Racist massacre in the Dominican pigmentocracy

An Australian-issued drivers license specifies your driving conditions, like wearing glasses and the vehicle classification permitted. A USA license will specify your gender, height, weight, eye and hair colour, as it doubles as an ID.

And in the Dominican Republic, the state will also classify your skin colour: white (blanco), light indigenous (indio claro), dark indigenous (indio oscuro), almost black (moreno) or black (negro).

Since Rafael Trujillo's dictatorship in the DR, skin colour has been used to define the nation against 'the other'; its only border is with Haiti, whose rural poor are 'black' and speak creole not Spanish. That means the first four skin colour categories are for Dominicans ... and the last likely means society will brand you as Haitian.

Perhaps no 'nation' is more imagined than the Dominican: two of the categories refer to indigenous Tainos who had died out — or been killed off — within 30 years of 'The Discovery' of the Americas by Columbus in 1492.

However, the terms were reintroduced and European immigration and eugenics encouraged during Trujillo's repressive regime to 'create' a predominantly mulatto people, superior to their 'black' neighbours. The majority of Dominicans fall into the three middle categories.

Understanding the Dominican 'pigmentocracy' is especially relevant now, on the 75th anniversary of the worst peace time human rights abuse of civilians in the Americas during the 20th century (28 September–4 October).

In 1937, Trujillo ordered the massacres of Haitians in DR border regions, to promote 'nationalism', assert sovereignty, and control specific strategic and economic resources. Figures are debated, but not the brutality: 10–20,000 men, women, elderly, children and babies were butchered with machetes, shot, or thrown to sharks.

The victims were identified by their skin colour, and then by their creole pronunciation; but historians have also shown victims from English colonies.

Yet although many massacred were Haitians working in the DR, many others were born there and legally were Dominicans. Racism was the primary mechanism in the massacres; all victims were equally 'black' to the vicious murderers, who were released from jail and directed by the military to kill.

The massacres are central to history and culture on both sides of the border. But they are not commemorated by Dominican state or society; instead they are justified by actual and perceived 19th century Haitian abuses. This needs to change, to redefine the 21st century bilateral relationship through acknowledgement of the past.

Positive signs exist, especially the humanitarian relief from Dominican state and society following the devastating 2010 earthquake that left over 200,000 dead in Haiti.

However, the history of violence still infuses current relations. Two months ago the DR fronted the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights over the massacre of six Haitian migrant workers who entered without documentation in 2000, and were shot on the back of a truck by the armed forces. State and societal racially based repression still occurs, and has led to responses by Haitians.

Due to societal concern over approximately 800,000 Haitians currently living in the DR, citizenship by birth was removed from the Constitution in 2010: two weeks after the earthquake. Furthermore, socioeconomic studies clearly correlate skin colour to education and economic attainment in the DR.

The 1937 massacres are an unhealed wound in Dominican-Haitian relations, and show how the pigmentocracy leads to human rights abuses. Their 25th anniversary occurred during political turmoil and repression following Trujillo's assassination. Their 50th anniversary occurred whilst Balaguer, Trujillo's right hand man, was still president, through a mixture of repression, electoral fraud and blatant vote buying.

Their 75th anniversary can be different: Danilo Medina, recently elected President of the Dominican Republic, has the opportunity to redefine the relationship. In last month's inaugural address, he expressed interest in pursuing a free trade deal to link the two countries that share an island, but otherwise did not mention Haiti. The new international norm is that free trade agreements include human rights discussions, which Medina can begin by honestly appraising the 1937 ethnic cleansing.

This is essential, because Haitian migrant workers past and present are the lifeblood of the Dominican economy: in agriculture, construction and tourism, their hard work for little pay has provided the DR with food security and economic development.

By doing so, the DR can also truly commence discussions on societal inequality due to its pigmentocracy. Danilo's campaign slogan was' to change what is bad, and do what has never been done before': what better chance than by healing the wound of racism to move forward as two countries arm in arm.

Jeremy Tarbox worked with the Combined Banana Program of the United Nations Development Program in the DR during 2011–12 as part of his Rotary World Peace Fellowship.