Boycott - Haiti Observer Blog

Daphne Campbell, a Florida politician, saw much support for her recent call to international businesses and tourists to boycott the Bahamas until they have repealed their new, highly controversial law that aims, as she describes it, to discriminate against Haitian children. Her latest such supporter is president of the Haitian Bahamian community Jetta Baptiste, who admitted to being in agreement with the proposed boycott one thousand percent.

While voicing her support for the boycott and the one-week ultimatum issued by the politician, Baptiste also spoke about the frustration of the community which is once again being cruelly handled by the Bahamas, as well as others of Haiti's neighbors. Baptiste argues that Haitians living in the Bahamas are being tugged into the political game of the government of the Bahamas, in which illegal migration is a huge topic. She puts forward that Florida will not long be the only State that will join in the boycott as Campbell, a Democratic Member of the House of Representatives for Florida, has written to the U.S. government about the situation, and she also has the backing of elected Cuban officials who have appealed to Florida's Governor Rick Scott and President Barack Obama.

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The government of Haiti (GOH) is maintaining a stance to avoid applying sanctions against the Dominican Republic (DR) for its High Court ruling to displace up to 250,000 Haitians of illegal immigrants. The DR is willfully withholding identity documents for Haitians born in the DR, retroactive to 1929.

The GOH delayed its response to the ruling, but has finally come forward to say it wishes to maintain close ties with the DR. However, CARICOM has suspended the DR's membership in the regional Caribbean body. CARICOM will consider reabsorbing the DR if a bi-lateral commission can resolve the issue of the deportation of Haitians. In response, the DR has refused to continue discussions with Haiti since their suspensation from CARICOM.

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Haitian activist Myrtha Desulme condemned the decision of Dominican Republic Constitutional Court ruling that stripped Dominican citizenship of Haitians who were born on Dominican soil after 1929. Dominican Republic and Haiti share the island of Hispaniola, in the Caribbean. Since the beginning of the twentieth century many Haitians crossed the border of Haiti to escape miserable poverty in homeland and work in the sugar cane plantation in Dominican Republic.

Myrtha said the decision of the Dominican court is racist and abominable, a crime against humanity. It will leave about 210,000 people stateless. Dominicans are now refusing to recognize their own citizens. As South Africa was boycotted during the apartheid era, Dominican Republic must be boycotted with same hatred. The whole global community should protest against the 23rd September ruling given in Santo Domingo, the capital city of Dominican Republic. We have to use the same blue print as was followed against South Africa until the Dominicans accept to come back to the norms of a civilized society.

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