I happened to be in Dajabon this last Friday and woke up early [4:30], went for an hour run and was almost attacked by a dog. Anyway, up returning to the border area I spent the next hour and a half watching probably 1000 Haitians walking through the river to get to the Dominican side before the gates open at multiple locations. The Dominican miliary, plain clothes who knows who, and even a few Haitians were working with them. A sort of toll has been set up to extract money from those crossing. On occassion, rocks were thrown at some, sticks were used in very threatening way and sometime actually used on a Haitian and I even saw a Dominican in uniform put a rifle in the chest of a Haitian and take him behind some trees.
The new road over the river is supposed to be closed but you see people using it even later in the day. When I walked over there they got a little nervous with the gringo around and when I went back to the other locations, some uniform guys with clip boards showed up and I heard Americano a few times and decided it was time for me to leave.
This has been going on since I was in the Peace Corps in the late 80's and probably long before. It is a sad sight to witness. Maybe the UN troops shoud show up early one day and move around a little bit from the bridge.
Just wondered what might happen if you could get a video camera out there with night capabilities and document this. Everyone knows it is going on but noone seems to care enough or have the cojones to do anything about it.
Oh well, life in the DR.
The new road over the river is supposed to be closed but you see people using it even later in the day. When I walked over there they got a little nervous with the gringo around and when I went back to the other locations, some uniform guys with clip boards showed up and I heard Americano a few times and decided it was time for me to leave.
This has been going on since I was in the Peace Corps in the late 80's and probably long before. It is a sad sight to witness. Maybe the UN troops shoud show up early one day and move around a little bit from the bridge.
Just wondered what might happen if you could get a video camera out there with night capabilities and document this. Everyone knows it is going on but noone seems to care enough or have the cojones to do anything about it.
Oh well, life in the DR.