Dominican victims of official racist policy are increasing: DGM henchmen beat a member of the PN because he is black.
The racist orientation that the henchmen of the Directorate General of Migration (DGM) receive to detain any black person they encounter during their raids has resulted in frequent attacks against Haitians in recent years, generating a climate of terror reminiscent of the era of the dictatorships of Balaguer and Trujillo. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of Haitian victims of this policy, there was also a proliferation of black Dominican victims, attacked because they “looked Haitian.” Ironically, one of the recent victims of this policy of the right-wing PRM government is a member of the repressive forces, National Police Sergeant Onessy Solís Contreras, who was brutally beaten by DGM agents on Monday April 15 in the city of Santiago. The sergeant, injured in the head, arm and side, filed a complaint with the Santiago Courthouse against the DGM. He explained that at eight in the morning, he was attacked with shovels by members of the DGM even though he had warned them that he was a police officer.
The racist attack sparked widespread rejection and opened contradictions in the ranks of the government. While the DGM itself attempted to justify the actions of its agents, alleging that the victim had not identified himself, President Abinader acknowledged that these incidents were a consequence of the expulsions carried out by the current government compared to those carried out by previous governments and said that to avoid “such incidents” they would organize “additional training courses for DGM members”. The reality is that the government is integrating an increasing number of military and police agents into DGM operations without the slightest professional preparation in immigration matters; the only priority is to increase the number of immigration detentions at all costs. Media outlets like Diario Libre and Acento, whose editorial lines are favorable to the government, admit that Sergeant Solís Contreras was attacked because DGM agents “mistaken” him for a Haitian citizen. This shows once again that the DGM attacks people based on racial profiling, a blatantly illegal and unconstitutional protocol that nullifies the presumption of innocence and institutionalizes racial discrimination. In other words, any black person is suspected and can be beaten, even though Dominican law prohibits torture and physical violence. This policy reinforces the apartheid elements of the Dominican political regime.
In the area of Santiago where Solís Contreras was attacked, traders denounce that Haitian workers are frequently extorted by DGM henchmen, who charge them 7 thousand pesos to allow them to travel and sexual abuse by the henchmen has occurred. even been reported, according to a press article.
There are numerous cases of violent attacks by the DGM against black Dominicans. On March 15, a brutal hunt by the DGM in the communities of El Seibo left dozens of people arbitrarily detained, both Haitian and Dominican, after a series of illegal raids on homes. On November 16, 2023, DGM agents attacked Dominican law student José Antonio Medina on Rómulo Betancourt Avenue in the capital. Medina said the attackers claimed, without proof, that his Dominican ID card was fake when they punched him in the nose. The injury required emergency surgery. When he tried to file a formal complaint about the attack, the authorities refused to entertain it. In September 2023, Dominican Cristina Martínez was kidnapped by DGM agents. Martínez was sent to the border with Haiti, disappeared for several weeks and was raped. In June 2023, the army brutally beat Dominican lawyer Fausto Taveras in Mao, after he fell victim to the repressors’ racial classification. Regarding this case, the Dominican Association of Lawyers rejected the fact that citizens are “mistreated because of the color of their skin, whether national or foreign.” On June 24, 2022, the DGM carried out an illegal raid against a Haitian gourmet restaurant in Santiago, arbitrarily arresting 21 people, including Haitians with their identity papers in order, two Americans and a Dominican of Haitian origin, with their papers Dominican identity. They simply detained every black person they found there. In December 2021, also in the National District, another attack was reported by the racist repressors of the DGM against a young black Dominican who was traveling on Avenue 27 de Febrero, near the intersection with Churchill Avenue.
While the racist PRM government attempts to justify its thousands of arbitrary arrests of black people in the country’s cities and countryside, by alleging that these serious human rights violations constitute a supposed defense of sovereignty and national security, this policy actually involved the suspension of constitutional guarantees and the imposition of a state of exception, in the opinion of social and political organizations in the Dominican Republic. The government has rejected all complaints about its human rights violations, including those signed by national and international organizations, such as a recent open letter promoted by Amnesty International. Even following a human rights report containing some criticism of the Dominican government carried out by the US government, which is also a close political ally of Abinader, representatives of the Duartiano Institute, an institution of State, demanded the application of the sentence of 30 years of forced labor against Dominicans whose complaints of human rights violations are included in international reports. This shows how, through the racist policies of the government, gross attacks on democratic freedoms are creeping in and the neo-fascist and neo-Trujillo danger is increasing.
In this context of illegal and racist violence on the part of the government, President Abinader assured that racism has never existed in the country, while Foreign Minister Roberto Álvarez went even further, affirming that it There was never slavery in the colonial city of Santo Domingo, despite the fact that it was the first enslaved labor colony in the Caribbean, which is why the vast majority of the Dominican population is of African. This denialist and neo-Trujillo discourse ignores the milestones of official racism of the last century, such as the 1937 massacre and the unconstitutional decision 168-13. As these historical experiences have demonstrated, the victims of Dominican state racism are not only Haitians, but often also working-class black Dominicans.
Socialist Workers Movement of the Dominican Republic
24 Avril 2024
