transportation workers and paralyzing a nation dependent on generators for much of its power.

I n 1790, Haiti’s enslavers saw the Declaration of t he Rights of Man (Article 1: “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights”) as a green light f or t heir i ndependence drive and for t heir demands for new trade relations t o increase their wealth. F ree and affluent bira-cial activists numbering almost 3 0,000 (slightly less t han the White population) started driving for t heir civil r ights. Close to half a mil-lion enslaved Africans, who were producing about half t he world’s sugar and coffee i n the most profitable European colony in the world, heard these curious cries f or r ights and liberty among the i sland’s f ree people. On August 22, 1791, enslaved Africans revolted, i nspired in more ways t han one by Vodou priest Dutty Boukman. They emerged as t he fourth faction in the civil war between White royalists, White independence seekers, and free biracial a ctivist

In 2006, an "International Tribunal" led by former-U.S. Attorney-General Ramsay Clark found the RCMP's Beer and Muir guilty of crimes against humanity -- but to no avail. HNP and their RCMP handlers have continued to operate with complete impunity.  

Private violence supplements government efforts. Reported Arian Terrill, a DR aid worker, many of those who “voluntarily” depart for Haiti “are actually leaving under harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence by the security forces and Dominican street gangs acting as plainclothes proxies.”

At the heart of the situation is an often-overlooked distinction between undocumented foreign workers who were recruited by the Dominican state or by companies, and those who crossed the border illegally and lack a valid visa. While every government has a sovereign right to document and count its foreign workers, in this case the process fails to distinguish between different categories of migrants: the unlawful and the undocumented.

On the beach, the women stick around to direct their cargo to waiting tap-tap trucks, bound for nearby storage depots that act as hubs for the small retailers across southern Haiti that sell peasants their soap and staples. Then they head home for some well-earned rest. The women are known as Madam Saras. They’re familiar figures in Haiti, named for migrant Sara birds that line the country’s trees in chattering groups. In a nation filled with broken infrastructure and stalled development schemes, where the “informal sector” makes up eighty-five per cent of trade, the Madam Saras are crucial cogs. They’re responsible for getting produce from Haiti’s rural farmers to its cities, and getting goods from across the border to all Haitians. The job is hard, “but a good living,”