An Oct. 5-9, 1999, conference sponsored by
NYU's Institute for African-American Affairs.
Coverage by undergraduate journalism students.
 

From the Guardian: September 4, 1998; Pg. 16

HAITI'S SUGAR CANE SLAVES EXPELLED FROM A BITTER 'PARADISE'
Thousands of migrant workers are being brutally deported from the Dominican Republic

By Phil Gunson in Dajabon

It was 10pm when the soldiers came for Jean-Louis. They grabbed the Haitian labourer and shoved him into the back of a truck with other illegals, ignoring his pleas to be allowed to gather clothes and money, or say goodbye to his Dominican wife.

Now, penniless and with only the clothes he has on, he awaits deportation with a dozen other disconsolate Haitians at the army barracks in this Dominican border town.

With the of the sugar harvest mostly over, it is open-season again on more than half a million undocumented Haitians who live in the Dominican Republic - and on any Dominican black enough to be taken for one.

"We don't interfere with anyone who's working," said garrison commander Colonel Florian y Florian. "It's just the vagrants, the ones with no job."

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