This Monday Robert F. Kennedy would have celebrated his 81st birthday. While he may have left this world before his work was done, his life and words continue to intrigue and inspire new generations in this country and around the world.
I had the pleasure of meeting one shining example of this phenomenon, Sonia Pierre of the Dominican Republic (check out this AP story about Sonia's journey rising from the poverty stricken migrant worker camps of the D.R. to leading a vibrant social movement) who I met this week while she was in Washington, DC receiving the RFK Human Rights Award from the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial. In her struggle for the equality of the Dominican Republic's ethnic Haitian community, both Dominican of Haitian descent and Haitian immigrants, Sonia has drawn from the experience of RFK. In her country, Dominicans of Haitian descent, like herself, are denied their rights as citizens; to go to school, to vote, to marry, to even have a legal identity. Just about every right we hold dear is out of reach for Dominicans of Haitian descent.
Those who strive for social justice and human rights in this country and abroad could learn not only from RFK's words but Sonia's enduring story of moral courage.
Remarks by Sonia Pierre, director of the Movement of Dominican Women of Haitian Descent upon receiving the 2006 RFK Human Rights Award (Nov. 17) :
I find inspiration in the life of Robert F. Kennedy because I believe that our efforts and his are part of the same fight for equality and justice.
He lived during a time when United States authorities denied the African-American community their fundamental rights: the right to education, to vote, to property. He witnessed the violence that discrimination and racism provoke: lynchings, assassinations and political repression. In spite of political difficulties, he used all the means available to him to create change. He refused to negotiate with the rights of the people and confronted the legacy of slavery, demanding respect for civil rights.
Like Robert Kennedy, I live in a time of racism, discrimination and violence. The community to which I belong, that of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent, is among the poorest and most vulnerable and is subject to the cruelest denial of its basic rights.
In my country, Dominican children of Haitian descent suffer discrimination from the moment they are born. The Dominican Constitution establishes that all who are born in the Dominican Republic are Dominicans. However, the authorities refuse to issue birth certificates to the children of Haitian immigrants born in the country.
The lack of this document that legally establishes their Dominican citizenship, keeps thousands of children in a legal limbo, impeding their access to education and health services, as well as to physical and emotional security. In addition, they are permanently at risk of being expelled from the land where they were born.
In my country, my community is victim of violence and repression expressed in different ways, among which are the massive round ups and expulsions to Haiti, during which families are split and women and children are subject to sexual violence by military personnel in charge of immigration. This year, according to data from the Migration Office more than 25,000 persons have been illegally and arbitrarily expelled to Haiti.
Racism, discrimination and anti-Haitian sentiments have developed in such a way that Haitian communities have been attacked by violent groups. Last summer, the national media informed of tens of attacks and assassinations, which included five persons who were burned alive. It is disheartening that government authorities and the police remain indifferent to these acts, and do not conduct the appropriate investigations to find and punish the culprits.
Last year the Inter American Court of Human Rights, (the regional human rights court for the Organization of American States) ruled a case presented by MUDHA, CEJIL and the University of California, Berkeley on behalf of two Dominican girls of Haitian descent Dilcia Jean and Violeta Bosico who had been denied their birth certificates by the Dominican government. This sentence ordered the Dominican government to change its discriminatory system of birth registration and to open the schools to all children, independent of their legal status. The sentence of the Inter American Court of Human Rights is mandatory and sets a precedent. However the Dominican government refuses to implement the Court's decision in the same way that it refuses to observe the Dominican Constitution.
This situation reminds me of Mr. Kennedy's statement regarding the Supreme Court's decision in the Brown vs. Board of Education case. He said:
"I happen to believe that the 1954 decision was right. But my belief does not matter -it is the law. Some of you may think that the decision was wrong. That does not matter. It is the law."
We have started a campaign to compel the Dominican government to implement the Inter American Court on Human Rights decision thus opening a new chapter in Dominican history one characterized by respect for human rights.
During this journey of hopes and despairs, joys and sorrows, dreams and realities, I'm accompanied by people who believe in our fight. That is why I consider this award not only an acknowledgement of my fight, but of the fight of all who believe in the dignity of human beings.
This recognition has the face of Dilcia Jean and Violeta Bosico, the two Dominican girls of Haitian descent to whom, despite the Inter American Court on Human Rights decision in their favor, the Dominican Republic still denies their right to a name and a nationality. They personify and represent the situation of thousands of children and adolescents who because of their ancestry do not have access to one of their fundamental rights- the right to a nationality-, living in the cruelest situation of exclusion, discrimination and humiliation...
This award also belongs to my adversaries, from the purist intellectuals who search in the most profound knowledge arguments to justify their discriminatory attitude and at the same time silence the impurity of their conscience, to the most primal ones who cannot hide their hatred and rancor. Their arguments and constant anger do not cause us to wane. On the contrary, they inspire and fortify us, by showing us the way that is opposite to them, with no hatred or rancor, showing us what we should do.
In closing I think we should reflect on the word's of Robert F. Kennedy
"When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color ...when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered."