The Origins of Anti-Haitian Sentiment in the Dominican Republic

The border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Photo by Alex Proimos, republished under Creative Commons License, and taken from original NACLA post.

The border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Photo by Alex Proimos, republished under Creative Commons License, and taken from original NACLA post.

This article by Amelia Hintzen was originally published on NACLA's website and is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement. 

On Wednesday June 17, the deadline for Haitian immigrants and people of Haitian descent to file paperwork with the Dominican government proving their legal right to reside in the country expired. This impacts recent immigrants without documentation as well as Dominicans who cannot prove they were born in the Dominican Republic and that their parents were legal residents.

Ominously, the Department of Immigration has reportedly been training officers to carry out deportations, and many Dominican-Haitians are fearful of being forced to leave the only country they know. Although the government has stated they will not begin widespread deportations, the estimated tens of thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent that still do not have citizenship rights face an uncertain future. Amid international criticism, the Dominican government has repeatedly argued that it has a right to determine who qualifies for citizenship.

While it is easy to simplify these actions into a narrative about the culmination of ancient hatreds—that they are in some way the inevitable result of a blood feud between the two nations that stretches back to the Haitian occupation of the Dominican Republic from 1822-1844—the history is much more complex. Accepting such a line of reasoning only perpetuates a narrative created by Rafael Trujillo, one of the country’s most brutal dictators. Ruling the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961, Trujillo used anti-Haitian ideology to rally Dominicans around his dictatorship by claiming his strict rule was needed to protect the nation from the new threat of “passive” invasion by Haitian immigrants. In 1937 he ordered the massacre of an estimated ten to twenty thousand Haitians living on the border.

While this incident is often cited as evidence of the irrepressible conflict between the two countries, Trujillo’s attempt to carry out mass deportations prior to the massacre failed because local communities opposed the illegal targeting of Haitian immigrants. Indeed, Haitians and Dominicans lived together all over the country, and were often openly hostile to attempts by the central government to intervene in their lives. Both countries had limited paved roads and communication infrastructure, and Haitian and Dominican peasants had more in common with each other than with a distant elite. Far from an expression of popular anti-Haitian sentiment, the Trujillo orchestrated massacre was an attempt to breakdown the long-standing connections between Haitians and Dominicans that limited his power over the country.

The despot could not, however, completely remove the Haitian population from the country. Sugar was one of the nation’s most important exports, and Haitians provided the backbone of the industry’s labor force. Facing this contradiction, the Trujillo government began to isolate Haitian immigrants throughout the country by forcing them to relocate onto sugar plantations. The government faced confusion and resistance from community members, who opposed the forced relocation of their neighbors. But Government officials  pressured landlords to evict Haitians, and  threatened to withhold immigration documents until Haitian migrants relocated. By quarantining Haitians on sugar plantations, the Trujillo regime began to erase the long history of Dominican-Haitian communities on the island of Hispaniola.

The government’s attempts to isolate Haitian immigrants and their children only increased when one of the architects of anti-Haitian ideology, Joaquin Balaguer, was elected to the presidency in 1966. Balaguer instituted policies that allowed Haitian immigrants to reside solely on plantations and to only work cutting sugar cane. At the beginning of each sugar cane harvest the army and National Police would search the country for Haitians and relocate them to plantations involuntarily, even if they possessed legal documentation. In addition, immigrants found without documentation were often forced onto a plantation, without the government regularizing their status. In the process, the legality of Haitian immigrants in the eyes of the Dominican state became untethered from documentation and only based on location and occupation. Both Trujillo and Balaguer believed that if Haitians could be contained on plantations they could contribute to the wealth of the Dominican nation without ever being acknowledged as part of it.

While the majority of Dominicans are of African descent, Balaguer argued that after the decimation of the island’s indigenous population the Dominican Republic was repopulated by white Spaniards. According to him, African characteristics in the Dominican population were a result of Haitian infiltration of the Dominican Republic. Because of his fear of racial “contamination,” Balaguer became increasingly concerned about Dominicans born to Haitian parents. In the 1970s he commissioned several investigations into the issue, and numerous government officials informed him that the government could not deport Dominican-Haitians, because, having been born in the Dominican Republic, they were constitutionally Dominican citizens. However, born on plantations far away from medical care, many never received official birth certificates.

Once the sugar industry began to fail in the 1990s, and the Haitian population could not be quarantined as easily, the government sought legal basis to retroactively strip the citizenship rights of Dominican-Haitians. In 2013 the Dominican Constitutional Tribunal ruled that anyone with Haitian parents born after 1929 could potentially lose their citizenship, blatantly violating the principle of non-retroactivity established in the Dominican constitution. In a plan drawn up after the ruling, residents were given until June 17, 2015 to prove legal residency. In addition to the difficulties many Dominicans face producing documentation and traveling long distances to government offices, there have been widespread complaints of long delays and inconsistent requirements.

The actions of the Dominican government are not simply attempts to protect their sovereignty, as they argue. Instead, potential deportations are the result of decades of clandestine government policies that did not base legal residency on documentation, but instead on where migrants resided and the work they did. Claims that Dominicans and Haitians cannot coexist ignore how anti-Haitian ideology was imposed to serve the goals of a dictator. Then, as today, there are Dominicans who speak up against these injustices and communities where Haitian and Dominican identities coexist and commingle.

Amelia Hintzen is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Miami. Her dissertation examines the history of Haitian migrant communities on Dominican sugar plantations and combines archival, ethnographic, and oral-historical research.

63 comments

  • Boshowa

    Wow, just couple of facts in this article and 90% of it misrepresentation.

    • Boom

      Now this is your failed opinion,perhaps base on blindness. I will trust a PHD author , I would welcome come you to state the specific misrepresentations, where, why and how please list your sources .

      • Leandro Susana

        I must say that the Dominican Republic is allowed promote its immigration laws because those laws conform to international norms. Most countries grant citizenship through two concepts. The first concept is jus soli also known as birth right citizenship which means granting citizenship unconditionallyto any person born in that country, but the concept of jus soli is the exception not the norm. According to the Center for immigration studies only 30 out of 196 countries on earth grant birth right citizenship(http://cis.org/birthright-citizenship). All other countries are ruled by anther concept, the concept of Jus sanguinis the principle in law according to which children’s citizenship is determined by the citizenship of their parents. Jus sanguinis is what governs citizenship in all of Europe, all of Africa, with the sole exception of Botswana, and most of Asia, and Haiti. Now the issue was concerning people who had papers that indicated they were Dominican yet this issue was resolved with the law 169-14 in which any person with Dominican documentation would keep their status as Dominicans. After this process began a process of giving documentation to people that were not in the civil registry with the decree 327-13, In which people did not have to prove that they were born in DR but rather that they were a fabric of Dominican society, this was to resolve the problem of many people who did not have any form of identification whether it be a birth-certificate, passport, or any form of identification,the undocumented immigrant were allowed to prove they were a part of Dominican Society through various forms including pay stubs, rent receipts, school diploma/transcripts, a letter from your congregation, or a letter from your neighbors, not all of these documents were required rather a combination, there are the similar standards one must pass to obtain a drivers permit in New York city. The the article by the Haitian newspaper Haiti Libre (http://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-3528-haiti-technology-modernization-of-civil-registry.html) displays the documentation problem faced by Haitians. In the article is a quote by the Haitian president Martelly in which he says “How can the State create programs for its people without having an idea of the quantity of people living in the country?” As a result a program to ID Haitian citizens began a program that had essentially no standards due to the fact that Haitians do not have documents to prove their identity, the ID Haitian citizens were granted were based solely on their word as to what was their Age, Name, and Place of Birth. This affects the Dominican Republic in the sense that Haitian immigrants have no way to prove where they were born. In my opinion the resolution to give anyone with proven ties to Dominican society legal status was a fair choice, and not in line with racist policies but rather laws that conform to international standards of the control of undocumented immigrants. Many people say these laws are racist because they would like to see the Dominican Republic give amnesty to anyone born in the Dominican Republic which would be something that would be unacceptable in any country on earth, specially considering the circumstances, in terms of the problems of personal identification within the community that mostly immigrates to the Dominican Republic. I believe instead of continuously writing about the world event in the history of Domincan-Haitian relations we most focus on the bright spots, because I always wonder why we weren’t called racist when we in 2012 built a university in Haiti (The Universite Roi Henri Christophe), or when we allowed all aid entering Haiti, in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, to enter through Dominican Ports since Haiti’s main port had been completely destroyed. I believe instead of promoting HATE, as you do, we must promote investments to build the Haiti and Dominican Republic of our Dreams,
        Thank You,

      • Damian Almabella

        It would be interesting to see the list of sources used by the author.

    • Truth Behold

      Very true my friend.

  • elConsciente

    Ms. Hintzen should not receive her PHD until she learns how to conduct research. Of course, it’s very convenient to leave out pertinent facts when the hidden agenda of this article is to shame Dominican Republic.

    The fact is that the Dominican constitution of 1929 clearly states that Dominican citizenship is obtained if one of your parents is Dominican or if born in the country, except for people in transit. It gave the example of foreign diplomats as being in transit. The 2013 constitutional ruling interpreted illegal immigrants as being “in transit” and it makes perfectly good sense. As such, the ruling ordered all civil registry books to be reviewed for discrepancies dating back to 1929, ordering that those that were incorrectly recorded as citizens be recorded in the appropriate civil registry books. In 2014, law 169-14 was passed to restore Dominican citizenship to those that were affected by the 2013 constitution ruling. Thereafter the government implemented a Regularization Program for free for which Haitians had the opportunity to legalize their stay in the D.R. The problem lies with Haiti. Haiti cannot document it’s people in Haiti and was charging an exorbitant amount of money in the D.R. to document it’s people. Nowhere in the world are people legalized without documentation.

    Ms. Hintzen: I urge you to contact former Haitian Ambassador to the D.R., Mr. Daniel Supplice, who was recalled this past Tuesday for stating facts that were not convenient to the Haitian government, “We are responsible for what is happening today with our compatriots,” said Supplice. He said that the Program and Documentation of Haitian Immigrants (PIDIH) initiated under former Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe was not a “very good idea”.
    Supplice went further, saying “if we can’t manage to identify our citizens at home, I do not see how we could have done it elsewhere… I have already ordered the closure of the program, which has a cost two million dollars so far.”
    That is the crux of the problem, not your alleged “anti-haitian sentiment in the Dominican Republic.”

    • ribchwi

      So….you’re saying that the Dominican Republic, KNOWING that Haiti had a hard time giving accurate documentation to many Haitians, is still is going to force Haitians who have been living in Haiti for years and there children and grandchildren AND great-grandchildren, BORN in Dominican Republic, to go back to Haiti. ANd you’re going to compare people who have two or three generations born in Dominican Republic to be in transit, just like foreign diplomats.

      But their isn’t anything racist about that, right?

      • elConsciente

        What I’m saying is that it’s very EASY to put the blame on the Dominican Republic and call Dominicans racist when the Haitian government does nothing for it’s citizens. What about the hundreds of thousands of poor Dominican citizens? Lest you forget, the D.R. is a developing country with many of the same political and socio-economic issues facing Haiti. Yet, the D.R. is making steps to become an organized country governed by laws; abiding to it’s constitution to protect it’s people, border, and migrants – be them legal or illegal. That’s why Law 169-14 was passed in 2014 to grant Dominican citizenship to Haitians born in the DR and their descendants that were affected by the 2013 constitutional ruling. That’s why the Regularization Program was implemented to grant legal residency status to the hundreds of thousands of Haitians in the country who entered the country illegally and have procreated to form families in the D.R. Where else in the world are illegal immigrants given the opportunity to obtain legal status for free? Remember that in the D.R. like in Haiti, citizenship is not granted by merely being born in the country. Your parents must be Dominican to obtain Dominican citizenship. It’s not racism but simply the law. If you enter the country illegally you are in transit because you were never granted visa to enter in the first place. Before accusing Dominicans of being racist you must understand the laws of the country. Information that was intentionally committed from this article.

      • Damian Almabella

        longevity doesn’t turn an illegal act into a legal one or something wrong into something good. In the same way that 200 years of racisim in the US doesn’t make color discrimination a good thing, or Al Capone decades of living off of illigal activities didn’t turn those actvities into legal ones, foreigners living in the country in violation of Dominican Law — regardless of origin — don’t get exceptional treatment under the law just because generations have passed. Dominican law doesn’t give nationality by the sole circumstance of being BORN there, yet Dominican Congress enacted law 169-14 to naturalize all these irregular cases.

        • Boom

          You are simply amazing, your logic is flawed ,because your comparison doesn’t make any sense, first you take away my citizenship that was duly given, then you ask me to ‘re-apply as an immigrant, while placing all kinds of insurmountable obstacles, can you see a difference here . the law 169-14 is a masquerade.

          • tartesos

            That citizenship was never yours to have so it could have not been taken away that’s what you can’t seem to accept.
            Unless you were born before 1929, when the law was written, that should have been enacted since then…

             
          • Boom

            Please stop your stupidity and , educate yourself , you have proven my contention to be right, being able to articulate a few sentences in english, does NOT necessarily translate into human intelligence.

            Next time do your on research instead of regurgitating the same garbage from the Dominican far right and the anti haitian group.

             
          • Victor_INCENSURABLE

            So we have to asume that any troll writing In english like you has an IQ of 160+

             
          • Boom

            Please stop your stupidity and , educate yourself , you have proven my contention to be right, being able to articulate a few sentences in english, does NOT necessarily translate into human intelligence.

            Next time do your on research instead of regurgitating the same garbage from the Dominican far right and the anti Haitian group.

            “That citizenship was never yours to have so it could have not been taken away that’s what you can’t seem to accept”

            So who give them citizenship in the first place to start and if they never had citizenship, then why pass a retroactive law as far back 1929 withdrawing their citizenship, please answer, I will have further questions for you to contemplate.

             
          • tartesos

            Your grammar sucks by the way.
            And no illegal born in the Dominican Republic is Dominican.
            Deal with it imbecil.

            No matter how many articles you find on google to illustrate your point , the truth is, it’s a wrap.
            Hate begets hate and ill intentions towards others will bring you back the same, that’s why your country is how it is, invest some energy in helping your country man and not to try and force the DR to take on a burden that is too big for us and not our place to take.
            Go and complain to France Piti! They are more responsible of your fate than we are.

             
          • Boom

            “your grammar sucks” like I said before get an education, just perhaps you may be able to criticize, in the mean time feel free to keep embarrassing yourself.

             
          • tartesos

            I have been ignoring you for 5 months and you still don’t realize it?
            So sad.
            Will not waste my time with you again.

            Please invest this same energy in the betterment of Haiti and not bashing Dominicans with false accusations.
            We are not responsible for your present condition, we are not to be blamed, so don’t expect an apology.

             
          • Victor_INCENSURABLE

            No one gave them any citizenship, the parents just bribed their way into the civil registry, and should actually be grateful that law 169-14 recognized them DESPITE been inscribed bases on fraud

             
          • Victor_INCENSURABLE

            How can you take something from somebody that never has had it? You can’t be more pro haitiano than that

             
          • Boom

            dumb, argument. “How can you take something from somebody that never has had it” i will leave it to that.

             
          • Victor_INCENSURABLE

            ANSWER the question or shut up, i will leave it like that until the bacteria you got on your head can answer with some substance

             
          • Boom

            I don’t answer dumb question, educate yourself instead of regurgitating non-sense.

             
          • Victor_INCENSURABLE

            I have more education on my little finger than your entire dumb head, you got two choices now that i have finished reading all the stupidity and professional DR bashing that you are raining on the Dominican Republic, ONE, show substance on your nonsense by providing PROOF not stupid copy paste articles out of your behind or TWO keep doing that so i can show to the reader how the argument of an Ignoramus is flushed back to the filthy toilet it came from…I recommend that you choose option TWO so i can have some entertainment.

             
          • Boom

            Sure, you are really ,really educated. I am impressed.!!

             
          • Victor_INCENSURABLE

            You have seen nothing :-)

             
          • Victor_INCENSURABLE

            Stay nearby, you might learn one thing or two do you can get away from ignorance

             
          • Victor_INCENSURABLE

            I said answer the question or shut up, you made your choice, every single word you have written here is a lie from nothing more than a haitian profesional hater, you and your kind should start by showing gratitude to the one country that is keeping you to descend to full canibalism

             
        • ribchwi

          To compare illegal immigration to drugs trafficking or racism is outrageous! And more importantly, illegal acts DO get exceptional treatment under the law, especially when generations pass. If the US government were to find out that one of YOUR ancestors came to this country came to this country illegally, or helped one of your relatives come to this country illegally, neither you nor any other of your living relatives would be punished for that crime, nor would your citizenship be stripped away from you. The reason for that, is because citizenship should be based on loyalty to the state. America very wisely made that the primary criterion for citizenship. And allowing people who come here illegally the chance to redeem themselves without punishing their children or grandchildren who are born here? Well, that is sure to breed loyalty in a desperate person trying to escape economic deprivation or rampant gang and drug wars, or good old fashioned regular wars, etc.

          Many Haitians are too poor and have had no access to nationality records. No Birth Certificates, no passports from Haiti, nothing. This is because of a dysfunctional Government which is poor, corrupt, and constantly under the threat of either overthrow or destruction by natural disaster. How that was and is not factored into the Dominican Republic’s decision making , or your analysis, is a failure of humanity and compassion by both.

          • Victor_INCENSURABLE

            The US is NOT the DR, anybody born In the us is automatically a citizen, that is NOT the case on the DR and is NOT the case on haiti either, therefore your example is irrelevant.

            The DR is a sovereing country with its own laws perfectly capable to determine who is a citizen, that right was paid In BLOOD, so why do we have to factor anything going on haiti to establish our constitution?? We did not create haiti’s hellhole so why you and your kind wants us to swallow that mess at the expense of our own country?

             
    • Boom

      Elconciente you are a buffoon a paid troll, from your institutional racist Government, many many articles have been written in the same subject by various PhD lawyers, journalist, world body such as UN, OEAS, CARICOM they all came to the same conclusion. So you really think you that clever? I think NOT, going by your logic or the lack of it , your version is the correct one since you are Dominicans, everyone else is wrong. Really ?

      Please stop the denial, I would be ashamed if I were a Dominican, because if Haiti is known for being a poor nation in contrast the Dominicans Republic is now known for being racist, xenophobia, anti Haitians, a heaven for prostitution.

      • elConsciente

        Laws are laws and they are meant to be enforced and respected. The Dominican Republic has the right to protect it’s borders and identify every person living in the country, be they legal or illegal. If the D.R. is racist then so is the rest of the world including CARICOM countries that you seem to praise. Read up on the Haitian deportations by The Bahamas, Jamaica and other caribbean countries. Dominicans are also deported from around the world but you don’t see them using the race card. If the D.R. is so racist then why is it implementing an amnesty program? If the D.R. is so racist then why did it spend $30 million to build the University of Henri Christophe Limonade in Haiti? If the D.R. is so racist then why did it allow international countries to use Dominican airports and ports as the landing point to get aid to Haiti after the earthquake? If the D.R. is so racist then why during the earthquake it opened it’s borders to allow hundreds of thousands of Haitians to get treatment in Dominican hospitals? Funny how D.R. gives and Haiti takes yet the D.R. is racist, xenophobe and anti-Haitian.

      • Boom

        You need to get an education and stop embarrassing yourself.

  • Boom

    very good article, of course you will have many Dominicans paid clowns that are engaging in disinformation, you can see them all over the place in youtube fortunately the civilized world has move on and can not be fooled, let the Dominicans buffoon keep embarrassing themselves, the truth , the countries of the world and the international agencies are in our sides.

    these idiots think there is a conspiracy the world versus the Dominicans, these imbeciles for sure live on a separate planet. (the planet hate and racism)

    • JenJen

      @Victor_INCENSURABLE you need to learn how to write. It’s hard to follow your comments…and there’s no need to be insulting when debating. Also, this article states about Trujillo “Because of his fear of racial “contamination,” Balaguer became increasingly concerned about Dominicans born to Haitian parents. In the 1970s he commissioned several investigations into the issue. How is that possible when Trujillo was killed in 1961???? What other facts are misrepresented in this article? Talk about having agendas. If the international community wants to solve the Haitian Dominican issue, provide aid to create resources to help Haitians with their documentation…to get everyone registered and to assist with the process so it’s orderly and timely. So much money gets thrown at both countries but where does that money go? All the aid that went to Haiti after the earthquake and there’s still chaos and corruption around every corner. All the money the Dominicans have received from the USA and still there are a bunch of corrupt officials and people dying because of inadequate health care and nutrition. There is way more cooperation between “the people” of Haiti and “the people” of the Dominican Republic then the pundits state or the media covers. THE PEOPLE respect each other and work well together. THE POLITICIANS — on BOTH SIDES — take advantage of situations to add fuel to the fire and to add fodder for nasty, vile, bloggers like Victor_INCENSURABLE.

      • Boom

        Sorry to hurt your bubble, care to point out why these facts are bullsh!t please describe in your own words how 100 law professors after after examination found the judgement 163 to be in violation of the human rights code and in your case as a Dominican of course you are of the opinion to the contrary, how do you reconcile the latter ? Can you list for us countries with a similar judgement render by a court as far as denationalization is concerned, do you see a parallel ? if not make your points for or against .
        Care to explain why the international world is up at harm against the Dominicans Republic? , please list the many editorials, articles, international organization that support your stances and why they are right, a simple cut and paste will not do. I will be waiting…

      • Boom

        You call zapete a traitor and why?, he’s a well renowned journalist using his freedom of expression to expose inequities and wrond doing by the state.

        His analysis are carefully research and his opinions as far as the ruling 163 is consistent with the international communities and several international body and the 100 law professors.

        At the same token you are quick to dismiss zapete yet you are praising Mr supplice, do you see the hypocrisy here ? For your information Mr supplice do not support your point of view or the Dominican republic position as far as the denationalization of Dominicans of Haitian ancestry is concerned. Mr Supplice’s letter was honest on the substance, one I wish diplomats on the Dominicans side had the cojone to exemplify. However the letter of Mr Supplice does not make your ruling 163 right nor acceptable, your attemp to make a correlation is dubious, gullible and laughable at best.

  • Boom

    The present Dominican government has successfully confuse the Dominican people with 2 issues as being one, the Immigration reform and the denationalization of Dominican of Haitian ancestry, however they were not successful at convincing the civilized world, hence the reason of such international outrage toward the Dominican republic.

    Many Dominicans are misguided and missing the point when they compares what happens in the Dominican Republic with what happens in Bahamas, Canada, ect and other countries that feel overwhelmed by immigrants. Unlike those countries the policy in the Dominican is clearly a racist policy aimed at anyone with a black skin and targeting people who have lived for many generations there.

    Fortunately the world have condemn the Dominican Republic and rightly so, appropriate sanctions should be on the pipeline as an incentive to oblige the Dominican government to change course.

    This talk of ‘sovereign rights’ — let any country define citizenship however it likes — is deeply disturbing to me. These people have lived and worked in the DR for generations, and it’s utterly unfair to deport them. Until we have real, enforceable *human* rights that supersede any nation’s sovereign rights, we’ll never have global justice.

    The anti-Haitian legacy that many Dominicans have inherited make it difficult for many Dominican to look beyond and express empathy, therefore the glass is always half empty but never half full.

    Dominicans should unite and fix the system that they (personally) DIDN’T CREATE before they expect anyone else to do that for them, move forward but not forget history barbaric past and current present rant.

    This week continued to appear in newspapers and publishers. the New York Post and a letter to President Barack Obama signed by 108 law professors from some 80 universities and American schools, requiring you to intervene to enforce the rights of stateless in the country.
    No one can be taken seriously at any attempt to undermine the credibility and the credentials of these professors.

  • Boom

    This is so sad, his opinions reflect how the majority of Dominican perhaps feel. This gentleman hate being call black, I can not understand what is wrong being call black.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZtiMVNsD10

  • Truth Behold

    I did not write this but is true.Many Haitians put many Dominicans including the mulattos through the sword.Dominicans paid the Haitians $8.61 million dollars for the dictator Trujillo’s actions on the Parsley Massacre. After slavery was abolished, mulatto, and white Dominicans paid the Haitian dictator the money the Haitians owed France for killing the French.
    The Haitian Constitution and State of 1804. That racial bias in favor of Noir and opposed to White or mixed-racial groups was the crucial seed for the evolution of race relations on the island of Hispaniola. This racial bias is thus the foundation on which the racial discourse on the island would take shape. In Haiti it would lead to periodic bloodshed between Blacks and Mulattos. Eventually used by the
    Duvaliers, Papa and his son, during the 20th century to dominate and push out mulattos.
    But even in the 19th century you had Haitians leaders like The Emperor Faustin I using similar racial tactics to hold on to power. In the DR, the evolution of race was fundamentally different than in Haiti, as Professor Pons points out. Largely due to the hacienda or cattle ranch nature of the economic model, Dominicans NEVER developed the highly exploitative system that the French practiced in Haiti. Haiti turned itself inward and made “White” a Non-Citizen in their own State. Look no further for the explanation for this The Roots of the Division question. The Imperial Haitian Constitution of 1804 that denied whites property rights and
    CITIZENSHIP based on RACIAL PREFERENCE. As Toussaint Louverture had done two decades earlier, the Haitians abolished slavery. In order to raise funds for the huge indemnity of 150 million francs that Haiti agreed to pay the former French colonists, and which was subsequently lowered to 60 million francs, the Haitian government imposed heavy taxes on the Dominicans. Since Haiti was unable to adequately provision its army, the occupying forces largely survived by commandeering or confiscating food and supplies at gunpoint.
    Attempts to redistribute land conflicted with the system of communal land tenure (terrenos comuneros),which had arisen with the ranching economy, and some people resented being forced to grow cash crops under Boyer and Joseph Inginac’s Code
    Rural.‪[55] In the rural and rugged mountainous areas, the Haitian administration was usually too inefficient to enforce its own laws. It was in the city of Santo Domingo that the effects of the occupation were most acutely felt, and it was there that the movement for independence originated.
    Haiti’s constitution forbade white elites from owning land, and the major landowning families were forcibly deprived of their properties.
    All levels of education
    collapsed; the university was shut down, as it was starved both of resources
    and students, with young Dominican men from 16 to 25 years old being drafted
    into the Haitian army. Boyer’s occupation troops, who were largely Dominicans,
    were unpaid, and had to “forage and sack” from Dominican civilians.
    Haiti imposed a “heavy tribute” on the Dominican people.‪[56]
    As a result of the slaughter, the Dominican Republic paid to Haiti an indemnity of US$ 525,000 (equivalent to $8.61 million in 2014). The genocide sought to be justified on the pretext of fearing infiltration, but was actually also retaliation, commented on both in national currencies, as well as having been informed by the Military Intelligence Service (the dreaded SIM), that the Haitian government was cooperating with a plan that sought to overthrow Dominican exiles.

  • Truth Behold

    Where are all the true Dominicans being journalist and posting the other side of the story that is real and true. These lies brought by the Haitian government, paid lobbyist, and international government that are interested in the island’s Gold and Oil. Plan of unification of the island in the works.
    Article News: Rodham’s company got its gold mining rights in December 2012, according to the VCS press release.
    Schweizer’s publisher, HarperCollins, said in a press release Thursday that it ‘reveals how the Clintons went from “dead broke” on leaving the White House to being millionaires, describing in detail the way in which the Clintons habitually blur the lines between politics, philanthropy, and business.’

    The Clintons’ family philanthropy came under fire in February for admitting it had accepted money directly from foreign governments including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Oman.

    Some of those donations came while Mrs. Clinton was the U.S. secretary of state.
    Schweizer’s exhaustively researched book raises serious questions about the sources of the Clintons’ sudden wealth, their ethical judgment, and Hillary’s fitness for high public office,’ Bellow added.
    Mrs. Clinton was America’s first lady and a U.S. shuhenator before losing the Democratic presidential nomination to Barack Obama in 2008 and joining his administration the following year.

    The ruling party’s most influential figure after president Leonel Fernandez on Sunday affirmed that France, the United States and Canada have plans to unify Hispaniola island (Dominican Republic, Haiti), project he affirms they’ve bee working on for decades.

    Euclides Gutiérrez’s statement was in response to French Cooperation and Francophone minister Alaín Joyandet’s assertion that the concept is a joke which makes him laugh.

    The historian and university professor also affirmed that those powers have pressured at least two Dominican presidents to solve the Haitian crisis in Dominican territory.

    Interviewed by Héctor Herrera on Telesistema Channel 11, the also Insurance Superintendent said the late ex president Joaquin Balaguer was the first to be pressured by those nations when he was asked to install refugee camps for Haitian in the country, which was rejected sharply.

    He said ex president Jacques Chirac invited president Leonel Fernandez, during his first term, to visit France and when they were in the work table proposed that the time had come to speak of the Haitian case, to which his Dominican par responded that Dominican Republic’s sovereignty wasn’t negotiable. “So that’s a project the great powers have, specifically France, Canada and the United States, to seek a solution to the Haitian problem in the Eastern part of Hispaniola Island.”

    Gutiérrez, one of the founders and member of the ruling party’s Political Committee, said those plans may take two or three generations to materialize, and that those powers know Haiti is unviable and don’t want to bear that burden.

    He noted that the neighboring nation is currently occupied by foreign forces and “whose acting president is in fact the former United States chief executive Bill Clinton.

  • Truth Behold

    Someone else wrote this and is true. The US invaded and occupied the DR between 1916-1924 and brought Haitians to cut sugarcane during WWI, to pay a debt owed to US banks, and then later it was the dictators it supported (Trujillo 1930-1961, Balaguer for over 20 years until the mid-1990s)
    “I’m sure the Dominican government doesn’t care if all the illegal Dominicans elsewhere were to be deported back to the DR.

    The reason for this is very simple to understand. Most Dominicans that have migrated to other countries did so legally. Those Dominicans that are illegals in other countries probably don’t even amount to 200,000 at most (the vast majority of Dominican immigrants live in the USA and in Spain, and in both the illegals are a very small single digit percentage of the total migrant population.)

    The estimated number of illegal Haitians in the DR hovers from 500,000 to 1 million, depending on who one believes. So even if all illegal Haitians in the DR were deported and at the same time all illegal Dominicans elsewhere were deported too, the end result would be a net loss of people for the DR because there are less illegal Dominicans in other countries than there are illegal Haitians in the DR.

    Curiously enough, Cuba and the Bahamas also suffer massive illegal immigration from Haiti and, apparently, in those countries not only are the kids born there to illegal immigrants excluded from receiving either the Cuban or Bahamian nationality, but, unlike in the DR, also the kids of legal immigrants are excluded too. In all of these countries, DR included, the kids receive the nationality of their parents and its the responsibility of their parents and the embassy of their country to properly register and get the proper identity documents for their kids.

    The biggest irony I have noticed (and probably explains why the Haitian government itself remains officially quiet about Dominican citizenship requirements) is that Haiti itself excludes from Haitian citizenship upon birth to those born to all foreigners, regardless if they are legally or illegally in Haiti. Haitian citizenship can only be acquired upon birth if the kid’s parent (or just one parent) are Haitian citizens themselves and it doesn’t matter if the kid was born in Haiti or abroad.

    That’s the situation on the island.

    A Haitian couple migrates legally to the DR and has a kid there, that kid is born as a legitimate Dominican citizen. A Haitian couple migrates illegally to the DR and has a kid there, that kid is born as a legitimate Haitian citizen.

    A Dominican couple migrates legally to Haiti and has a kid there, that kid is born as a legitimate Dominican citizen. A Dominican couple migrates illegally to Haiti and has a kid there, that kid is born as a legitimate Dominican too.

    It seems to me that what Dominicans want is for most people thinking of moving to their country, to do it legally by asking for visas, getting a residency card, entering through the designated border/airport/seaports entry points with a valid and legitimate passport, have their disease vaccines up to date, be healthy so new diseases aren’t introduced to the local population, etc. You know, typical stuff in any country in the world.

    As for Haiti, it seems to me that they don’t want any foreigners moving and putting roots in their country because they don’t care if you are legal or illegal, your kids will never be Haitian. It also makes sense because Haiti is overpopulated and seriously underdeveloped.

  • Truth Behold

    Someone else wrote this and is true. Military Invasions By Haitians to Dominicans
    1805, 1822, 1844, 1845, 1849, 1850, 1855, and 1856*.
    Military Invasions from Dominican Republic to Haiti
    None
    Historical Desire of Haiti
    Dominate the entire island. Their constitution still refers to the island as “island of Haiti.”
    Historical Desire of Dominican Republic
    To be left alone.
    Places of Dominican-Haitian Wars/Battles
    100% Dominican territory, 0% Haiti’s.
    Places That Suffered Human Casualties Due to Dominican-Haitian Wars/Battles
    100% Dominican territory, 0% Haiti’s
    Places That Suffered Material Losses Due to Dominican-Haitian Wars/Battles
    100% Dominican territory, 0% Haiti’s
    Country Currently Pressured for the Benefit of Its Neighbor
    100% Dominican Republic, 0% Haiti

    *The 1856 invasion was on the order of Haitian Emperor Faustin I, who even said that if his invasion would had been successful, not even the chickens were going to be left alive; meaning, he was going to put the entire Dominican population through the sword in order to ensure that his invasion would be the final and successful one. This invasion, however, was certainly the last one of a military nature but not successful. No new military invasions were attempted because many members of the Haitian military, including high ranking officers, expressed their discontent to be constantly losing to the Dominicans.

  • Truth Behold

    Someone else wrote this and is true. More than 90% of Haitians and their descendants in the DR arrived in the late 1980s onwards and did so on their own.

    Also, the Supreme Court only has clarification capabilities, not retroactive. The only thing the court did with clear up once again what every Dominican constitution since 1929 has said, that those born to people in transit (term that include illegal immigrants) are not entitled to Dominican citizenship, but rather to the citizenship of their parents. Also, any identity documents adquired fraudulently are void.
    Most of those Haitians that thought had Dominican citizenship in reality they never had it because they didn’t qualify.

    What the Constitution Tribunal ordered was to put an end to the confusion by revising the Civil Registry from 1929 to 2007 for all the people registered illegally. Then, once they are identified, the legal status of the generation that migrated illegally or with a temp permit and stayed illegally, will be legalized and their descendants, due to the absorption clause in the law, will automatically receive a legitimate Dominican citizenship.

    Those that qualify for this amounts to some 26,000 people from over 100 nationalities, but of those some 14,000 are Haitian. A grace period will be given for those identified inthe Civil Registry to start their regularization process. Those that don’t start the process (and those that are not in the Civil Registry) once the grace period is over, will be subject to deportation.

    The court ruling is actually legitimately dominicanizing those Haitians with fraudulent documents and many decades in the DR.

    The anti-Dominican campaign that has been spread internationally and based on misinformation, exaggerated numbers, and and outright lies is just that, an attempt at discrediting the Dominican government.

    The UN and the European Union already looked into the process and due to that, became aware all the lies many NGOs and the Haitian diplomats have been spreading around the world in an attempt to discredit the DR. The UN and the EU now support the Dominican regularization process.

    Such a shame so many people have been dooped in this and are reacting based on half truth and incorrect assumptions.

    In anycase, all rulings from the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Tribunal are not reversible, they are fi al and can’t be appealed.
    Just… Respect Our Laws… As we respect other countries

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