At a forum entitled, “Bahamian-Haitian Crisis: Where are we now,” Urban Renewal Programme official Jewel Major said Haitians in The Mudd and Pigeon Pea areas could become violent in a year’s time.
“I think right now they have too much to lose. But in a year or so if the Haitian-Bahamians – ones who are born in The Bahamas – don’t see a way to quickly get their status instead of everything being up in the air, something could happen,” said Ms Major.
Hostility is mounting in the Haitian community because of confusion surrounding their immigration status, according to Ms Major, who heads the Urban Renewal team in Abaco.
“A lot of The Mudd and Peas residents have applications in and they have taken them to Immigration,” she said. “I’ve had a special meeting just for them and about 250 of [the residents] came out with their letters from Immigration.
“[Many] of the last letters of communication they got from Immigration was 5, 6, 7 years ago. Some have had their application in for 19 years and they are not quite sure what their status is.”
She added that this creates a “big problem” particularly for the young people who have been born here to Bahamian and Haitian parents.
“When they have turned 18 and want to be naturalized they put their application in,” she explained. “The young Haitian-Bahamians have to give up their travel documents, which means they have no form of identification. And this causes some problems.”
Ms Major said that for this reason, young, frustrated Haitian-Bahamians, were more likely to stage violent protests than the older generation.
She pointed out that she knew of five young shanty town residents who were fuelling the fires of hostility. “These young people were in trouble in the [United States] and were deported to Haiti,” said Ms Major. “They were upset because they thought they should have been deported to The Bahamas, which is their home.
“So they smuggled themselves back into The Bahamas,” she continued. “And those are the ones I can see inciting something because they know more. They’re saying [Haitian-Bahamians] have rights [and] should fight for them.”
When The Guardian visited Abaco earlier this year, anti-illegal immigrant activist, Jeff Cooper, claimed young men in the ghettos were smuggling weapons onto Abaco island.
“You wouldn’t believe the weapons these people are bringing on to this island,” he said. “Grenades, guns, they have it all. Many of them were soldiers in the Haitian army.”
Media reports have also indicated that some of Abaco’s stateless young men have targeted their aggression toward society, resulting in gangs such as the Mudd Dogs. They were borne out of the Central Abaco slum in the late 1990s.
According to Ms Major, these gang members are upsetting older residents in Abaco’s ghettos.
“Right now the older ones that are there are upset at the younger ones because they want to be invisible and live peacefully, so they don’t want the younger ones to rock the boat,” she said.
The Mudd, the larger of Marsh Harbour’s two squatter settlements, is set in the middle of Abaco’s main city. More than 5,000 people, mostly Haitian immigrants, and many illegals, live there.
By: JASMIN BONIMY, The Nassau Guardian
