Less Sweet: The Price of Sugar

Hello Haiti Solidarity BC list,

Three days ago, the documentary film The Price of Sugar received its premiere here in Vancouver. The screening was organized by Necessary Voices, a public interest group that sponsors public lectures and screenings, and Cinema Politica, a film collective with chapters in cities across Canada. One hundred people attended.

As others have written on the CHAN list, The Price of Sugar is a powerful documentary. It is narrated by Paul Newman and tells the story of the tens of thousands of workers from Haiti that toil in slave-like conditions on the sugar plantations of the Dominican Republic (DR). The film focuses on the conditions of life and work under the Vicini family, one of the three largest plantation owners
in the country.

The Vicinis are trying to block screenings of the film by threatening to sue anyone that shows it. The Vancouver Public Library received a threatening letter. After consideration, it decided to allow the organizing groups to go ahead with the screening.

The film depicts not only the wretched conditions of the plantation workers, but also their struggles to improve conditions. A courageous Catholic priest came into a leading role in their struggle. His name is Christopher Hartley, and much of the film's story is told through his eyes.

Hartley spearheaded efforts in recent years to bring health care and better housing to the workers in his parish. U.S. doctors who come to the parish to offer health care and who have worked in the poorest regions of the Americas tell the film that the conditions of Haitians in the sugar cane fields of the DR are the worst they have seen.

Hartley also played a leading role in a recent strike of workers to win better pay. Unfortunately, the film does not indicate the date of the strike and I searched in vain on the internet to locate this information. The strike won some gains for the workers.

Following the conclusion of the strike, the plantation owners launched a vicious campaign demanding that the government of the DR expel Hartley and one other priest from the country. The film shows inspiring footage of mobilizations by Haitian workers and their supporters among other residents of the DR to defend Hartley and to
hold onto the gains they had won. Meanwhile, Hartley's priest colleague was successfully forced out of the country.

According to one review of the movie that I read, Hartley has been reassigned by the church to Ethiopia. I don't know the story behind this reassignment. The film depicts Hartley's bishop as defending him in the face of violent threats by the Vicinis and their hirelings.

Elizabeth Abbot's Sugar: A Bittersweet History

An interesting parallel to the critical success of The Price of Sugar is the success of the recently-published Sugar: A Bittersweet History, by Elizabeth Abbot. She is a Research Associate at Trinity College, University of Toronto and has lived in Haiti. I have not read her book, but I understand that it closely examines the rise of
sugar as a food staple and as a foundation crop of the slave plantations of preceding centuries. Sugar was, of course, the most lucrative product of the slave-plantation system in Haiti.

Abbot has lived in Haiti. In 1988, she published, Haiti: The Duvaliers and Their Legacy. I have not read this book. Today, on March 17, she was interviewed for the third half-hour of CBC Radio's The Current. She spoke of same conditions in the Dominican Republic as are revealed in the film, The Price of Sugar (though the broadcast did not mention the film). She said that she spent eight days in the
DR researching the book. You can listen to the broadcast by going to:
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2008/200803/20080317.html

An interesting essay on the long history of exploitation of Haitians in the Dominican Republic, including a reminder of the terrible slaughter of thousands of Haitian workers by the DR military in 1937, can be found at:
http://www.windowsonhaiti.com/hdr-rmk2.shtml

Neither the interview with Abbot on CBC nor the discussion period following the screening of the Price of Sugar in Vancouver discussed what can be done to defend and improve the conditions of Haitian workers in the DR. Similarly, there was no discussion of the conditions in Haiti that compel tens of thousands of its citizens to travel to the DR, often under great personal danger, to seek work. But the appearance of these books and films opens the door for a broader public discussion of both subjects, provided, of course, that solidarity activists are organized to make this happen. To date, we are finding a particularly receptive ear in the trade unions and among young people.

The distributors of The Price of Sugar have contacted CHAN to invite us to promote and help distribute the film. We will forward more information as it becomes available.

Solidarity,

Haiti Solidarity BC
March 17, 2008