Dennis Minott | When Haiti knocked, Jamaica barred the door

Once again, the Jamaican government — under the leadership of the Holness/Chang and Jamaica Labour Party — has turned away desperate Haitian refugees. This time, 42 souls: children, women, and men, including an expectant mother.

Their sailboat landed in Ross Craig, Portland — historically a region of Haitian landing and Jamaican hospitality. Yet, within hours, they were rounded up and forcibly returned to the very horror they had risked death to flee. Their boat was incinerated. No asylum hearing. No due process. No humanity.

Our government justifies this with appeals to sovereignty, security, and protocol. But sovereignty without compassion is tyranny. Security without mercy is cowardice. And legal procedure that overrides justice is oppression in a powdered wig.

The shame is not only moral — it is historical. In barring the Haitian refugee, Jamaica has turned its back not just on neighbours, but on kin. In doing so, we trample the memory of Haiti’s enormous contribution to black liberation and Caribbean dignity.

REPUBLIC THAT LIT THE TORCH

In 1804, Haiti became the first free black republic in the Western Hemisphere. It did so by defeating Napoleon’s army — the most formidable force of its time. Led by Toussaint Louverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and Henri Christophe, formerly enslaved Africans shattered the myth of white supremacy and built a nation on the bones of an empire. Haiti’s revolution ended French slavery, not just in Haiti, but inspired uprisings across the Americas — from Brazil to Belize.

Let it never be forgotten: Haiti gave sanctuary and military support to Simón Bolívar, liberator of much of South America, on the condition that he abolish slavery in the lands he freed. And he did. Had Haiti not intervened, Bolívar might have remained a romantic exile, and slavery might have endured longer across the southern continent.

Nor should we forget that Haiti’s example lit fires of rebellion in Jamaica. Tacky’s War in 1760 predated Haiti’s revolution, yes — but later, revolts like the Baptist War of 1831 drew strength from Haiti’s triumph. Our Maroons, too, had clandestine ties with Haitian revolutionaries.

This is no sentimental history. It is spiritual kinship and ancestral debt. The very idea of a liberated Jamaica owes much to Haiti’s courage and cost. To forget this is to forget ourselves. To deport their children is to deport our own soul.

A NATION PUNISHED FOR ITS COURAGE

Why is Haiti in collapse today? Not from moral failing, but from centuries of punishment — for the audacity of freedom.

After independence, France demanded reparations for lost “property” — enslaved Haitians themselves. Under threat of invasion, Haiti paid 150 million gold francs — equivalent to US$ 92,095,464,000 today (2025) — beginning in 1825 and continuing until 1947. These payments bankrupted Haiti. The US and other Western powers refused to recognise Haiti diplomatically for decades, fearing it would inspire slave revolts in their own territories.

In the 20th century, the US occupied Haiti (1915–1934), installed puppet regimes, and backed the Duvalier dictatorships. More recently, the UN’s role has been disastrous. UN peacekeepers introduced cholera in 2010 — killing over 11,000 Haitians. After that year’s catastrophic earthquake, billions in pledged aid were mismanaged or never delivered. Then came the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, followed by a power vacuum — and now, gang-controlled anarchy.

Let no one say Haiti failed alone. Haiti was failed — systematically, internationally, and deliberately.

And still, they come — seeking not conquest, but sanctuary. Seeking what Jamaicans themselves have long sought from Colon to Toronto: a chance to live. And how do we respond? With troops’ boots and deportation orders.

LEGAL AND ETHICAL TRAVESTY

Jamaica is signatory to multiple human rights treaties, including the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol. These prohibit refoulement — the forcible return of people to places where their life or freedom would be threatened. International law demands individual hearings. Instead, we offer collective punishment.

Human rights groups like Freedom Imaginaries have exposed the stealth of these deportations — conducted “under cover of darkness”, with no legal aid, no medical triage, no translators, no child protection. As Malene Alleyne has warned, the government’s approach seems designed not to help Haitians — but to scare others from coming.

This is not neutrality. It is hostility.

It is also hypocrisy. Jamaicans have sought asylum in the US, Canada, the UK, even Cuba and Haiti. We have overstayed. We have begged for mercy. And, often, we have received it. Should we now deny that same grace to those whose suffering is greater?

Have we forgotten our grandmother’s table, where the hungry were fed? The village shop where credit was extended to the desperate? The principle of Ubuntu — “I am because you are”?

CARIBBEAN SOLIDARITY OR BETRAYAL?

Portland once welcomed Haitian exiles. And Cubans. And Dominicans. Jamaica has long harboured revolutionaries, thinkers, and the politically persecuted. In doing so, we built a proud legacy of hospitality.

Where now is the CARICOM spirit? Where is the Caribbean Court of Justice? Where is the OECS, the ACS, the CSME — all those acronyms that ring hollow when a Haitian child is turned back to a war zone?

Jamaica is not overrun. We are not without resources. Churches, universities, service clubs, even parish councils, could be mobilised to help. The UNHCR and IOM could help us screen and resettle refugees in manageable numbers. A dozen families here. Two dozen there. We are not helpless. We are merely heartless.

SILENCE OF OUR LEADERS AND INSTITUTIONS

Where are the pastors who once thundered from pulpits against apartheid? Where are the journalists who once exposed injustice with courage? Where are the members of parliament who claim to speak for “the people”?

Why has the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, charged with human welfare, remained mute? Why is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs silent as our nation violates basic Caribbean values?

Jamaica’s greatness never rested on GDP or tourist arrivals. It rested on how we treated the vulnerable. That standard now lies in ruins.

NOT IN OUR NAME

Let it be said plainly, like Portland’s salt air: not all Jamaicans support this betrayal. Some of us remember that we, too, were once hunted, once stateless, once shackled.

Some of us believe that, when Nanny sheltered the fleeing, when Paul Bogle marched for the voiceless, and when Sam Sharpe chose martyrdom over injustice — they did so not for us alone, but for every oppressed soul-seeking sanctuary.

Some of us still honour Haiti — not as a failed state, but as the first to declare “liberty or death” and mean it.

And when the history of this Caribbean century is written, let it not be said that Jamaica forgot who first lit the torch.

Let it not be said that, when Haitians come knocking, Jamaicans slam the doors.

Dennis Minott, PhD, is the CEO of A-QuEST-FAIR. He is a multilingual green resources specialist, a research physicist, and a modest mathematician who worked in the oil and energy sector. Send feedback to a_quest57@yahoo.com or columns@gleanerjm.com