By Bentleigh Asboth
With its white sandy beaches surrounded by emerald vegetation and rolling azure waves, it is no wonder why thousands of tourists flock to the Caribbean nation of the Dominican Republic every year. However, this seeming paradise has its own dark side. Underneath the resorts and the nightclubs, the Dominican Republic hides years of conflict and turmoil. The Dominican Republic shares the island on which it rests with Haiti, a smaller and economically weaker nation to the west. The approximately 375-mile border that separates the two countries has become the focal point of tension between the duo. The Dominican Republic has been unlawfully deporting people of Haitian descent to Haiti on and off for decades- many of whom have spent their entire lives in the Dominican Republic. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Dominican animosity towards Haitians living within their borders. The anti-Haitian sentiment is embedded into every aspect of the political, social, and cultural climate. From speeches treating Haitians as a scapegoat 'other' to outright violence in the streets, negative attitudes towards this ethnic minority seem unavoidable. The questions go: How did the Dominican Republic get to this state? Why does this sort of violence continue? How can it be prevented from becoming any worse and possibly reversed? Overall, we must ask ourselves what determinants have played a role in human rights violations over time, and why they are still a problem in the Dominican Republic. [G1] [G2] [G3] [G4]
Historical Background
As the children's rhyme goes, "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue". However, this children's rhyme omits a lot about this important historical happening. This includes the island that Columbus (or as he was actually named Colombo) land on. Where his ships landed he decided to call, La Isla Española, which was later Anglicized to Hispaniola. Not too long after the landing on the island, the Spanish turned Hispaniola into a colony, mainly for sugar cane cultivation. To perform the labor, they needed to maintain the sugar plantations, the native peoples of the island were taken as slaves. However, when the native population was nearly eradicated due to diseases brought by the European colonists, the plantation owners began to import slave labor from Africa. France also wanted their own share of Hispaniola, so the mid-1600s, they reached an agreement with Spain to take the west most third of the island. The French portion of the island was dubbed "Saint-Domingue" and the Spanish "Santo Domingo"[1]. [G5]
After years upon years of European domination on Hispaniola, the tides finally turned towards change. Led by Toussaint-Louverte in 1791, a slave revolt erupted in Saint-Domingue against the French plantation owners.[2] In 1804 the Republic of Haiti was officially established, making it the first country in the New World established by former slaves[3]. This was fine for the people that had taken a chance and liberated themselves, but they wanted to go even further. Haiti sought to dispel all European influence from Hispaniola, so they decided to invade Santo Domingo in order unify the island. From 1822-1844, Haiti had control of the entirety of Hispaniola which they saw as an invasion.[4] In 1844, the Dominican Republic gained its freedom from Haiti, but Haiti attempted three unsuccessful military invasions from this time to 1856[5]. Due to these invasions, Santo Domingo willingly returned to a colony status until their independence was gained once and for all in 1865 and they became a [G6] sovereign, autonomous state.[6] However, the time they spent under Haitian rule would sow the seeds for anti-Haitian sentiment in the newly-founded nation.
Probably the most egregious examples of anti-Haitian actions by the Dominican government occurred under the rule of Rafael Trujillo, who took anti-Haitian sentiment to new levels under his rule. However, one instance of Trujillo's inhumanity stands out the most amongst all other instances. In December of 1937, anywhere from 4,000 to 35,000 (as status-quo for most dictatorships, there are not any reliable records for this event), Dominico-Haitians were brutally murdered throughout the country, especially along the border.[7] Known as the Parsley Massacre, Dominican soldiers targeted any and all people of Haitian descent within the country's borders. The only people of Haitian descent spared were those working on sugar plantations and mills owned by the United States. Despite the extent of the violence, Trujillo was never charged with a crime against humanity and even after his death subsequent leaders refused to acknowledge the atrocities of the Trujillo administration.[8] Even today the event is not recognized, and amendments have not been made. Some in the Dominican Republic even discuss Trujillo's actions with a sense of nostalgia, as if the country would be incredibly well-off if they returned to the dictator's style of rule. Though Trujillo was eventually assassinated in May of 1961, his rhetoric and view on Dominico-Haitians living in the Dominican Republic are alive and well.[G7] [9] [G8]
New waves of anti-Haitian sentiment have arisen in the Dominican Republic following the Trujillo administration. Though acts of deportation of Haitians and Dominico-Haitians have occurred as recently as 2015, a prime example of violence that people of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic occurred just a mere twelve years ago in 2005. Between May and September of that year, over 3,000 Haitians living in the Dominican Republic were deported "back to" Haiti, stripped of all identification papers, and forcibly removed from the areas they called home[10]. However, it didn't stop there. Many villages where Dominico-Haitians lived were looted and burned to the ground and the people themselves faced violence, nine people of Haitian descent were found brutally murdered throughout the Dominican Republic in September alone. These include a seven-year-old girl who was raped, murdered, and dismembered in a town near the border and four Haitian immigrants who were attacked and set on fire in the nation's capital of Santo Domingo (only one of whom survived the encounter).[11]
Today, Haitians are still the Dominican Republic's largest ethnic minority, despite the animosity that they face in the country. For many of these people, however, the Dominican Republic is home. Though they may speak creole with others who share the language or have a different appearance than other Dominicans (many of whom are identified as mixed race) they do not know of life outside the country. So why must those people continue to bear the weight of actions committed by the nation of Haiti over a hundred of years ago and by the handful of Dominico-Haitians had to break the law and therefore "set the standard' for all Haitians in the eyes of many Dominicans? As they are generally seen as the nation's scapegoat, we can look at the nation's problems for some answers.[G9]
Economics, Emigration, and Welfare
Despite the nation's small size, between sugar, tourism, and coffee, the Dominican Republic's economy is far from being weak. In fact, according to the World Bank, it is now considered an upper middle-income nation.[12] However, despite its economic vigor, the Dominican Republic lags behind in several areas that even those countries around it are relatively more equipped in. This makes many in the population, especially the younger generations, unhappy with their living conditions in the country.
There are many ways to try to understand youth culture and music and dance are one way to get a glimpse at youth sentiment, especially in the Caribbean with its internationally known dancehalls. Pop music, for example, can sometimes serve as a cultural artifact reflecting social and cultural phenomena (which may or may not be intended by the artist). One such song that reflects the Dominican Republic's current dilemma among young Dominicans is Jarina DeMarco's song "Spell on you". Throughout the song, she describes being in a few not-so-great situations [G11] and being pushed around over an electronic beat. Then, towards the end, the song shifts to "I want to live in America", a line that carries throughout the rest of the song. (DeMarco, 2016) To someone unfamiliar with youth trends in the Dominican Republic, this line can seem out of place and unrelated. However, this can serve as a reflection of how many young Dominicans feel about the government and social situations in their home country. Rather than the fact the social and political problems within their nation, many young Dominicans tend to seek opportunities and experiences abroad when given the chance [G12] [13]. Also, the trend is not particularly novel amongst ambitious youths living in the country. Under Rafael Trujillo, travel outside the country was strictly monitored and prohibited. So, after his execution, the 1960's saw a rise in Dominican emigration to other countries, namely the United States.[14] With this, the Dominican Republic has extremely high rates of emigration. In the year 2000 alone, approximately eleven percent of the country's native-born population left the island to seek careers and other opportunities abroad.[15]
The problem with this rate of emigration is that those who have the ability to spark change in the country are often the ones to leave. This means that the Dominican Republic has been able to maintain one of the most under-funded social welfare and educational systems in all of the Americas. In fact, in the 1980’s and 90’s, the national spending was only one percent of the country’s GDP.[16]Today, the country still only spends around two percent of its GDP, meaning it has not improved that much[G13] and is still the lowest ranking country in the region for education.[17] This is especially damning for those residing in the Dominican Republic as, according to a 2006 study, education is considered to be a critical (if not the most critical) structure for improving social equity[18]. The country also ranks last in pensions, and fourth to last in healthcare[19].These sorts of policies put nearly all of its residents into a difficult situation where they must learn to cope with the lack of a social security net, especially those who are already disadvantaged. [G14]
Obviously, a change to the policies is necessary. However, the emigration from the Dominican Republic to countries abroad relieves the pressure from the government to improve these sorts of policies[G15] . Also, by denying those children whose parents have immigrated to the country legally citizenship, they have further grounds for keeping their underdeveloped welfare state afloat. Therefore, the anti-Haitian sentiment of the Dominican Republic feeds the country's decision to keep their social structures heavily underfunded, which in turn even furthers the growing anti-Haitianism in the country.[G16] [G17]
The Role of the International Community
Since the 1990s, the international community has been struggling with the subject of when humanitarian aid is justified. According to Donnelly and Whelan in their book on the topic, “The authority of multilateral interveners arises from legal, political, or moral recognition by political communities that the organization or its members represent”[20]. However, in most cases, including the one of the Dominican Republic, it appears that there must be an intersection of moral, legal, and, political recognition and ability to act. So, in order to see whether intervention on behalf of the international community or regional human rights regimes would be viable, we must look at it from this perspective.
On December 9th, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly signed the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide[21]. (Donnelly and Whelan, 2017 p.172) According to the convention, the definition of genocide under international law is:
The intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. This includes killing members of the group, causing serious mental or physical harm to members of the group, deliberately infliction conditions on the group… [22]
The convention cites the state's obligation to prevent genocide and punish perpetrators, however, it does not establish parameters for doing so[23]. During this time, the international system took an extremely statist stance in terms of human rights, which meant that they left the implementation of human rights law almost entirely up to the states. This was [G18] due to the recent events of World War II that led them to put the sovereignty of the state above all else. This changed in the 1990s with the rise of armed humanitarian intervention do the atrocities that occurred in places such as Kosovo, Rwanda, and East Timor. These instances hold many parallels to the current situation in the Dominican Republic and may shed light on how to handle the situation, as we will discuss later.
Though nonintervention is still the go-to tactic of the international community, exceptions are made when it comes to "systematic, massive, and flagrant violations of certain key rights that lead to sufficient loss of life and destruction of livelihoods"[24] With this in mind, it is clear why the Dominican Republic's violation of human rights has gone under the radar. Though it could definitely be defended that the acts the Dominican Republic has committed against its people of Haitian descent could be classified as genocidal in nature, they are in a way micro-dosing their genocide. True, hundreds of thousands of Dominico-Haitians are being left stateless. However, if you recall, the death count from the 2005 incident was ‘only' a few dozen and approximately 3,000 people were deported illegally[25]. These numbers are quite low by international standards. If you look at the Dominican Republic at different times it seems like these low numbers may be planned. As mentioned earlier, the 2005 incident was not a lone event, nor was it the most recent. In 2013, three years after the earthquake that devastated Haiti and left many seeking refuge and stability on the other side of the island, the Dominican Republic passed a law that made it so that citizenship to the Dominican Republic was not guaranteed by being born in the country [26]. Instead, citizenship at birth is based on the birth certificate issued by the civil registry. In 2015 report, it was found that birth certificates were systematically denied to those born to Haitian parents or parents of Haitian descent. Instead, the babies being born were issued a "pink slip", or an unofficial [G19] document so that they could apply for citizenship “in their own country”[27]. This is a major blow to those who are denied a Dominican birth certificate is needed to receive a cédula, or national identity card at age sixteen. Without this card, people living in the country cannot work legally, apply for a driver’s license, or perform other bureaucratic tasks that are considered necessary to maintain a decent standard of living. The interesting thing about the cédula is that they were first issued to citizens and residents of the Dominican Republic in the year 1932, a year that falls under the rule of openly anti-Haitian Rafael Trujillo. It seems very suspicious that a country would deny birth certificates to a group that are then required for that group to receive a document that was created under a time that that group was being openly and formally persecuted. Just two years prior to this law being passed, there was an instance of Haitians being deported and being "paid to leave" the Dominican Republic.[28] The most recent deportation of Haitians and Dominico-Haitians occurred just a little over two years ago in 2015.[G20] [G21] [G22] [G23]
Without going into detail about the deportation in 2015, it was almost a complete repeat of the events that occurred ten years prior. The stinging part of the whole thing is that the Dominican Republic swore to the international community after the passing of their citizenship laws that it would protect the rights of those living within the borders of their country[29]. However, we had the same stripping of documents, livelihoods, and rights that happened a before. In fact, the Dominican Republic seems to be a habitual offender of human rights violations. Ideally, the international community should be able to step in and intervene in order to stop genocide and those events bordering on a genocide in order to protect the citizens of the country. However, though the morality of intervening is usually inarguable, and the events in the Dominican Republic fit the legal definition of a genocide, it is not politically viable for the international community to intervene directly. The scale of the violence is relatively small compared to other current human right's crises (e.g. The Rohingya and the Syrian War), and even the larger scale atrocities are still being debated in terms of whether or not further action should be taken. Also, there are other options that have not been explored that should be taken into consideration before a physical intervention into the country. These include diplomacy and sanctions that could help persuade the Dominican government to change its current right's abusive policies. Many measures like these focus on the long-term rather than the short-term. They are too late to be overly effective in crises such as the genocide Rohingya and the abuse of the Syrian people, but for a nation like the Dominican Republic that is taking a repetitive, small-scale approach to their ethnic cleansing, it might just do the trick. Also, if we look back at the Pars[G24] [G25] ley Massacre, those Haitians living on foreign-owned plantations were excluded from the killing spree. This shows that the Dominican Republic is more interested in keeping its foreign economic relations healthy than conducting a thorough ethnic cleansing. So, if the international community makes it clear that the actions of the Dominican Republic are a threat to the security of foreign investment in the country, there is a chance it will compel the country to revise or repeal its rights-abusive policies.[G26] [G27]
Conclusion
Two points that could be changed to help remedy the situation in the Dominican Republic seem to both be flawed in their nature. After all, with the migration of more influential Dominicans to other countries, how can there be pressure on the government to change their crumbling educational and social welfare systems? As in the case of the state of the international community, how should it act in the case of the Dominican Republic, where violations are very on-again-off-again? Perhaps the best route to take is international pressure to cause domestic change. This could be done in a variety of ways to respect the Dominican Republic's sovereignty while also getting the policy needed to protect the rights of the country's ethnic minorities. The first would be a callout from a vocal NGO or transnational organization such as the Organization of American States (a regional human rights regime) or the United Nations. Another avenue for a similar result would for more coverage in the media or the use of recognizable influencers to shed more light on the issue. As mentioned earlier in this paper, I remember when the 2015 deportations were occurring. Had I not had friends and acquaintances living in Punta Cana and Higüey, both tourist towns along the country's eastern coast, I would have had no earthly idea about the atrocities being committed throughout the country. With the country being so reliant on foreign investors and tourists, a move to simply raise awareness to the issue could prove effective. After all, there are other places to go with sunny skies and clear water that do not horribly deny rights to people living within their borders.[G28] [G29] Hopefully, this would be enough to prevent further discriminatory action. Of course, there is a chance of that not working. After all, there are other industries that play an important role in the Dominican economy and the Dominican Republic seems to have a history of snubbing the organizations that bring light to their actions and then committing the same crimes once again. In this case, the international community would need to take further steps to curb Dominican behavior.[G30]
Sanctions are a widely disputed method for punishing those states who are actively violating human rights. Oftentimes it seems that sanctions are not placed against a country until the situation is already too far gone. However, a situation like that of the Dominican Republic might be an ideal case for this tactic to work properly. The Dominican Republic is a repeated offender of human right’s violations. As mentioned before, thorough monitoring and pressure from business, NGOs, and transnational organizations should be the first step taken to the curb the country’s genocidal tendencies. If this fails, however, the monitoring in the country should be thorough enough so that an event on the scale of the 2005 or 2015 mass deportations could be predicted before they occur. This is when official sanctions against the country could be placed. Hopefully, the impact of the economic sanction would be enough to prevent the government and military action against Haitian and those Dominicans of Haitian descent.
Of course, there is a problem with the economic sanction method, as it only affects the Dominican government. As we saw in the 2005 instance of violence against Haitians, some of the most brutal attacks were carried out by civilians. This is perhaps the hardest point to tackle as is when it comes to Anti-Haitian sentiment in the Dominican Republic. It seems like it is impossible to find any information on the perpetrators of these crimes. Whether anyone was charged or not, if those who might have been charged were a lone perpetrator or if they were acting as a part of an organized group, or seemingly any details as to what the demographic and punishments of anyone committing crimes might be is painfully removed from reports on the issue. This sort of information would provide insight on how to better rehabilitate Dominican society from its internalized anti-Haitian sentiment. This is the area where it seems like any wave of change relies on government reconstruction of the country’s educational system and the work of organizations such as MUDHA (Movimiento de Mujeres Dominico-Haitianas (Movement of Dominican Haitian Women)) and OCDH (Organization of Dominican Haitian Cooperation) to help remove the impact of the ingrained anti-Haitian sentiment from Dominican society. Of course, this is the hardest piece of the conflict’s puzzle, as racism and xenophobia are problems that seemingly all societies struggle with but cannot find a clear solution for.
For many Haitians and Dominico-Haitians trying to create a livelihood in the Dominican Republic, that side of the island could seem like a paradise lost. However, if efforts are made to revise and repeal the citizenship laws of the country, educate the public, and to overall improve the lives of all marginalized groups in Dominican society, perhaps their hopes for a better life in the country will not be in vain. In turn, the Dominican Republic can gain the insight and view from those who could improve the country even further. This insight might even lead to a mutual understanding between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, making relations between the two more cordial. If that is the case, then the long-lasting fear in the Dominican Republic of a Haitian takeover of the country could be quelled. Though it is only an extremely optimistic hope for the two nations, there is still a chance of the two will be able to reconcile after over two centuries of strife. Then maybe, there will be two sides of paradise in Hispaniola.
Bentleigh Asboth is a sophomore at Roanoke College where she studies International Relations and Spanish.
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[1] Edward Paulino. "Anti-Haitianism, Historical Memory, and the Potential for Genocidal Violence in the Dominican Republic." Genocide Studies and Prevention 1, no. 3 (2006): 265-88
[2] Edward Paulino. "Anti-Haitianism, Historical Memory, and the Potential for Genocidal Violence in the Dominican Republic." Genocide Studies and Prevention 1, no. 3 (2006): 265-88.
[3] Edward Paulino. "Anti-Haitianism, Historical Memory, and the Potential for Genocidal Violence in the Dominican Republic." Genocide Studies and Prevention 1, no. 3 (2006): 265-88
[4] Edward Paulino. "Anti-Haitianism, Historical Memory, and the Potential for Genocidal Violence in the Dominican Republic." Genocide Studies and Prevention 1, no. 3 (2006): 265-88
[5] Edward Paulino. "Anti-Haitianism, Historical Memory, and the Potential for Genocidal Violence in the Dominican Republic." Genocide Studies and Prevention 1, no. 3 (2006): 265-88
[6] Edward Paulino. "Anti-Haitianism, Historical Memory, and the Potential for Genocidal Violence in the Dominican Republic." Genocide Studies and Prevention 1, no. 3 (2006): 265-88
[7] Edward Paulino. "Anti-Haitianism, Historical Memory, and the Potential for Genocidal Violence in the Dominican Republic." Genocide Studies and Prevention 1, no. 3 (2006): 265-88
[8] Edward Paulino. "Anti-Haitianism, Historical Memory, and the Potential for Genocidal Violence in the Dominican Republic." Genocide Studies and Prevention 1, no. 3 (2006): 265-88
[9] Edward Paulino. "Anti-Haitianism, Historical Memory, and the Potential for Genocidal Violence in the Dominican Republic." Genocide Studies and Prevention 1, no. 3 (2006): 265-88
[10] Edward Paulino. "Anti-Haitianism, Historical Memory, and the Potential for Genocidal Violence in the Dominican Republic." Genocide Studies and Prevention 1, no. 3 (2006): 265-88
[11] Edward Paulino. "Anti-Haitianism, Historical Memory, and the Potential for Genocidal Violence in the Dominican Republic." Genocide Studies and Prevention 1, no. 3 (2006): 265-88
[12] Ondetti, Gabriel. "International Migration and Social Policy Underdevelopment in the Dominican Republic." Global Social Policy 12, no. 1 (2012): 45-66.
[13] Ondetti, Gabriel. "International Migration and Social Policy Underdevelopment in the Dominican Republic." Global Social Policy 12, no. 1 (2012): 45-66
[14] Ondetti, Gabriel. "International Migration and Social Policy Underdevelopment in the Dominican Republic." Global Social Policy 12, no. 1 (2012): 45-66
[15] Ondetti, Gabriel. "International Migration and Social Policy Underdevelopment in the Dominican Republic." Global Social Policy 12, no. 1 (2012): 45-66
[16] Ondetti, Gabriel. "International Migration and Social Policy Underdevelopment in the Dominican Republic." Global Social Policy 12, no. 1 (2012): 45-66
[17] Ondetti, Gabriel. "International Migration and Social Policy Underdevelopment in the Dominican Republic." Global Social Policy 12, no. 1 (2012): 45-66
[18] Huber, Evelyne, François Nielsen, Jenny Pribble, and John D Stephens. "Politics and Inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean." American Sociological Review 71, no. 6 (2006): 943-63.
[19] Ondetti, Gabriel. "International Migration and Social Policy Underdevelopment in the Dominican Republic." Global Social Policy 12, no. 1 (2012): 45-66
[20] Donnelly, Jack and Whelan, Daniel J. International Human Rights. New York, New York: Westview Press. 2017
[21] Donnelly, Jack and Whelan, Daniel J. International Human Rights. New York, New York: Westview Press. 2017
[22] Donnelly, Jack and Whelan, Daniel J. International Human Rights. New York, New York: Westview Press. 2017
[23] Donnelly, Jack and Whelan, Daniel J. International Human Rights. New York, New York: Westview Press. 2017
[24] Donnelly, Jack and Whelan, Daniel J. International Human Rights. New York, New York: Westview Press. 2017
[25] Mejia, Nicia C. "Dominican Apartheid: Inside the Flawed Migration System of the Dominican Republic." Harvard Latino Law Review 18 (2015): 201-29.
[26] Mejia, Nicia C. "Dominican Apartheid: Inside the Flawed Migration System of the Dominican Republic." Harvard Latino Law Review 18 (2015): 201-29.
[27] Mejia, Nicia C. "Dominican Apartheid: Inside the Flawed Migration System of the Dominican Republic." Harvard Latino Law Review 18 (2015): 201-29.
[28] De Marco, Jarina. Mad Decent Records. “Spell on You.” Video. 4:08 minutes. 22 Sept. 2013, youtu.be/bsOf-BIlmHw.
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