DOMINICAN DEPORTEES SUFFER IN AMERICA'S FAILING WAR ON DRUGS

US Washes Its Hands Of Ex-Residents Taken From Their Families

They arrive every Wednesday on a government-provided bus at the same
downtown destination: the corner of Maximo Gomez and Bolivar. Tonight
the total number is 46. Forty men and six women. Looking tired and
bewildered, they descend the steps of the large, grey Hyundai. Some of
them are young men, almost boys, in their early 20s. The women look to
be mostly in their 30s, and many of the men are in their 40s, perhaps
even 50s.

Who are these hapless Dominican wanderers descending on Santo Domingo?
They are this week's batch of deportees from the United States, who
have been sent back to the Dominican Republic. Most of them will never
return to their wives, children, mothers, loved ones, who continue
their lives in the different ethnic enclaves of Manhattan, the Bronx,
Boston and Miami.

The story of the Dominican deportees began in the early 1990s as part
of the war against drugs which has so far cost US taxpayers $150bn
without making the slightest dent in supply or demand.

Hundreds of thousands of poor and working class men and women have
been sentenced to spend the next five, 10, 15 and even 20 years in US
prisons for an ounce or two of cocaine, a couple of grams of crack or
a few bundles of marijuana. There have been a number of relatively
big-time dealers among them, but mostly they are small fry.

Many of them face numerous handicaps: a lack of legal knowledge, a
lack of fluency in the English language, no money, and the stigma of
their race.

Sitting on a bench in the Parque Colon in the colonial zone of Santo
Domingo, Javier describes his arrival in March 2001, after seven years
in New York State prisons.

"I have all my papers with me. I have my green card, I have my tax
statements, I have my social security stubs, I have everything. What
am I doing here? I have six children all living in New York city; I
haven't seen them for years.

"You go from day to day. Some days you can make 500 pesos ($20), other
days you make nothing.

"I'd like to get a better job but you need a nota de buena conducta
(good conduct letter). If you're a deportee it's stamped all over it
so as soon as the employer sees that it's all over.

"What did I do? I sold prescription drugs, I think it was morphine, to
an undercover. For that I got seven years and deported to a country I
hadn't been to in 20 years. All my family's over there.

"When I first arrived I wanted to kill myself. I was gonna take an
overdose of something. I don't know why I didn't."

Javier's story is not unlike those of a great many of the 20,000
formerly legal residents of the US who have been deported back to
their homeland over the past 10 years.

Unfortunately for them, either when they were in prison or just before
they were sent away, the US Congress passed the 1996 Illegal
Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. It says that "an
alien convicted of an aggravated felony shall be conclusively presumed
to be deportable from the United States".

One of the key aspects of this legislation was the dramatically
increased list of offences that now constituted an "aggravated
felony". In effect, the present act guarantees that almost anyone
receiving a sentence of 12 months or more is automatically deported.

And so here they are. Back in a poor Santo Domingo barrio, often where
they grew up. Back in the daily Santo Domingo mix with the same
tendency for black-outs, erratic water supply, no jobs, no government
system for retraining, and a host of public services that have been
taken over by US or Spanish corporations - ensuring that monthly
telephone bills are on a par with those of Manhattan and electricity
prices are, according to the US ambassador, the highest in the world.

Heroin addicts

George tells his story as he rocks back and forth in a cane
mecedora.

"I got caught with two ounces of cocaine and I got 20 years. I spent
nine years in a maximum-security prison in Trenton, New Jersey. Don't
talk to me about US justice - it doesn't exist for the likes of us."

He lives in a roomy though spartan apartment he inherited from his
mother, who died earlier this year while visiting one of George's
sisters in New York city. George, a diabetic like his mother, was
unable even to attend the funeral because of his deportee status.

"My insulin is the most difficult thing to buy. It costs me 200 pesos
($7) for each bottle and I need at least one a week. Insulin used to
be cheaper, then the government cut all the price supports for medicine."

A tall, gaunt man in his early 40s appears at the door of a second
floor apartment; inside are just some of the city's heroin addicts.

One spoke of his struggle to survive. If it were not for remesas
(money sent from family abroad) he would be forced to rummage through
bins and mug people.

"I've got nothing against Dominicans, don't get me wrong. I'm one
myself. But they're different to those of us raised in New York and
elsewhere. I don't think like them any more."

There are deportees who are now businessmen, police administrators and
even politicians. But most are unemployed.

The US, which has an imposing presence through its embassy, trade
mission and aid headquarters, takes a hands-off approach, best
summarised by a political attache at the embassy: "Dominican deportees
are not the problem of the United States. They knowingly broke the law
of a country where they were guests and now they have been dealt with
according to our system of justice. We have no interest in the matter."

A glimmer of hope recently emerged after five deportees met one of the
country's most well-known radical priests, Padre Rogelio Cruz.

The group discussed founding a national organisation of deportees and
establishing a support centre. Luis, a deportee and barrio lawyer,
described the task ahead of them: "Some of us screwed up and we paid
our debts to society. Others were guilty of nothing but they got
busted anyway. But all that's behind us. Now we have to focus on the
future."

As another aeroplane arrives this week with 40 or 50 deportees on
board, waiting for them in Santo Domingo will be a growing number of
men and women who have had enough of living and suffering in silence.