Sonia Pierre received the 2006 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award for her work in protecting the rights of Haitian immigrants and their descendants in the Dominican Republic. The award was presented by Ethel Kennedy in a ceremony held yesterday, November 17th, hosted by Senator Edward Kennedy at the Caucus Room of the U.S. Senate.

About the award:

The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award was established in 1984 to honor creative individuals from around the world who have dedicated their lives to overcoming serious human rights violations. The RFK Memorial Center for Human Rights will engage in a partnership with Sonia to help her achieve her goals of legal equality for Haitians immigrants and their descendants in the Dominican Republic. (Source: Robert F. Kennedy Memorial (http://www.rfkmemorial.org/).

About Sonia. She is the Director of the Movement of Dominican Women of Haitian Descent (MUDHA), which has been described as:

"the Dominican Republic's leading organization fighting discrimination, violent mass expulsions and the denial of citizenship and human rights to Dominicans of Haitian descent and human rights abuses against Haitian immigrants." (Source: Robert F. Kennedy Memorial (http://www.rfkmemorial.org/).

Diario Libre, has published a biased report dealing with Christopher Hartley's departure from the Dominican Republic, calling it the end of an era of conflicts between pro-haitians and  groups defined as nationalists.

The piece is written by Leoncio Comprés who tells of Hartley's departure and reminds the reader of the already sour departure of another human rights defender Pedro Ruquoy- who was 'reassigned' to Zambia, a country of south-central Africa, after a showdown with several government authorities.

Meanwhile, another source -Clave Digital- reports that 25 houses were destroyed by fire at Batey Bayona -one of the poorest sectors of Santo Domingo- which is mostly inhabited by Haitian sugarcane cutters and their descendants, resulting in the death of two children.

This same source tells that authorities have not rendered any comments yet, while locals call the tragedy an arson.

Contrary to what Leoncio Comprés -from Diario Libre- thinks, conflicts are far from over. Thus, Hartley and Ruquoy may be gone, but other human rights defenders shall emerge and go on.

On the months to come, some will try to change the Dominican Constitution to further advance the arbitrary denationalization of Dominican children of Haitian origin.

Those people will try to gain support and further promote bystander apathy.

Let's pay attention to their actions and omissions and give them something extra to worry about.

We shall not stop. We shall not let hostile government authorities and ultranationalists leaders have their way with the vulnerable... We shall not let them have their way with us.

Unconfirmed sources report the departure of Christopher Hartley from Dominican territory.

Hartley is a Roman-Catholic priest and a human rights defender who had been working in the San José de los Llanos parish to improve the health and human rights situation of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian origin.

His activities, albeit peaceful, had caused foul reactions from several key-figures of Dominican government, the conservative religious leader Nicolás de Jesús Cardinal López Rodríguez and influential interest groups.

Repeatedly, Hartley's foes pressed to terminate his human rights activism, try his deportation from Dominican soil, or otherwise induce the loss of support, revocation or non-renewal of his missionary work by his religious order to force his departure.

It all seems to be done.

Two suggestions:

1. Take a minute to think about Gandhi, and his non-violent civil disobedience; learn about the people it has inspired and how they have coped with it.

2. Take some time off to learn about basic human rights concepts and instruments; then get together with other people working on the same.

 

 

 

I am in no rush to post on the topic of the Dominican President visiting Haiti; would rather wait until I get more information from a couple of sources. 

However, I do wonder... will they be talking about Pedro Ruquoy? How about the situation of Human Rights defenders of Haitians and people of Haitian origin born in the Dominican Republic?