Educating the world about the Dominican Republic

Felipe Vicini head of VICINI GROUP don't like the Price of Sugar.

Nothing sweet about 'The Price of Sugar'

The documentary about Haitian cane workers in the Dominican Republic is stirring up lawmakers and lawyers.

In the documentary "The Price of Sugar" Haitian immigrants are featured living in medieval squalor and their barefoot children work next to elderly men, cutting sugar cane on Dominican plantations that supply U.S. households. Their remote shantytowns are enforced by barbed wire fences and patrolled by shotgun-wielding guards. There's little medical care and barely enough food to survive.

"There is no death worse than this," a worker named Jhonny Belizaire says in the film.

"The Price of Sugar," showed in L.A., isn't the first film to chronicle the plight of the Haitian immigrants in Dominican sugar cane fields. But its influence has been powerful and swift. Since its debut on the film festival circuit last March, the documentary has sparked interest from California's outspoken Haitian advocate Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), and Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) has requested a copy to screen for the House Human Rights Caucus. Meanwhile, the plantation-owning Vicini family tried to legally block the film's release and, when that didn't work, its Washington lawyers filed a slander suit, claiming the film misleads viewers and includes fabricated scenes.

Directed by Bill Haney, the film chronicles Catholic priest Father Christopher Hartley's dramatic battle to win basic rights for employees of the Vicini family. During the course of his campaign in the film, Hartley wins workers some small victories -- a few cinder-block homes with running water and a tiny pay raise for sugar cane cutters. He recruits American doctors to treat workers and establishes a kitchen to feed hundreds of immigrant children. In the film, Hartley even organizes a strike among the immigrants on 23 plantations, known as "bateyes." Foreign reporters begin to seek him out, and each dispatch muddies the Vicinis' reputation by bringing the Haitians' sad stories to the world.

But his efforts also provoke death threats and inspire nationalism from Dominicans and the nation's media who perceive Hartley's efforts as unfairly biased. They demand to know why Hartley helps illegal immigrants when the jobless Dominicans are themselves are so poor and needy*read comment below). Strangely, most Dominicans ignore the plantation owners' role. In one episode, machete-toting protestors, who the film asserts were paid by the Vicinis to force Hartley out, gather in the streets and threaten the priest. The film concludes with Hartley vowing never to leave…….…. "I always said there were only two ways they would get me out of there," Hartley said. "One was a bullet in my head, in a pine box. The other was that I was told to leave. I'm a Catholic priest. I was sent there by the church. The church, for whatever reasons, one day told me it's time to go. And I went home."

"All they wanted to tell me was that they were the victims, that when they went through the country people didn't look at them exactly the same way. The only conclusion I could come to was they'd do things to improve conditions . . . [not because] they had a change of mind, but that public relations obligated them to do it."

Hartley and Haney contend that there is no good reason for the workers to live such abysmal lives. The cost to Dominican plantation owners to improve conditions is negligible, the film notes, compared with the enormous profit the sugar barons reap from the American market.

Read the full article from LAtimes , that ends with…. Haney emphasized the fact that he met with the Vicinis during filming and offered them a chance to "say anything they wanted to say." They declined to be interviewed on camera, he said. As for their claims that he fabricated scenes or misled viewers, Haney stands by his film.

"We filmed north of 100 hours on 14 different trips," he said. "We sent cameramen to live in the bateyes for a week at a time. Some were Dominican cameramen. We interviewed 69 people on camera. We surveyed material from the New York Times, Paris Match and Univision to historic academic work. . . . Their objective, in my mind, is clearly to intimidate people into not showing the film or not seeing the film."

*This is utterly nonsense! Everybody knows that Dominican’s are not prepared to do this work themselves. Most hard work in the Dominican Republic is done by illegal immigrants from Haiti. Here is an article from Latin American Herald Tribune from October 29, 2010 confirming this:

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DAJABON, Dominican Republic – About 500 Haitians have been repatriated in the past few days after being caught crossing illegally into the Dominican Republic, the Cesfront border security force said.

The Haitians were arrested after being found hiding in the woods, houses, abandoned buildings and vacant lots in Dajabon, a city in the northwestern Dominican Republic, Cesfront said.

The migrants were turned over to immigration service officers in Dajabon for repatriation.

Haitians are doing everything possible to get into the Dominican Republic in the wake of a cholera outbreak in Haiti that has killed more than 300 people, reports in Dajabon say.

Marines and air force personnel were deployed along the border on Wednesday to bolster security, Cesfront said.

The governor of the Haitian border department of Fort Liberte, Renord Joseph, and other officials met with Dominican officials in Dajabon and agreed to cancel the bilateral market scheduled to be held on Friday.

Dominican officials estimate that around 1 million Haitians live in the country, most of them illegal immigrants who work in agriculture and construction.

The Dominican Republic and Haiti share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, with Haiti in the western portion. Though both countries are poor, Haiti is destitute, and Haitians cross the border to do work that many Dominicans will not do, such as harvesting sugar cane * click on link to see part of the movie The Price of Sugar and the horrible conditions for cane workers!

Haitians have been the target of mob violence numerous times in recent years, and the Dominican government has been widely criticized for its treatment of the migrants.

Source: Latin American Herald Tribune

READ THIS! American non-profit organization threatened with lawsuit over sugar documentary

Vicini Group and Felipe Vicini lost legal attack against Dominican Watchdog over domains used to inform American consumers about the slavery and child labor conditions in the Dominican sugar industry. Read verdict here:

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The Dominican Government and many local websites try to portray the Dominican Republic as a dream destination for holiday makers and investors, when in reality there is no consumer laws protecting them. Moreover too many tourists are getting killed and the entire country is full of corruption, fraud and drugs. Other serious problems are related to travel illnesses.

– Read more than 500 articles form Dominican Watchdog – The Uncensored Knowledge Center about the DR