Human rights group says Duvalier sold Haitian “slaves” to Dominican Republic

Port-au-Prince.- . Haiti’s Refugee and Repatriate Support Group (GARR) yesterday requested a criminal trial against the ex dictator Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier for “having sold” Haitians laborers to the Dominican Republic.

“In the name of all the laborers who were sold as slaves for the exploitation of their sweat” in sugar cane production “in the Dominican cane plantation villages (colonized with laborers), the GARR demands justice and redress,” the organization said in a statement sent to the local press.

“The first scandal after the fall of Jean Claude Duvalier in 1986 was the claim by the Dominican Republic of two million dollars paid to Haitian officials for the contracting of laborers, just days before the end of the regime,” GARR said.

GARR also cites the thousands of boatpeople who left Haiti in rickety crafts and “were killed at sea in the coasts of Florida and the Bahamas to escape the dictatorship’s violence."

According to the GARR, Duvalier should also be held accountable for “all those who were exiled and couldn’t provide their youth or knowledge to benefit their country’s development."

The humanitarian group notes that “the systematic violations of civil and political rights of the Haitian people during many years prevented the citizens from remaining in Haiti and forced them to join the diaspora in several parts of the planet."

Duvalier arrived unannounced in Haiti on Sunday, after a 25 year exile in France, and has been accused of diverting funds capitals, judicial sources say, and for corruption and conspiracy, according a human rights defense source, while his lawyers deny such charges against the former dictator.

SOURCE: hoy.com.do