The Trafficking of Migrant Workers
May 26, 2006
Santo Domingo
French Text produced by "l'Espace de Communication Insulaire" by Eddie Beltre. Photos available on website www.espacinsular.org; and English translation from the French by Elizabeth Roebling
Dominican and Haitian officials have been implicated in the trafficking of immigrants. Tourist buses are used for transporting Haitians toward the eastern region of the Dominican Republic. Some Haitian diplomatic and consular authorities as well as some from the Dominican immigration services could be implicated in an operation of hiring illegal Haitian workers from Barahona destined for the sugar cane factory "L Altagracia" in San Pedro de Macoris.
200 Haitians, out of a group of 400 who arrived illegally in the Dominican Republic at the end of April, were hired by the business, Ramon Reyes Darras, located in San Pedro de Marcoris, by contacts established directly with the Haitian Vice Consul and chief of station, M. Harry Joseph.
Representatives of the business, Marie Reyes and Elceo Almanzar, when contacting Vice Consul Joseph, gave him the assurances that his fellow nationals would receive humane treatment in their plantations, as explained in a communication sent to a Haitian consular official in the South, a Haitian citizen, resident in Santo Domingo for many years, who served as a liaison between the two parties.
This hiring operation, negotiated since the middle of April between the Business "Petromacorisana" (San Peddro de Macoris) and the Consul of Barahona, also implicates the (Dominican) General Direction of Immigration.
This implication was contained in a correspondence sent by the Vice Consul Harry Joseph to Ambassador Fritz Cineas on May 22, demanding from the contractors the sum of $100,000 RD pesos ($3125 US) as the price of giving "tourist cards" to the members of the group.
A formal request for the transfer of the group from the Southern region to the East was sent from the contracting business to the General Director of Immigration on the 22nd of May, in which it was also requested that the workers have a "Consular card" for which they had paid RD$300 pesos ($9.35 US) per person.
The business, Ramon Reyes Darras, has put into place, with official support, a new method of transport, which is the use of executive buses with smoked windows from the company Metro Tours, with the following license plates: 1031435 (M-112), I026243 (MF-22), I031427 (MF-902) and I031442 (MF-912). Four modern vehicles of the aforementioned company transported this group of illegals as if they were tourists heading to the beaches at the East of the country, while their final destination was the sugar cane fields of Altagracia.
With regularity, the Haitian Consul in Barahona, pays $100 pesos ($3.13 US) to all the recently arrived illegals who are hired by the agricultural plantations in the southern zone. He is also now providing birth certificates for Haitian immigrants in return, a payment of RD$100 pesos from each worker. Meanwhile, in May of 2002, the Haitian Ambassador started a program of documentation for all Haitian migrants who are in Dominican territory and this service is free.
In this recently completed case of hiring of workers, there is no certainty that the immigrant Haitian workers had signed individual work contracts. There were also no representatives of any unions or organizations who could have defended their rights, which is one vital aspects cited in the report of the International Labor Organization (OIL) in their reports on the situation of Haitian migrant workers.
It would be good to note that there are no guarantees that when they return from Dominican territory, the formalities will been respected although they have been in similar cases. It is not known whether or not the Immigration Authorities on the border or the Secretary of Public Health have done all that is generally required, for instance - physical exams are required for all foreigners who have spent more than one month in Dominican territory.
The Company has guaranteed in a letter to the Immigration Department, either repatriation or a formal work contract for the migrant workers in September 2006. They did not specify the methods or means the business would use to maintain surveillance over the workers, given the limited mobility that is generally imposed on workers, to ensure that they do not travel to other plantations or to urban centers such as Santiago or Santo Domingo, at the end of the sugar cutting harvest. This is know as the "dead time" during which the businesses relinquish all responsibilities toward the workers.
The (Dominican) Secretary of State for Labor, Jose Ramon Fadul, was emphatic a few months ago, when asked by the sugar companies for temporary entry passes for 20,000 workers, saying that the businesses would be better off using Haitian workers who were already in the country, and to proceed with recruitment so that such importation of workers would not be needed.
Different sectors of Dominican society, including the Catholic Church through the spokesman, Cardinal Jesus Nicolas Lopez Rodriguez, oppose the entry of more illegal workers into the country. Dominican authorities have publicly accused the Haitian government of not being willing to cooperate with the Dominican Republic in working against the flood of illegal immigrants.
This clandestine operation took place when President Rene Garcia Preval has just been inaugurated and while the new government is the process of approving the new prime minister. Preval thus finds himself in the delicate position of having had to work with the members of the transitional government, whose competence has been questioned on many occasions, particularly for acts of corruption and political maneuvers against the national interest. These accusations have even included calls for the arrest of the former Prime Minister, Gerard Latortue, now traveling in Miami.
Since the 1986 collapse of the bloody Duvalier dictatorship, the actual Haitian ambassador in the Dominican Republic, Dr. Fritz Cineas, played a paramount role in transferring fantastic sums, estimated in millions of dollars, to the Secretary of State for Sugar (CEA) in the name of the Duvalier family. These sums have qualified him, according to the guidelines of international human rights groups, as an "official trafficker" in human beings. In reality, there is no agreement between the two governments on the hiring of Haitian workers through official channels. What is now being done is worse since it is clearly illegal.
In the middle of January of last year, 25 Haitians were found suffocated when a group of illegal workers where transported in a closed truck from the northern frontier to Navarrete. This scandal revealed the complicity of officials in human trafficking, in spite of a vast military operation named "Operation Cowherd" (the brutal repatriation of millions of illegal Haitians). It was known at this tragic time that cistern trucks, normally transporting water, were half emptied of their contents and used for the transport of illegals.
