The D.R’s ethnic cleansing plan has begun and more than 300,000 people could be affected
“They are sweeping up “dark-skinned Dominicans with Haitian facial features and loading them into trucks,” says an eyewitness report from “The Nation” newspaper. The criteria to determine the expulsion to achieve “self-propulsion in the Dominican Republic is that simple and the expulsion of Black People/Haitians has begun.”
In September 2013, The Dominican government set up The Plan Nacional, which was supposed to retract citizenship from anyone born to undocumented parents residing in the country after 1929, but residents who have provided birth certificates for themselves and parents are still being denied residency. Some residents have lived in the D.R their entire life. Even with proof, they are not even able to register as residents due to government inefficiency. Investigative reporter Rachel Nolan of The Nation says the whole ordeal is “…a charade. The offices are overcrowded, understaffed, and the needed paperwork doesn’t even exist.”
The D.R. government has also failed to provide residents with the necessary government identification. Some Dominican born Haitians are fourth generation immigrants who were born in rural provinces that didn’t even issue residency or proper I.D. and truthfully Haitians have been in the Dominican Republic since the 1800’s when Haitian leader Jean Pierre Boyer initially took control of Santo Domingo. The blatant failed rationalization of the government is covered in layers of racism which would be more accurate if the government simply said “Black people are no longer welcome in the D.R.”
In February as racial tension mounted in the D.R., graffiti artists sprayed “Haitians Get Out” and a Haitian man identified as “Tulile” was lynched and found hanging in Santiago’s Ercilla Pepin Park. The message has been clear. Now the government is executing a social cleansing exodus disguised as immigration reform. More than 300,000 people will be affected in this social cleansing implementation as the world and media sits silently. Ironically, in the U.S., 1.5 million Dominicans are also immigrants.
-Abesi Manyando(@abesipr)
