Who are these people?These are the men and women of the Dominico-Haitian committee who meet every month in the human rights building in San Rafael, Paraiso. They come from local towns and remote villages in the area and work in the coffee plantations and other jobs.
What concerns them?
Most of this particular gathering focused upon the lack of documents for their children. The CODH leaders stressed the importance of using their proper names on any birth certificate, instead of attempting to translate their Haitian last name to one that is more acceptable in the Dominican Republic. Also the people listened to the leaders emphasizing the need for each man and woman to have an official document from Haiti, which they need to carry around on their person.
Horror stories:
Haitians have migrated to Santo Domingo and worked on construction sites. Some have fallen from great heights and died at the workplace. When the other workers and emergency rescue people search their persons for identification, they find nothing. Thus these men end up being buried without anyone knowing who they were or being able to notify family members. In the above group, about 20% have no official identification from any source. They walk around without any established method to "prove" who they are.
Official robbery:
When these people struggle to have an official identification, the biggest obstacle they have faced is from their very own country's government. Tinapue said in the meeting, and he had some proof to substantiate his claim, that almost 11 thousand Haitians applied for passports in the Dominican Republic but their own Haitian representatives, consuls, took their money and then never gave them passports.
Sacrifice:
When we in the USA have meetings we often have refreshments after only one hour of work, or even before we start meetings. These people left their homes without having anything to eat and stayed in their seats for the entire four and a half hours -- and they had no break for a piece of bread or even a glass of sugar water! Perhaps Codha can set records for the organization with the most members and the smallest budget for food: zero.
Venting:
Towards the end of the meeting, one man stood up to share his story. He is the president of an association of Haitian workers in Platón. The day before, he had received three little pigs from Fundeprocunipa (the tongue tying name for the local parish animated NGO) as part of the project to develop alternate sources of income in the Rio Nizao watershed. No sooner did he take possession of the pigs, then a group of local Dominican men came by and openly stole the pigs, saying that they are for Dominicans and not for Haitians. The Association President immediately went back into town to get the NGO director and together with the police they retrieved the pigs. But the bad feelings in the community will not be resolved by the police and this story points to the uneasy relationship between the two groups.
