The Black line

Dates

2017 - Ongoing
Author

Annalisa Natali Murri
Topics Social Issues, Contemporary Issues, Documentary
Location Haiti, Haiti
Recognition

Main Prize Honourable Mentions - PhMuseum 2017 Women Photographers Grant

The Black Line. Eighty years after the infamous "parsley massacre" of October 1937, the shadow of injustice, stigmatization and violation of human rights still marks the border between Haiti and Dominican Republic.

Haiti and Dominican Republic are divided by 360 km of borders, 55 of which are made up of the River Massacre, in the northern region of Hispaniola.

In October 1937 its waters turned red as blood, when Rafael L. Trujillo- dictator of the DR- led one of the most infamous events in the story of the island, known as the “parsley massacre”. In a few days up to 30000 Haitians were massacred along the river by Dominican military forces and conscripted civilians with the alleged excuse that a supposed Haitian "invasion" could have posed a serious threat to Dominican society and its racial integrity.

The slaughter, which owes its name to the Spanish word “perejil” (a word that Creole speaking Haitians fail to pronounce and that was used by Dominican soldiers to recognize their victims by asking them to identify a spring of parsley), has irrevocably widened the rift between the two countries and, as a long-term effect, has radicalized a deep anti-Haitian sentiment in the whole DR, which in turn resulted in episodes of violence against Haitians.

Immigrants from Haiti have been crossing the border for more than 100 years in search of a life opportunity as sugarcane or farm laborers, while the Dominican government never stopped to pursue actions of forced repatriations and a permanent policy of stigmatization against their darker-skinned neighbors.

In 2013 a court ruled that people born in the DR of undocumented migrants, from 1929 onwards, had never been entitled to Dominican citizenship and should be deprived of it, giving way to countless cases of abuses against Haitians, as illegal expulsions, denial of identity documents and arbitrary deprivation of nationality.

Even though a regularization act was subsequently issued to mitigate the discriminatory effects of that sentence, this recent kind of violence towards Haiti and its blackness represented a sort of legal ethnic cleansing, replicating by judicial instruments what in the past has been done with machetes.

© Annalisa Natali Murri - Image from the The Black line photography project

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Mr. Telibert in his office in Ouanaminthe, Haiti. Telibert is president of OTHR (Association for Repatriated Haitian Workers), a small humanitarian organization based on the work of few volunteers which sustains and and cares for Haitian families expelled from Dominican Republic. The association was able to set up a dedicated area in the border city of Ouanaminthe with hundreds of houses to allocate the repatriated families.

© Annalisa Natali Murri - Image from the The Black line photography project

© Annalisa Natali Murri - Image from the The Black line photography project

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Two people waiting in the clearing in front of the old crossing point, along the banks of the river Massacre. Twice a week, in the afternoons before market days, Haitians coming from all over the country start to gather in small groups in the city park and near the old river bridge looking for ways to blend in the throng of Haitians who will cross the border into Dajabon the next morning for the market. They usually rely on the help of smugglers, who every day take people across secretly in the night or even in plain sight of the border authorities for a fee.

© Annalisa Natali Murri - A young boy hidden among the vegetation on the banks of the river Massacre.

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A young boy hidden among the vegetation on the banks of the river Massacre.

© Annalisa Natali Murri - Image from the The Black line photography project

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The interior of one of the small houses which accomodate hundreds of families of repatriated Haitians in Village des Oliviers, in the border city of Ouanaminthe. It is estimated that there are about 2000 people living in the area, including both people forcedly deported and those who left DR voluntarily for unbearable harassments, intimidations and racial discrimination.

© Annalisa Natali Murri - Image from the The Black line photography project

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An official document as a birth certificate generally allowed Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descend to be registered as Dominican nationals in the civil registries. The Naturalization and Regularization plan launched in 2013 gave migrants who were born outside the Dominican Republic a 2-years period to register for legal resident status through a process that will finally end, after many deadline extensions, on June 2018. More than 288000 people, almost entirely Haitians, have applied, but many lacked documents to prove their country of origin. Those who are deemed ineligible could be deported, the Dominican government still maintaining the right to define its deportation policy.

© Annalisa Natali Murri - Image from the The Black line photography project

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A pool of blood wetting the asphalt of the bridge over the Massacre River. It is not uncommon to attend episodes of violence often perpetrated by the military forces presiding over the border.

© Annalisa Natali Murri - Image from the The Black line photography project

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The former checkpoint on the dismissed bridge over the river Massacre dividing the two cities of Ouanaminthe and Dajabon, on the Haitian and Dominican side respectively. The passage, although is not officially used as a crossing point anymore, is one of the most busy sites for illegal crossings, especially when darkness falls.

© Annalisa Natali Murri - Image from the The Black line photography project

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Vanise has been working in Dominican Republic as a street vendor until 1991, when she voluntarily came back to Haiti after that her husband was killed. Since then she lives with her childrens in the small house in Village des Oliviers that OTHR assigned them.

© Annalisa Natali Murri - Image from the The Black line photography project

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A spring of parsley recalling the brutal “massacre of perejil”, during which up to 30000 Haitians were murdered by Trujillo’s army just because of their darker skin colour. The killings were carried out simply on the basis of a linguistic test, used to distinguish between Haitians and Dominicans. Since the Spanish “r” is difficult to pronounce in Haitian Kreyol, the victims were just asked to repeat the word perejil (parsely) to mark their insider (Dominican) or outsider (Haitian) status, and if they didn’t succeeded, they were executed.

© Annalisa Natali Murri - Image from the The Black line photography project

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Two siblings sleeping on the floor of their grandma’s shak in Village des Oliviers. Although the living conditions and opportunities in Haitian villages may be significantly worst than in Dominican bateyes, a large number of Haitians formely working in dominican cane fields decided to voluntarily leave to come back to their homeland owing to the excessive risk of violence, stigmatization and abuses perpetrated by many Dominicans.

© Annalisa Natali Murri - Image from the The Black line photography project

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A scar marking the body of Joanna, a woman who has been working in Santiago, DR as a street vendor for several year. The woman reports she was beaten by a group of Dominicans in the batey where she was living without no reasons, so decided to move back to Haiti fearing a worsening of the situation. “Eventhough there is no work here and we struggle to make our living- she says- this is our land, and these is our people, we can feel safe here”. Some friends of Joanna report they have been directly attacked by Dominican hustlers and bandits even if they had their visa and ID, and have been forced to leave all their belongings and flee immediately. Others, without documents, were taken forcedly, crammed on a truck and brought to the border, while their homes and their belongings were destroyed, to make sure they didn’t have anything to come back for.

© Annalisa Natali Murri - Image from the The Black line photography project

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Jean Rosevald, 60 y.o., has worked his whole life as a “cañero”, a sugar cane cutter in the batey Naranjo, a few tens of km from Santo Domingo. A work accident made him loose one of his eyes but- he says- the sugar company didn’t recognize him any refund nor helped him with medical care. At present the people living there and in most of the other bateyes remaining in the country are no longer working in cane fields, as most of the plantations have been abandoned or sold to multinational corporations. Most of the Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent owing valid documents, although sometimes struggling to find a job and an income, are still living in these clusters, separated from urban areas and other Dominican villages. Jean is still waiting to receive his ‘cedula’, the Dominican ID.

© Annalisa Natali Murri - Image from the The Black line photography project

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The open landfill crossed by the path that leads to the dismissed checkpoint over the river Massacre, where people gather and wait for the night to come in order to cros the border illegally. The light on the Dominican former check point shines among the trees and is always visible from the front.

© Annalisa Natali Murri - Image from the The Black line photography project

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A young girl, daughter of two deported Haitian parents, standing in the shadow in the building that OTHR uses as a temporary accommodation for recently repatriated families. Families that cross the border from Dajabon and don’t have any place to go to in Haiti are hosted here for a few days, while the organization tries to find them a permanent house in Village des Oliviers.

© Annalisa Natali Murri - Image from the The Black line photography project

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Marilia is a widow living in Village des Oliviers with her 5 children and grandchildren. She used to harvest tomatoes in Dominican Republic, while her husband worked there as a sugar cane cutter. She moved back to Haiti on January 21012 with her husband, already ill, as ill-treatment against Haitians were no longer bearable and they were afraid that something would happen to them.

© Annalisa Natali Murri - Image from the The Black line photography project

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A page of the handwritten copybook that Mr. Telibert, president of OTHR, uses as a register of all the repatriated people housed at Village des Oliviers. There he personally keeps memory of everything since he and his organization started to care for repatriated families in 1988. Since 1991, when the massive deportation began, the organization struggles to find the funds necessary to help the deportees, as there is no widespread aid distribution from the government, which in turn is unable to handle the situation of these thousands of deportees sent back from DR.

© Annalisa Natali Murri - An haitian family hosted in Vllage des Oliviers during a visit of OTHR volunteers.

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An haitian family hosted in Vllage des Oliviers during a visit of OTHR volunteers.

© Annalisa Natali Murri - Image from the The Black line photography project

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A group of girls bypassing the bland barbed wire that marks the border between Haiti and Dominican Republic, along the river Massacre embankments, to avoid the checkpoint. Although illegal, this solution is adopted by hundreds of Haitians twice a week during the opening of the Haitian/Dominican border market, under the gaze of connivant guards.

© Annalisa Natali Murri - Image from the The Black line photography project

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Asene lives alone in his house in Batey Naranjo, one of the many Haitians enclaves in Dominican Republic. He came from St. Michel, Haiti, in 1981 when he was in his 30s and worked as a sugar cane cutter until 2000. Then he turned to agricultural labor when the company he was working for closed its activity in that area. He took advantage of the Naturalization Program decreed in 2014 and now owns a regular cedula, thanks to the support of the activist Jesus Nuñez, who helped hundreds of Haitians in the same conditions to get their regular documents. In June 2018 the extended deadline given for the registration will finally expire, and still no one knows what will happen to unregistered migrants after that.