By Nikongo Banikongo,
Special to the AFRO
When Martine Jacques said goodbye to her husband one rainy morning in February, she had no idea that he was not going to be returning home that day. Neither did many other Haitian husbands, wives, children, family members and friends.
It’s an election year in the Dominican Republic and political candidates are staking out their positions to secure the presidential office they so covet. They try to make clear lines of distinction among the many issues of the day. It’s all about who has done nothing, who is doing little and who would do most for the people. It’s about employment, social services, infrastructural development, eradicating poverty, economic equality, crime and culture. Their proposals are as expansive as they are varied.
But, no issue can get them closer to that goal than the race issue. It’s the one issue that stands out among them all; one thing they all agree that must be done: stem the seeming tide of Haitian immigrants and get rid of as many of those currently in the country as possible. Make no mistake, in the Dominican Republic, the term “Haitian” is merely a euphemism for “Black,” and the language of anti-Haitianismo is resonating well with the people. It is populism at its very best—or worst. If they could agree on nothing else, they could agree on that.
The three major presidential candidates, Luis Abinader, Abel Martínez and Leonel Fernández, lead their political parties the PRM, the PLD and the FP in the charge dominated by overt racism, and the people shout and rejoice at rallies and automobile parades in the thought of ridding themselves of so many Haitians who have invaded their communities and invaded their lives. These candidates understand that the road to political success has to follow a path of anti-Haitianismo if success is to be achieved. And the candidate who could demonstrate not just maximum intolerance of these “undesirables” but the one who can show that by action already taken, would doubtlessly be the one to lay claim to that mantle of political power.
It is not enough to talk about providing jobs, or rooting out corruption or increasing health care, the most important thing is cleansing the nation of the infection of Blackness which for them represents a hundred years-plus stain on the purity of the nation. Never mind that the people of the Dominican Republic are anything but “ethnically pure.” What’s important is that they don’t relish any association of Blackness in their blood. The hysteria is real and requires the constant demonization and criminalization of anything Black. Abinader, the current president and leading candidate, is not failing them.
Others might be tough if they won office, but Abinader — already in office for the last four years — has, on a daily basis, proved his lack of appetite for anything suggestive of Haitian culture in his midst, and continues to stoke the embers of anti-Black nationalism. Already he had embarked on building a 250-mile wall along the border to seal them off in a way that could still assure benefits from their selected presence. After all, it’s the labor of these Blacks that keep the cherished tourism, sugar and agricultural industries alive and that are responsible for the wealth of the republic. Set aside this opportunity to exploit Black labor while denying them rights and opportunities, denying them access to social services, the Dominicans could not boast the standards of living they now enjoy. Set aside the groups of Black labor that clean the streets, that haul the trash, that keep the grasses cut along the highways, that lift buckets of concrete by hand in the booming construction industry, they could not boast the infrastructure that they have. And, make no mistake, that labor is all Black.
Abinader has made an issue of a canal being dug on the Haitian side, which he suggests is an act of Haitian theft depriving Dominican agriculture of water. He suspended and then ended all visas to Haitians for any reason and forced a diplomatic row to provide a nationalist rallying cry in the wake of an election that has presented stronger opposition than he imagined he would have or would have liked.
And now, his signature executive act is empowering and mandating the police arms of the state to round up and investigate any Haitian or Haitian-looking person (dark-skinned) for possible detention and deportation. In the Dominican Republic, there is no shortage of police units all seemingly geared toward saving the state from the “darkening” of their culture.
On the streets of the capital, Santo Domingo, in La Romana, in Punta Cana and in cities across the country, the round-up of black-skinned people is going on unabated. Now, with the election just months away, it has reached a fever pitch. Since the start of 2024, just in the last three months, an estimated 25,000 Haitians have been netted and forcibly relocated across the borders. In the frontier areas of Jimani, Elias Pina and Djabon, wagon loads of ethnic Haitians are carted off every day, just as often including those who are lawfully in the country and many who were born there but fail to have with them the correct papers to show. There is no judicial process to determine their status or to whom they are allowed to appeal. The policy is “snatch and deport.”
Throughout the day and night, officers from the Migration Control constantly and routinely board cross-country highway buses. Traveling between Punta Cana and La Romana, between La Romana and Santo Domingo, they come on board at almost every stop. But it is most fierce leaving the border towns, where two or three armed enforcers have roadblocks set up every half a mile or so along the way. It’s possible to be stopped 10 to 15 times on one trip from Elias Pina to Santo Domingo. It’s not that harassment of dark-skinned people in the Dominican Republic is anything new—it isn’t. Nowadays, however, it’s a lot more ferocious as the president has issued special enhanced enforcement orders.
As a Black person, you’re always under the constant gaze of the law enforcers. On the buses, they board at will, scanning their gaze for anyone of dark complexion or close to it. “Pasaporte,” they shout, assuming that the individual cannot be Dominican and knowing that it is what is required for legitimate stay. They’re looking for a visa which when issued requires a $20 a month fee to maintain from people who often earn $20 or less a week. Often the people look scared. They know what is about to happen. They rummage through their bags and produce what they could: an expired passport, an expired work permit, a Dominican cedula (identification card). Sometimes, nothing at all. It’s what the officers expect and seemingly what they hope for as with physical gusto they eject anyone unable to produce “legitimate” documents. It’s an impressive display of power and force and leaves the accosted visibly deflated. The scenes are surreal and unsympathetic; grabbed like common criminals, jacked-up at the back of the trousers, arms secured and hurried off the bus into parked, waiting wagons.
On the streets, Black people are faring no better, subjected to unceremonious, insulting, demeaning stop, search and arrest as if they were fugitives on the run and now caught, that need to be handled with maximum caution on the assumption that they are armed and dangerous. Many a dark-skinned tourist is caught-up in the sting because the suspicion is of any dark-skinned person; their color is grounds for suspicion and the crime is blackness itself. Not too long ago, in 2023, the U.S. embassy in Santo Domingo issued a caution to Black American would-be vacationers here to be mindful of race-based mistreatment, but did little beyond this paper warning.
The policy here is to assume that every dark-skinned person is likely an undocumented ethnic Haitian migrant who is contributing to the demise of the society. The international community half-heartedly complains but it’s all falling on deaf ears. The United Nations has warned about the extreme deportation of people at a time when Haiti is itself in political turmoil and poses a security risk to all. Regional organizations in the Americas have noted the mistreatment as illegal. Even civil society and human rights groups in the Dominican Republic have expressed their disdain. None of this seems to matter. What matters to the dominant Dominican society is ridding itself of a “scourge,” which they perceive as posing a threat to the purity and longevity of their nation.
Now, in the run-up to presidential elections, the government speaks of ethnic Haitians as representing an existential threat to the security of the nation. The candidates are all singing the same tune. All major contestants are on the bandwagon of anti-Haitianismo.
There are no less than 16 active political parties in the Dominican Republic but no more than six can be considered competitive and only three have a viable chance of gaining the presidency. Of these three, the Partido Revolucionario Moderno (PRM/ Modern Revolutionary Party) is currently the strongest. Its leader and presidential candidate, the millionaire businessman Luis Abinader is the current president and running for his second consecutive term. In the last election of 2020, he ran on a winning platform of anti-corruption and succeeded in unseating a heretofore entrenched party. Now, he has found another political winner. Since taking office, he picked up on the defeated party program of denying ethnic Haitians residency and citizenship rights. But he has gone further. It was thought that the government before him was harsh on Black residents, now ethnic Haitians are in disbelief that times have actually worsened.
Abinader’s signature programs and policies have been to first suspend and then end visas for Haitians, close the border between the two countries and initiate the building of a wall. In a recent address before the UN Security Council, he has sought to defend his policies as “a fight to protect the DR.” In this view he enjoys broad support.
His closest rival, Leonel Fernández of the Fuerza del Pueblo (FP/ People’s Force), himself representing a splinter group of the old ruling party, has lost little time in spewing the same anti-Black, anti-immigrant vitriol that Abinader has. His political platform has chosen to place its emphasis on “containing illegal migration.”
In the Dominican Republic, only Black migrants from the Caribbean are viewed by definition as “illegals or irregulars.” It’s a term set aside for Blacks only; all others are welcomed. The hordes of Venezuelan and South-East Asian migrants that are present are not seen as representing a threat to the nation and are readily and summarily integrated legally into the society with all rights, privileges and opportunities attached thereto. Special instructions are pasted large on the walls of the immigration offices, instructing them on the process for permanent residency.
Fernández was once with the Partido de la Liberacion Dominicana (PLD), with whose company he parted but whose ideologies he retained.
The PLD represents the third major political force and the other major threat to Abinader retaining office. Its presidential candidate, Abel Martínez, like Abinader and Fernandez, understands well the sentiments of the voting public at large. He has called for “increased migration control” and “stricter immigration policies” to reduce and limit the ethnic Haitian presence which he has labeled “an overflowing invasion.”
The public is overjoyed with the policies of their would-be presidential leaders. A Gallup-RC Media Poll indicated the top issues on the public’s mind to be crime, high cost of living and job opportunities, all of which the leading candidates have managed to convince voters are tied to the negative influence of a Black and ethnic Haitian presence there. It’s not altogether new; these negative outlooks on Blacks and ethnic Haitians in the Dominican Republic, and the restrictions and mistreatment that they face daily have existed for some time. The 2013 judicial ruling that stripped ethnic Haitians of constitutional rights and which met with some international criticism, forcing a change of policy was quickly followed up by policies designed to make near impossible the ability of Blacks to have equal treatment or equal opportunities. Some policies were reflective of Pass Book Laws in Apartheid Era South Africa. In 2021, ethnic Haitians were required to register their whereabouts inside the country; it was argued that this was to protect the society from “gang violence.” And ordinary Dominicans seem to have no issue with this whatsoever.
The survey in 2022 by the Instituto de Investigacion Social para el Desarrollo (Institute of Social Research for Development) found that more than two-thirds of Dominicans reject rights for “illegal” Haitian immigrants including civic rights. The way the system works, it’s not difficult for the majority of Blacks to be classified as “illegal” at some point or the other. Almost half of the population surveyed opposed access to social services such as health care, education, or housing. While they felt that this community represents a threat to jobs, an overwhelming majority favored work permits for jobs locals won’t do and at least half felt that there was little or no discrimination. The Dominican public sees what it wants and wants what it sees. Reality is very different.
What is real is that the presidential elections in the Dominican Republic have placed anti-Blackness front and center. What is real is that presidential candidates are going to all lengths to demonstrate their intolerance of the “undesirable” Black migrants in their presence and that this has become the signature issue for their success. What is real is that every day, hundreds of Black and ethnic Haitians going about their business are routinely snatched off the streets, doggedly pursued by surveillance police vehicles, hunted and put in caged wagons to be eventually taken over the border.
For Martine Jacques, as for many others, they are victims of a presidential election season where opposition to their presence is the road to political power.