoils.The Haitian government’s complicity in

whitewashing Ruling 0168-13 is merely a nat-ural continuation of the quid pro quo that hasallowed those interests on either side of the bor-der to profit from the status quo despite theguaranteed misery that results. After all, if in-ternational norms were to be observed in theDR, where would this leave Martelly as regardshis own refusal to uphold them in terms of histreatment of those displaced by the earthquake,prosecution of Jean-Claude Duvalier for crimesagainst humanity or compensation for the vic-tims of the cholera epidemic introduced by aforeign occupation force on which his illegiti-mate power depends?

ers in Crime

“If I’m not from here then where am I from?”– “I want to vote”. The recent ruling has drawn widespreadinternational condemnation for its discriminatory and retroactive nature.

Source: ACP Observatory on Migration, 2013

Published by the Haiti SupportGroup, 49 Stanger Road,London SE25 5LDEmail: info@haitisupportgroup.orgWebsite:www.haitisupportgroup.org

Contributors:Eve Hayes de Kalaf(main article)Andy Taylor (insetarticle)

Editors:Andy LeakClaire LauterbachPhillip WearneChristianWisskirchen

Design: Smith+Bell(www.smithplusbell.com)

Find us on Twitter:@HaitiSG

The Haiti Briefing isdistributed free andis available in printand electronicformat in Englishand French. TheHaiti Support Groupwelcomes thereproduction anddissemination of thecontents of the HaitiBriefing in whole orin part by anymeans, providedfull attribution andcredit to the HSG isincluded or a directlink to the original,if in electronicformat.

Dominican Student Conference at Har-vard University in March 2014, he waspresented with a public letter by organis-ers that demanded he address the issue ofthe ruling as a condition of his participa-tion. Unwilling to face difficult ques-tions, he promptly declined.

Dominican Nationalism RampantIn a well-intentioned but perhaps mis-guided act of solidarity, at the inauguralceremony of a regional conference onwomen in Latin America and theCaribbean in October 2013, a group ofwomen interrupted the current Domini-can President Danilo Medina by holdingprotest banners shouting “We are allHaiti.” Their focus on Haiti, rather than the

DR, together with the fact that the dele-gates were mostly from abroad and rep-resented international NGOs, led to na-tionalist groups criticising foreign inter-ference and lack of understanding ofsovereign issues. In an attempt to divertattention from the issue of race, nation-alist groups have repeatedly reiteratedthe “right to sovereignty” and the needfor Caribbean nations to exert their ownautonomy over migration issues. Lambasted by the international com-

munity and facing allegations of aretroactive social apartheid, the Domini-can authorities have come out with their“plan de ataque” to combat the wave ofnegative publicity and internationalpressure they have faced. They are keento present themselves as victims of inter-national bullying, on the one hand, andas a multicultural and diverse nation, onthe other. At a recent speech in London, the Do-

minican Ambassador Federico CuelloCamilo stated his satisfaction at cele-brating his country’s national Day of In-dependence “after several months of anunjustified campaign against one of themost multiracial and multicultural coun-tries in the world, where people withover 117 national origins coexist peace-fully.” In November 2013, the Dominican

government released its proposal for a“National Regularisation Plan for For-eigners in an Irregular Migratory Situa-tion” and in March 2014 presented thisplan to the United Nations HumanRights Council in an attempt to demon-strate the country’s intention to conformto international law. Despite the obvious legal contradic-

tions and dubious legitimacy of the plan,nationalist groups and members of theDominican elite, such as Cardinal LópezRodríguez, have come out in strong sup-port, hailing it as an opportunity for thenation to exert its authority over the is-sue of immigration. To confuse the citi-zenship issue further, they have focused

on migration and emphasised that thematter concerns foreign nationals, giv-ing impetus to nationalist groups’ anti-Haitian rhetoric. The National Net-work for the Defence of DominicanSovereignty, for example, recentlystaged a large-scale and well-attendedprotest.Haiti is one of the few nations that of-

fers jus sanguinis citizenship. National-ist groups have highlighted this point tosuggest that Dominicans of Haitianparentage can easily apply for Haitiannationality should they so wish. Do-minican Ambassador in WashingtonAníbal de Castro rejected accusationsmade in The New York Times that theruling had cast Dominicans of Haitiandescent into a legal limbo. “The Dominican government is fully

aware of the plight of the children of il-legal Haitian migrants born in the coun-try who lack identity documents. Thisdoes not, however, render them state-less. As your article says, Haiti’s Consti-tution bestows citizenship on any per-son born of Haitian parents anywherein the world,” he wrote. In other words:go back to where you belong! Or we’llsend you there.Systematic repatriations of Haitians

from the Dominican Republic havebeen taking place for years. Althougharbitrary deportations of those affectedby Ruling 0168-13 were ruled out byPresident Danilo Medina, human rightsgroups have drawn attention to thecountry’s track-record of unscheduledexpulsions of documented and undocu-mented workers: up to 30,000 on an an-nual basis. So the fear of deportation toHaiti is very real for those affected bythe ruling.

Citizen, Foreigner, Resident, Citizen Informed that her status in the countrywas “irregular”, Marie Etienne DésirJoseph, the daughter of Haitian par-ents, was recently the subject of wide-spread publicity as the first “former cit-izen” to receive a temporary residencypermit in a formal ceremony. To a me-dia circus, she was handed her papersby representatives who publicly con-gratulated her for her efforts to “regu-larise” her status in the country so thatshe could now register to study with hernew papers.Just over a month later, Desir at-

tended a naturalisation ceremony with36 foreigners from countries includingColombia, Cuba, Spain and Russia. Shewas awarded Dominican nationality onthe basis of her marriage to a Domini-can national. A crass PR stunt by the Dominican

authorities to legitimise Ruling 0168-13, this in fact served to highlight theKafkaesque legal and administrative

barriers that Dominicans of Haitianparentage are currently facing – and hav-ing to pay for – in order to become recog-nised as legal residents in their country ofbirth.Peruvian Nobel laureate Mario Vargas

Llosa has been highly vocal in his criti-cism. In an article published in the Span-ish Newspaper El País on 3 November2013 he highlighted the historical simi-larities of the DR’s ruling to Nazi legisla-tion of the 1930s that stripped GermanJews of their nationality. That historicalparallel led to a motley assortment ofDominican “community organisations”burning copies of his book, The Feast ofthe Goat, and declaring his son – Head ofMission of the UN Refugee Agency inthe Dominican Republic – “persona nongrata”.On 24 March in Washington D.C., the

Inter-American Commission on HumanRights was due to hear two cases relatingto the plight of Haitian migrant workersand their offspring. Juliana had beengranted a special visa to present her casebefore the session. She never made it: theDominican authorities denied her board-ing on the grounds that she was not inpossession of a Dominican passport. TheDR authorities have vigorously refutedaccusations of racism, arguing that peo-ple cannot be made stateless if they werenever Dominican in the first place. Her “non-citizen” status has made her

a prisoner in her own country.The new geopolitical settlement that

has been created in the Dominican Re-public sets a worrying precedent. Crimi-nalised for the origin of their parents,grandparents or even great-grandpar-ents, the poor will find their voice evermore marginalised. Fear of deportationis sending communities deeper into thebateyeswhere they have lived for gener-ations and is discouraging them furtherfrom accessing their basic rights. Although the ruling mostly affects Do-

minicans of Haitian parentage, othernon-Hispanic descendants of Africans inthe Caribbean – “cocolos” – have not es-caped being tainted with the “Haitian”label and have also been refused docu-mentation. Basically, if you’re dark-skinned, even if you were born andraised in the DR, you are now at risk ofhaving your citizenship rescinded.The legal instrument may be new, but

this is a strategy that has always workedfor the Dominican elite: keep the poor intheir place, but better still keep them un-educated, unable to vote and mired inpoverty. Teach them that they should begrateful and honoured if and when theyfind the means to pay to become a Do-minican citizen. And, above all, nevercompletely cut them off from their ties toHaiti, lest they should forget just wheretheir blackness came from.

➤ from page 3

The Haiti Support Group (HSG) seeks to amplify the voice of progressive civil society organisations(CSOs) in Haiti to the public, the press and our politicians in Europe and North America.