DR: French racism helped to make Haiti what it is

A Dominicano historian attempts to explain how Haiti has got to where it is today.

Historian Jacinto Gimbernard Pellerano writes in Hoy today on the cultural differences between Haitians and Dominicans that dictate the way both countries have handled their problems. In the Dominican Republic, he explains, there was a mingling between the Africans and Spanish colonizers (the Indian population, though, was decimated or in hiding). This ethnic interconnection led to a beneficial equilibrium. In Haiti, however, the intermarriage and cohabitation did not occur. From the cruelties of the French colonizers, the population went on to suffer even more at the hands of the Creole governors. "The moving coffins that transported the blacks from Africa would deliver them to the hell of the plantations - the same hell that exists today - in a land where devastating farming systems have been used for centuries. Gimbernard says that solutions cannot be imposed from abroad, as he looks into the many times foreigners have intervened in Haiti. Despite these interventions, chaos continues today. "The big nations, or the so-called friends of Haiti, understand that the simplest solution is for the Dominican Republic to absorb the Haitian drama, by letting the human deluge in. But he fears that they would burn our lands and steal from us the result of our peaceful interracial fusion that took years and that has produced the richness of the Dominican mulatto race. Gimbernard says that Haiti has to resolve its chaos on its own territory, "where a healing balsam must be spread of nutrition and education, of comprehension of the results of a tragic history." The writer goes on to say: "Haiti is poor. It has been made poor, for reason or another. There is the drama of apathy that has drowned it and continues to pull the noose around its throat: even if the drug-trafficking trade shows its venomous teeth." He concludes with hopes that the dangers this time spur some good sense, fairness and prudence in international action.