Dominican-Haitian Tensions: Wag the Dog or Prelude to Genocide?

A decision that strips citizenship from over 200,000 Black Dominicans was passed by the Dominican Republic’s Constitutional Court on September 23, 2013. This highly flawed ruling designates at least four generations of DR-born individuals who descended from migrant Haitian laborers between 1929 and 2007, as being the offsprings of transients and therefore unqualified for citizenship. A careful account of the size and location of an ethnic group, followed by racist laws that announce a state’s persecution of this group, are a well-tested formula for genocide, especially in countries where a humanitarian emergency might distract the populations from their chronic misery and facilitate a pillage of gold and other minerals.