28 Days of Black Liberation 2025 series
Following the victory of the Haitian Revolution, the entire island of Ayiti/Quisqueya was joined by Haitian efforts to stop once and for all European domination over the island, and the understanding that “fighting for the other was fighting for oneself” (Sophie Mariñez) was forged. Even as Haiti and the Dominican Republic separated as nations, Haitians remained a part of the joined struggles to kick out Spanish colonialists, to uproot the fascist dictatorships of Duvalier and Trujillo, and against US military invasion and the coup against Juan Bosch in the 1960s. Historically providing refuge, arms, supplies, and protection to each other, Haitians and Dominicans have faced division by the fascist, foreign backed interests of the Dominican elite and the imperialist interventions of the U.S. and Core Group.
Dr Jemima Pierre refers to Anti-Haitianism in the D.R. as a boogeyman used by the Dominican elite for poverty actually caused by harsh ineffective neoliberal policies and not migration. The Dominican elite are responsible for driving the low wage labor that Haitians are employed in, the racist violence against Haitians and other Africans in the D.R., and arming the U.S. Marine-trained and Neo-Nazi infiltrated Dominican police forces which harass and arbitrarily detain Haitians.
Trujillo, who orchestrated the genocidal Parsley Massacre of 1934, established a precedence of ethnic cleansing, promoting “whitening” projects inviting Europeans to join the D.R. while forcefully removing Haitians. It’s clear how the force of Trujillo’s fascism is by Abinader in the current day, who has restricted attempts to build Haitian canal infrastructure, repressed all pro-Haitian worker, solidarity, and left groups in the D.R., and ordered dehumanizing and deadly mass deportations of hundreds of thousands of Haitians.
What is repeatedly understated is the extent of U.S. intervention in creating ground for the Dominican oppression of Haitians. In the year 1959, months after the victory of the Cuba revolution, the Dominican Communist Party (PCD) launched a mass protracted uprising against (Batista supporting) Trujillo and his terror on the Haitian and Dominican people. “To prevent another Cuba” in the Caribbean, Lyndon Johnson sent 22,000 U.S. soldiers in 1965 to stall popular revolution and socialist growth afraid of a joined, liberated Haitian and Dominican people that would reject foreign capitalist interests.
It is through decades solidarity work that working class Haitians and Dominicans on the island and in the imperial core protest starvation wages, cruel illegitimate and deportations of Haitians from the D.R. and from the U.S., Abinader’s puppet regime, and the existence of the CORE group on Haiti. In October 2024, the Black Alliance for Peace, Rasanbleman Pou Ayiti, Cultured Company, Sisters in Struggle, and the Bronx Anti War Coalition came together on October 24th in a unified rally/speakout against the racist violence on Haitians.