Promoting lies does not change facts...
Now that most of you are done making comments based on incorrect assumptions and mere feelings, lets take a look into this with concrete information.
I'm happy to discuss the facts as you have presented them. Looking at your numbers and your presentation, it seems that you either:
a) Didn't watch the documentary in full, or didn't understand the points presented; OR
b) For some economic or political reason, you're a Vicini apologist.
Now let's go through the "facts" and spin as you've presented it:
1. The sugar industry is well on its way to being 100% mechanized; currently is well over 60% mechanized, so give it a few more years and there will be no Haitians cutting cane on Dominican soil. What will they do for a living can be anyone's guess. Maybe Hartley will pray for them and the an angel would magically fill their bellies.
REBUTTAL:
1. You are saying, 'machines will replace the work of slaves pretty soon, so the Vicini's are actually being nice to the slaves by keeping them enslaved, how will they eat when the machines arrive?'. Nice try. The Vicini's profit from the slave trade. There is no altruism in slavery. You can't rationalize the facts by saying 'well at least we keep them fed'. They used that argument on the cotton fields in the old south, and it was false altruism.
2. When will the industry mechanize cane cutting 100%? When mechanical operations will be more profitable than human operations. The reason the rest of the world has gone mechanical is because it's cheaper to be mechanical than having to pay a real wage, sick days, with employment laws, health and safety etc. Here, it's cheaper to enslave these stateless people than to have a machine do it, and until the day that it's too much of a hassle, the changeover won't happen.
2. Currently less than 10,000 Haitians actually work in the Dominican sugar industry, that?s less than 1% of the total Haitian population in the DR and makes the sugar industry the least employer of Haitians compared to non-sugar agriculture, construction and tourism. Keep in mind that the sugar industry employs a total of roughly 25,000 people, including technicians, managers, actual Dominicans, etc. The largest employer of Haitians within the sugar industry is CENTRAL ROMANA, headquartered in the USA.
Whomever wants to try to make it seem as if the sugar industry is responsible for the Haitianization of the country, you're wrong. Plain and simple.
REBUTTAL:
You seriously didn't watch the documentary did you?
You can't compare the 10K cane workers who are illegally transported without papers across the border, against the other 1 million who legally work here for the government on construction projects or as watchie men for our apartments. My Haitian watchman has a cedula, he has paperwork, he's here legally.
Moreover, the 'haitianization' argument wasn't presented by the protagonist in the movie, it was presented by the Vicini apologists - claiming that the father was 'haitianinzing' the country with illegal haitians.
So purpose are you serving by mixing up the facts intentionally? mixing the 10K illegals with the 1 million semi legals? What spin are you trying to achieve?
3. The largest private employer in the country is NOT Vicini, but rather Central Romana; owned by Cuban-American family (they are American citizens) with permanent residence in South Florida. CR employs around 6,000 people. They are also some of the most powerful people in the USA, which probably explains why no one dares to demonize them.
So in short, the Vicini family response is: "We didn't start the fire..." or hey go pick on that guy, not on us, we're like #3 here, not #1.
Something tells me if the father's parish landed him in La Romana, he'd be picking on them too, it just wasn't how the cookie crumbled for him.
However, it does beg the question, does the Central Romana company pay border guards and illegally ship Haitians into their compounds and keep them there under lock and key and pay them only in vouchers and make them use the vouchers at the company store where everything is over priced?
If so, then yes they too deserve contempt, but why are you trying to deflect blame from one slave owner to the other? They're all slave owners, deal with it.
4. The last zafra produced exports totaling US$126 million (not counting the US$18.8 million that was illegally exported to Haiti). Of that figure, a full 62% was absorbed by CENTRAL ROMANA and only 26.7% by VICINI, the remaining 11.2% by BARAHONA.
Again, in other words - I'm not the biggest drug dealer in this country, leave me alone, go after the #1 guy! I'm just #3.
This isn't even an argument, it's so childish. I don't blame you though, it's the time tested Dominican argument of 'no mi culpa'. Passing the buck and not taking responsibility. Well I'm cheating a bit but I'm not the biggest cheater, go after him. Yah okay, whatever...
5. Total wages in the sector amounted to US$105.3 million.
Total spin and misrepresentation. What does 'total wages' mean? Are you suggesting 105 million was given to just the 10,000 poor haitians working in the fields? The whole movie was about this fact alone, again I guess you missed it. It was about income distribution. You're just lumping 'total sector income' as an apologist creed, but hello? how did that 105 million get spent? let me help you out:
Bottom: 10K people, $10/month, 10 months a year, 100$ per person per year x 10K people = $1 million.
Top: how much did the ceo's make? the vps? the directors? the slave field managers?
I think the father would be happy if just 3 or 4 of that 105 million went to the slaves. It would improve their lives dramatically.
You're not the first to try to rationalize slavery as being 'economically good' - yes it's clear, imprisoning people and making them work till they die can be quite profitable.
6. The VICINI have been investing quite heavily in improving the lives of the last generation of Haitians that will ever work manually in their plantations. Schools, community centers, better housing, etc have been built and more are on the way. The same can?t be said of many of the other sugar producers.
Lots of hand waving. Facts would be nice. After all, you suggested at the beginning that you would be presenting facts. I ask you, break down the financials. How much profit is generated by the organization? how much of hte operating expenses are attributed to the workers? how much to the so called 'community centers, better housing etc. How many of these came about because of the pressure of the father? and how many because of USAID etc? where is the funding for each coming from?
Given their history, surely you can understand why we would be skeptical that spending $5k to build a church in a batay is nothing more than lipservice from the slave owners to their slaves?
Now you can return to debating this issue based on feelings, wild imaginations, much exaggeration from Hartley and plain old ignorance/false assumptions.
I guess what was good for the goose is good for the gander? Because your presentation of the facts was nothing more than apologist pulp and hand waving and false representations. How you sleep at night is beyond me. Perhaps you work for a Vicini company, or perhaps you're just so fundamentally racist that you think slavery is okay so long as the victims are Haitians. Shrug. Whatever.
Have a nice day.
