Dominican discrimination against Haitians protested
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On June 11, some two-dozen Haitians and com munity activists picketed an election debate at Lehman College in the Bronx, which featured three Democratic 13th Congressional candidates.
Two of the candidates, Harlem-based Congress man Charlie Rangel and State Senator Adriano Es paillat, had praised Dominican Republic President Danilo Medina for his role in the passage of a May 15, 2014, law that white-washed a racist Dec. 23, 2013, Dominican court ruling. The court decision stripped citizenship rights from 210,000 people of Haitian descent living in the Dominican Repub lic between the years of 1929-2007. Denied their rights as Dominicans are even those who were born in the DR and who have never set foot in Hai ti, its neighbor on the island.
4 SOCIALIST ACTION JULY 2014 The law passed in May was an attempt to deflect international criticism of the court ruling and will impact only 13,000 persons of Haitian descent, ac cording to the Dominican government’s own esti mate. A statement released by New York rally orga nizers condemned the praise showered on Presi dent Medina by the two Democratic candidates as “an outrage [that] must be opposed.” Organizers called conditions for those of Haitian descent liv ing in the Dominican Republic as “apartheid.”
Haitians in the DR have been subject to decades of racist harassment, murder, rape, and mass de portations. In 1937, up to 30,000 Haitians in the DR were slaughtered by the U.S. Marine-trained Dominican dictator, Rafael Trujillo, who saw Hai tians as a threat to Dominican “whiteness.” — M.G. wage of about $6.50 a day.
Violators include the bosses in the Caracol Industrial Park in the north, a sweatshop park promoted by Bill and Hillary Clinton. Caracol was subsidized by $124 million in U.S. tax dollars out of the $300 million to tal. Bill Clinton and Obama’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attended its opening ceremonies in October 2012, at which time President Martelly declared to the affluent guests, “Haiti is open for business, and we mean it!”
Wikileaks exposed U.S. corporate interference and political pressure on Haiti’s legislature to lower any new minimum wage proposals in 2009, despite mass protests for a meaningful increase. This took place in a country where the average daily income is $2 a day! The sinister plan worked. In August 2008, workers mobilized in the thousands for passage of a new mini mum wage, only to be met with gunfire from the U.S./ (continued on page 5, in “Jean Jaures”)
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