Diplomat and university professor Jean G. Bissainthe wrote today in his column in Hoy newspaper about the long years of Dominican solidarity with Haitians. He comments that he frequently stops to talk to Haitian construction workers in Santo Domingo who tell him about the support they have received from Dominicans. “They confirm their well being here,” he says. “At least they can eat, a right that is denied to them in Haiti,” he writes. He comments there are those in Haiti who continue to harp on the DR enslaving Haitains and not respecting their human rights. He attributes this stereotype to the 1937 killing spree under dictator Trujillo and the living and working conditions of the Haitians who cut sugar cane. “One cannot under any circumstance accuse this country of not respecting human rights, when the countries share an island with unequal levels of poverty,” he explains. “It is childish to believe that the DR can resolve all the problems of its neighbors when the situation of illegal workers is due to the incapacity of the Haitian state to assume its responsibility,” he says. “The respect of men should start in Haiti where most of the poor, especially the farmers, survive under subhuman conditions, most without any legal identification papers,” he writes. He urged the Haitian government to assume its responsibility as a state. According to official Haitian government records, only about 1.5 million Haitians, out of a population of 8 million, have any kind of identification papers.
