NB Commentary: Sometimes it is hard for me to wrap my head
around the dichotomy that the US calls foreign policy. On one hand they support
"freedom fighters" who want to dispose of an evil dictator, on the
other hand they prop up evil dictators and guarantee them long life and
protection.
In the
case of immigration they want to take in Syrians, whom they have no idea what
type of social ills they may bring to this country or how many of them may be
disgruntled refugees ready to be radicalized, and yet, not far away to the
south of the US are poor and starving people, not terrorist but folks who are
suffering unfathomable obscenity due to their position on top of tremendous,
gas, oil and various other mineral reserves. I am so struck by this and often
find myself in a quandary to make sense of it.
Then
like clockwork, the little voice inside my head reminds me of what the
geopolitical priority of the US & NATO are really based on. And while these
"facts" may give way to lesser confusion, it still boggles my mind.
These days, the river also brings death. Horrid sanitation has led to a cholera outbreak in the camps, infecting and killing people who spilled over the border in recent months in hopes of finding refuge here.
Nearly 3,000 people have arrived in the makeshift camps since the spring, leaving the Dominican Republic by force or by fear after its government began a crackdown on illegal migrants. Some, born in the Dominican Republic but unable to prove it, cannot even speak French or Creole, Haiti’s main languages, showing how wide a net the Dominican government has cast.
Haitian officials have done almost nothing to support them. The
population is scattered across the drought-racked southwest border, mostly
barren plains. Families of eight sleep in tents fashioned from sticks and
cardboard. They drink river water, struggle to find food, and make do without
toilets or medical attention.
Families
wash clothes in the river that runs by Tête à l’Eau, Haiti, where many who fled
the Dominican Republic have settled. CreditMeridith Kohut for The New York
Times
Now
stateless, the refugees exist in the literal and figurative space between two
nations that, along with their island, share a history steeped in hostility.
Some of the camps were created decades ago, during another iteration of their
troubled pasts, but had long since been abandoned. Now, in a new cycle of
tension between the nations, they are packed to capacity once again.
The
plight along the border is reminiscent, on a smaller scale, of the devastating
2010 earthquake, which claimed the lives of 100,000 to 316,000 Haitians and
summoned a wave of billions of dollars in aid. Even today, more than 60,000
displaced people still reside in tent cities around the country.
Only
this time, the upheaval is man-made, the result of the policies of the
Dominican Republic and the seeming indifference of the Haitian government. The
authorities in Haiti do not even formally recognize that the camps exist.
“I
haven’t felt normal since my son died,” said David Toussaint, 55, whose
9-year-old boy was one of at least 10 people in the camps to die of cholera.
Officials say more than 100 people have been infected.
He
lifted himself from a bed his family built in their tent, covered with a frayed
tarp. He spends his days there, immobilized by grief. An acrid smell filled the
hot air as dust swirled into the tent, cloaking everything.
“This is
no way to live,” he said.
When the
Dominican government announced that all migrants in the country illegally had
to register this June, mass deportations were feared. Those later rounded up
were taken largely from remote areas, and bused quietly to border crossings. In
total, more than 10,000 people were expelled officially, with nearly another
10,000 people claiming to have been kicked out as well, according to the
International Organization for Migration.
But in
this climate of fear, an even bigger phenomenon emerged: Tens of thousands of
people of Haitian descent decided to leave the Dominican Republic on their own,
rather than risk deportation, including some who were born on Dominican soil
and knew nothing of Haiti.
Why Is Haiti So Poor
Published
on Mar 5, 2013
Hugo
Chavez shares thoughts of why Haiti is poor. The following is a transcript of
the speech given prior to Hugo Chavez's death on March 05, 2013. Hugo Rafael
Chávez Frías born on July 28, 1954 - passed away on March 5, 2013)
Vive Haiti!
Haiti, the Black
Jacobins, that of Toussaint Louverture.
Haiti that of
Pétion.
Haiti, from where
Miranda arrived with our flag, it, and a dream of several years, and a project:
the South American revolution.
Haiti, that of
Bolivar.
Haiti, that of the
expeditions of Los Cayos, sister Haiti, Haiti, painful reality.
Fidel Castro, as
always, continues to launch his thoughts, his ideas, his contributions to the
world in which we live. And this afternoon I received - this morning, rather -
the reflections of Fidel, his most recent.
Fidel said, permit
me to read some of these deep thoughts of our companion, comrade, commander.
I read: "The
tragedy excites, in good faith, a lot of people, specially because of its
natural character. But very few of them stop and ask the question: why Haiti is
a poor country?
Why does the
population depend almost 50% on orders sent from the outside by its families.
Why not also analyze
the realities that led to the current situation of Haiti and its enormous
suffering? "
I would add that
this painful moment seems opportune to reflect and get to the bottom of things:
why haiti is so poor?
Why is there so much
misery in Haiti?
I continue reading
Fidel:
"The most
curious in this story is that nobody said a word to remember that Haiti was the
first country in which enslaved Africans 400,000 of them, trafficked by
Europeans, rose against white owners 30,000 plantation sugar cane and coffee,
fulfilling the first great social revolution of our hemisphere. Pages of
unsurpassable glory could be written around the earth.
The most eminent
general was defeated, Napoleon, out there. Haiti is the net product
colonialism. Haiti is the net product of colonialism and imperialism, of more
than a century of use of its human resources in the hardest work, of military
interventions and the extraction of its wealth.
This historical
oblivion is not so serious to the reality which is that Haiti is the shame for
our time, in a world where those prevail on the exploitation and plundering of
the vast majority of the inhabitants of the planet. "
And then continues
in Fidel and his reflections by launching rays of light that lives for this
moment humanity. But it is by here we start:
"Haiti is a net
product of colonialism. Haiti is a product of imperialism. As not only will
complete colonialism, as not only will complete imperialism, and I go further:
as not only will complete capitalism, we have situations and people living the
painful situation facing Haiti."
I confess my
personal experience, when several years, for the first time, we visited Haiti.
I confess, I wanted to cry myself. With one of my companions, I went to see
these people in the street, with elation, hope, magic and misery, and I
remembered a phrase that came out of the soul, I told my companion nearest the
descent of a van - we wanted to walk for a while and we ended up running into a
street - I told him: look, mate, the gates of hell, inhabited by black angels.
Because it is a
people full of it: this is an angelic people.
I ratify what
President Sylia has decreed: while our commitment to our people, all the
people, the Venezuelan people are with Haiti, the Bolivarian revolution is with
the people of Haiti, with its pain, with its tragedy, with its hope.
— in Caracas,
Distrito Federal.
INTERNATIONAL COMMENTARY
Border Tensions Are on the Rise Between Haiti and the Dominican
Republic
Excerpt: "This summer, officials in the Dominican
Republic (DR) began deporting
Haitian migrants and Dominican-born but
undocumented people of Haitian descent.That
decision has received wide attention, and the
DR government of Danilo Medina has
been criticized by human rights activists.
For some Haitians, the deportation order invoked memories
of the notoriousParsley
Massacre of 1937, when Dominican President
Trujillo ordered troops to kill thousands of Haitian migrants living along the
border of the two countries.
The rekindling of old racial conflicts under
the new DR deportation policy may be a
populist attempt to stoke support during stagnant
economic times in advance of 2016
presidential election in the DR. The Obama
administration has reportedly leaned heavily on Medina’s government to ease the deportation
order."
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Thanks for your comment. Peace, NB