Federal Agents Investigate Sugar Exporter Over Allegations of Forced Labor

[Judi Lynn]

4. This Fanjul operation in the Dominican Republic has been the focus of investigations by Congressional Democrats.

From one year ago:

OCTOBER 14, 2022
Paramilitary-Style Guards Instill Fear in Workers in Dominican Cane Fields
Country:

Authors:
Sandy Tolan
GRANTEE

Euclides Cordero Nuel
GUEST CONTRIBUTOR



Men work clearing sugar cane fields in Romana province, Dominican Republic, on Aug. 24, 2021. Image by Pedro Farias-Nardi. Dominican Republic.

One of the largest sugar suppliers to the U.S., Central Romana in the Dominican Republic, is coming under government scrutiny for labor practices.


ON A WARM, muggy morning in February 2021, masked men arrived at a dilapidated wooden shack in a remote Dominican Republic work camp without light or running water. Armed with 9-mm pistols and 12-gauge shotguns, and wearing masks to cover their faces, they were part of a private security force assembled by one of the largest exporters of sugar to the United States.

The armed force dismounted from their motorcycles and approached the tin-roof dwelling. It was the home of Flexi Bele, a Haitian sugarcane worker who had lived with his family in this distant corner of this Caribbean nation for decades. Now, he was facing a peril that many of his fellow cane cutters dreaded: The masked men, employed by the billion-dollar Central Romana Corporation, pounded on his door.

“They kicked me out of the batey,” said Bele, using the term for a sugarcane work camp in the Dominican Republic. After 40 years as a Central Romana cane cutter, Bele, 66 years old, had been told there was no more work for him. He was being laid off. “I worked, and worked, and worked, I gave them so much work.”

Bele lived in a camp known as Batey Lima, company housing owned by Central Romana. The armed men standing at his door had come to evict him.

More:
https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/paramilitary-style-guards-instill-fear-workers-dominican-cane-fields

(Years after I heard the name "Domino Sugar" until after seeing this article, I was unaware the name "Domino" refers to the Dominican Republic! Weird, isn't it?)