Juin 24, 2015
Someone once said 8 dead people is a disaster, while 6,000,000 is a compost heap. The human mind cannot wrap itself around big numbers, but comprehends something they can visualize as happening in their own community.
So it is with the Dominican Republic’s Draconian decision to effectively carry out a Racial Cleansing – of some 300,000 people – with the full cooperation, and complicity of Haitian President Michel Martelly, and his cousin, an active member of the DR’s secret service, the ex-Prime Minister of Haiti.
If the DR had its way they would insert Bellerive as Haiti’s next President.
Martelly and Bellerive have become rich from their criminal relationship with the Dominican Republic, while Clarise and 299,999 others lose what little they possessed.
But these are all events beyond the experience of Clarise and her two small children. Her great-great grandparents were born in the DR. Their parents had come, during the twenties, to labor under slave-like conditions of Dominican sugar cane fields.
Once again, so we understand the reality, Clarise’s great-great grandparents were born and lived their entire lives in the DR, as has Clarise, and her two tiny children. She speaks only Spanish – no Creole, the language of Haiti.
God would say that she is Dominican, but the Catholic Archbishop says she isn’t, as does the Dominican government.
She has no known relatives in Haiti.
She has no possessions having been grabbed, off the streets, and loaded in a bus.
Her family’s world is now a flattened cardboard box and – perhaps today – some food, handed out from a travelling kitchen.
Forget tomorrow.
Forget next week or next month.
What about tonight, if it rains?
Colds, pneumonia with no medical care available, in Haiti, at the best of times – and these are the worst of times.
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