DAJABON, Dominican
Republic - The specter of slavery has returned to the land where African
workers staged the Western Hemisphere's first successful slave revolt
more than 200 years ago.
Here on the Dominican
border with Haiti, human rights activists charge, farmers are working
in collusion with police and other authorities to round up Haitian
migrant workers and place them in virtual forced-labor camps on border-area
farms.
"We are slaves
here. They treat us worse than we were treated in Haiti under the
dictatorship," said Emile Floribar, a farm laborer from northern Haitian
port town of Cap-Haitien.
Several months
ago, Mr. Floribar crossed the Massacre River, which serves as a natural
border between the two Caribbean countries, hoping to find seasonal
work on a Dominican sugar cane farm. A nightmarish ordeal soon followed,
which he and others described as a fairly typical experience.
To view the entire article,
see Dallas Morning News Archive
