All language subtitles for The Price Of Sugar (2007)_en

[upbeat music playing]

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[engine running]

[speaking Spanish]

[singing in Spanish]

[Father Christopher] I arrived in the Dominican Republic

September of '97.

I had no idea of the magnitude

of all that I was going to confront.

[soft music playing]

[protesters yelling]

[fire crackling]

[Paul Newman] The town of Los Llanos

in the Dominican Republic

is the center of Father Christopher Hartley's parish.

Every day he goes out to the sugar plantations,

to the tiny villages known as bateyes,

where Dominicans rarely go.

One of the first things I was told,

some of the people in the Dominican Republic

came to me and said, "By the way, remember

that you're not allowed into the Vicini bateyes."

It took me 3 months to muster the courage

to go into the sugarcane fields.

[soft music playing]

[Paul Newman] The growing and harvesting of Dominican sugarcane

is done almost entirely by laborers from Haiti.

What Father Christopher saw in the plantations

he began to document.

[camera shutter]

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[Father Christopher] Gradually I began to learn more about their situation.

What I discovered was truly appalling.

[speaking in Spanish]

[Paul Newman] Breaking a centuries old taboo,

the Father brings in outsiders,

American doctors, to see what they can do to help.

See what he is curing his wound with?

With toothpaste.

Really these are some of the worst conditions

that I've ever seen.

This is really extreme poverty.

Families are living without access to water,

without access to food, without access to, you know,

really any healthcare or any infrastructure at all.

[Paul Newman] The Haitian workers are under armed guard.

They are not allowed to leave the plantations.

People come here in the hope of a better life.

The truth of the matter is

that they make less than 90 cents a day.

[Paul Newman] And instead of cash they receive vouchers,

which they can redeem for high priced food

at a company store.

He was told that he was gonna make

a very good wage when he was brought

as a very young man in 1976

and he realizes that the end of his life

is gonna come here at the batey and he has absolutely nothing.

That's the expression that he used in Spanish:

'Yo no tengo nada' I have nothing.

All he has is the roof

that the Company has put over his head.

Lets him stay for as long as he is useful.

[Paul Newman] The Dominican Republic is a vacationer's paradise.

Europeans and Americans flock here in the winter months.

But just inland from the coast are the sugar plantations,

250,000 acres of them.

The country's most important agricultural industry.

The Dominican Republic shares a Caribbean island with Haiti.

It was here that African Slaves

were first used in the Americas,

to cut sugarcane.

The two nations make uneasy neighbors.

Haiti is one of the most dysfunctional countries

in the world, rife with poverty and violence.

To Haitians the Dominican Republic,

though itself a poor country, offers the promise of survival.

[upbeat music playing]

There are five large Sugar companies

in the Dominican Republic.

The Vicini family, which owns most of the plantations

in Father Christopher's parish, is one of the wealthiest.

Here is the boss here.

He got the people working for him here,

many people working for him.

Many, many.

He's very rich.

He got houses.

Oh my God every kind of houses,

20 million, 10 million the houses,

40 million, beautiful house.

[Paul Newman] The Vicini family's business interests extend beyond sugar

to include banking, property and the media.

Gustavo Peña is the editor of Clave Digital,

an online newspaper

that has managed to maintain its independence.

[Paul Newman] In fact, the second Vicini

to run the family sugar business,

Juan Bautista, was President of the Dominican Republic

in the early 1920's.

The network of Vicini corporations

is currently run by Juan Bautista

and Felipe Vicini.

Despite their prominence they keep out of the public eye.

There are few published photographs of the family

and they are rarely mentioned in the press.

The Vicini refused to be interviewed for this film.

[Paul Newman] Ana Mitila Lora works for the TV station Teleantillas.

[calm music playing]

[Paul Newman] Father Christopher is on his way to the Haitian border

with Father Pedro Ruquoy,

a Belgian Priest who has been helping

the sugarcane workers here for 30 years.

They want to see for themselves

how the sugar companies bring Haitians into the country.

[Father Christopher] Haitians are recruited by what are called buscones

who work for the companies.

They go across the border into Haiti and recruit

approximately 30,000 men every harvest season.

[Paul Newman] Their journey takes them far from the tourist resorts

and the sugar plantations,

up into the mountains near the border with Haiti.

Father Christopher knows

where the buscones bring the Haitians across

because of a tip off from a Vicini employee.

[Father Christopher] How we got wind of this story

is actually very ironic.

This Haitian who worked as one of the buscones

came to me complaining

that the person for whom he had rounded up 200 men

had not paid him.

So in other words, he was a slave merchant

who had not received his reward

and was coming to the Priest asking for justice.

[speaking Spanish]

[Father Christopher] So we brought Darío into my house

and with a video camera

we asked him to tell us the whole story.

[Paul Newman] The government's complicity in human trafficking is obvious

as soon as the Priests reach the army post near the frontier.

[Paul Newman] By nightfall

Father Christopher and Father Pedro

reach the border camp.

Here, Haitians are made to wait

until they can be shipped to the plantations.

[Paul Newman] The man who directs the shipment of Haitians

to the Vicini cane fields is named Merité.

[Paul Newman] These people have been lured across the border

with tales of good jobs.

They are so desperate

they've even paid Merité's men to bring them here.

[man screaming in the background]

[Paul Newman] But Espinal has been brought across the border

for only one purpose, to cut cane.

Haitians who have documents or identity cards

are stripped of them.

They are now stateless, illegal, and subject to arrest

everywhere in the Dominican Republic

except on the plantations.

[Father Christopher] They are bussed into the bateyes,

two, three o'clock in the morning

so they do not know where they are

and therefore cannot escape, cannot run away.

[Father Christopher] Concentration camp.

[Father Christopher] I don't see why not.

We are going to get into a lot of trouble.

If you don't mind it.

[Father Christopher] Shoot as fast as you can

because you don't know how many seconds you're gonna have

before you're kicked out.

[camera shutter]

[Father Christopher] The sooner we can get out of here, guys, the better.

Ready? Hold on.

Well, guys, I hope it was useful.

[camera shutter]

[Father Christopher] This is where they're going

to put the workers when they arrive.

Anywhere from 60 to 100 people

will be crammed into this one barrack.

You can see all the wiring up on the top,

which is to prevent them from escaping at night

and they will have armed men

at the door of the barracks at night

so they don't attempt to flee the barrack in the night.

[Father Christopher] Bateyes are like a state within a state

because the company there is the police,

is the government.

They exercise absolute authority

over the lives of those who dwell there,

which is quasi-slavery.

[speaking Spanish]

[Paul Newman] As many as a million Haitians

live in the Dominican Republic.

No one knows for certain how many live in bateyes.

[soft music playing]

[woman singing] ♪ What a poor person has is what he brings to market ♪

♪ And what a mother has is all she can feed her children ♪

[Paul Newman] The batey dwellers get much of their calories

from chewing sugarcane.

Their diet often leads to malnutrition.

[singing] ♪ We entrust our lives into your hands, O Lord ♪

♪ With all the love ♪

♪ You put in our hearts ♪

[thrumming]

[Father Christopher] Most of this product ends up in the United States.

The United States purchases the raw material,

it's processed in the refineries in the United States

and it ends up on the American table.

I'm sure most American families would be very embarrassed

to know at what price

they put sugar in their coffee every morning.

[sprinkling]

[Father Christopher] The Vicini family have a lot of blood on their hands.

This is well known.

Nobody dares speak out and say it

because many people fear for their lives

or the lives of their loved ones.

And this is a fact.

People disappear, people are never found.

[Paul Newman] In an unmarked corner of the Vicini plantation

is a cemetery.

Dominicans don't know of this cemetery.

I only found this place about seven, eight months ago

and I've been here for seven years

and nobody had ever mentioned it.

It's like a taboo place.

You're standing on peoples' bodies.

All of this, it's not just where you see crosses.

Some are very obvious,

you can just see those, those lumps.

Why all of a sudden there is no grass over there?

I mean this is tropical weather.

Everything grows in five minutes.

This is the man who was murdered the night of December 7th.

He was beaten as he was climbing into the bus

to come across the border and he was found dead

on arrival at the Vicini batey called Copeyito.

[Paul Newman] Darío told the Priest that Merité,

the Vicini's chief plantation guard,

was a cruel and brutal man.

[Father Christopher] There was a struggle because there were

many, many hundreds of people trying to get into these buses,

and clearly, not enough buses.

This individual couldn't make it through the door of the bus

and Merité hit him with a stick across the chest.

But he was so eager to get into the bus

that he crawled in and Merité just let him go.

When they arrived here in Copeyito

this man was still lying down.

They go and shake him and he's dead.

[Paul Newman] The next day a body was dumped

in the unmarked cemetery.

But believing you know what happened and proving it

are different matters.

[Father Christopher] The weakness of the case is the link

between the physical violence

and the fact that this was the same person.

Darío heard of that,

but he wasn't present when they found the man dead,

and he wasn't present at the burial.

So we would need an autopsy.

We would need the permit from the judge.

Especially being a Haitian,

the judge is going to be very reluctant

to take the case

of a crime that could directly or indirectly

be attributed to the Vicini Company.

[camera shutter]

[camera shutter]

[camera shutter]

[camera shutter]

[camera shutter]

[camera shutter]

[Father Christopher] The Vicini family have indirectly, many times,

tried to pressure me to not go into the bateyes.

In fact that's one of the great fears

of the Spanish Embassy, the American Embassy is:

what would happen if they stopped you,

they deliberately and explicitly

forbid you from entering the bateyes.

And I've always said: "I would certainly go anyway".

I don't care what they did to me

and they know very well

how determined I am to change this system.

[soft music playing]

[Father Christopher] January 20th, the year 2000,

I was here in my residence when this lady comes to say, "Father,

President Leonel Ferrnández is coming tomorrow

to Batey Gautier for some political activity

and it is the custom in the Dominican Republic,

they always invite the priest to give an invocation

or to say a prayer to invoke God's blessing on the President,

on the people and so on."

[singing]

[Father Christopher] And what was supposed to be a simple blessing

became a 5-page speech.

I was very brave the night I wrote it

and I was shivering with fear

when I suddenly had to read out

the words that I had very courageously written.

I was describing the horrible living conditions

and telling the President that he had come

to the threshold of hell.

[calm music playing]

[Paul Newman] The publicity forced the Vicini

into discussions with the Church.

For three years the family held meetings with a committee

that included the Priests, the Bishop

and the Church's lawyer, Noemí Méndez.

[Paul Newman] And then came the death threats.

[soft music playing]

Father Christopher's upbringing is in stark contrast

to the situation he is now confronting.

His mother, Pilar, is from the Spanish aristocracy.

The daughter of a count, her family includes a marquis,

an ambassador, and even a prime minister.

His father's family founded

the famous British company Hartley's Jam.

We'd been married for five years living in London

and our three children were born in London.

And we came to live here in 1964

and we've been very happy.

Christopher is the oldest,

Virginia and William, Billy.

At school if we were in any sort of trouble

we could say, "We'll call Christopher

and he will, you know, fix this fight very quickly,"

you know, so we did.

I definitely felt protected by him

and he was very much there for us in school

so he did have already kind of a strong personality

that he was kind of respected.

And not only strong personality but also strong...

Strong. He was strong physically.

He was a sportsman.

[Virginia Hartley] He was very competitive in his sports

so he always wanted to win.

He really was very competitive.

[Pilar Hartley] He had so much energy.

You know, we couldn't stop him.

And then sometimes you know

we ask him to do something and...

he was a little bit how you say it, 'rebelde'.

He was a rebel.

He was always getting into trouble.

He was very difficult.

[Paul Newman] But when he was 15 years old

Christopher had an experience that would change his life.

I have never told anyone the story of my vocation

because I do not know how to put into words

what happened to me.

All I know is I sat on the edge of my bed

and I realized that I was a very unhappy person

with no reason whatsoever to be unhappy.

At that point I realized that God loved me

and that I wanted to give my whole life to him.

[Pilar Hartley] As soon as he came into the room he said to me,

"Mami, I want to go to a seminary"

and I start laughing because I thought, really

it's the last thing I can hear from him, the seminary.

Yes, you! I said: Come on.

Don't joke. Come on!

And he looked at me in such a way.

I can't forget it, you know? His eyes like that.

He said: "Mami, I am gonna go to seminary

because Christ asked me to follow him

and I'm going to follow him...

And in that moment, in the way he looked at me,

I understood that was serious.

Well, if your son says

that he's going to be an engine driver

or a mass poisoner or something,

you can remonstrate, you can talk to him.

If he says he wants to be a priest, it's very difficult.

You can't say a priest is intrinsically a bad thing to be.

You are not gonna earn any money, I mean,

so I found myself as far as that goes at a dead end,

there's no, nothing you can,

you can't really answer that one.

The type of society that I grew up in,

you know, very exclusive, very privileged

may seem many times like you know,

throwing away a phenomenal future...

but this year it's gonna be thirty years

that I entered the seminary, and I've never had a doubt.

[children singing]

[singing]

[Father Christopher] Christmas of 1976.

I had already spent a year, year and a half in the seminary.

One of the gifts was a book from my Father

and it was about Mother Teresa.

With the most striking images

about the horrible misery of the streets of Calcutta.

When I saw those photographs, I never said nothing to anybody,

but deep down in my heart I recall distinctly saying:

"I want to spend the rest of my life doing exactly this."

I met Mother Teresa for the first time

in August of 1977.

I was 18.

I volunteered to work in one of her shelters

in the outskirts of London.

I remember her very distinctively saying:

"Love the poor and be holy.

Love the poor and be holy."

And that was like carved in my brain

like chiseled with fire.

[Paul Newman] Christopher spent much of the next twenty years

working for Mother Teresa.

[Father Christopher] Once, working in the Home for the Dying in Calcutta.

I remember there was this man brought from a gutter

who was obviously gonna live not another day.

Mother Teresa told me: "Christopher, take care of him."

At lunchtime we were told we all had to go home.

I wanted to stay, but I was forced to go home,

we all had to have lunch.

I was sure that when I came back in the afternoon to work there,

he would be dead.

When I came back he was barely alive

and from his little cot, he looked at me,

he stretched his arms out

and I held his hands in my hands

and his last words just before he died were:

"'I've been waiting for you."

And in a sense,

that is what every poor person says to me

with words, without words, with different words:

"I have been waiting for you."

[sprinkling]

[Paul Newman] Fear and hatred of Haitians

has long been a part of Dominican society.

Almost everyday the media reports

on acts of violence around the country.

[singing]

[Paul Newman] For many Haitians the bateyes, however deprived,

are the only place they can feel safe.

[singing]

[Father Christopher] The first thing we did was begin Feeding Centers

in the spring of 2001.

We had nothing. We didn't have a kitchen.

Kids brought a plate and a spoon from their homes.

We just started feeding people.

This piece of property

was given by the government to the church.

Unfortunately when the sugarcane companies realized,

they brought in the military to basically throw me out.

[camera shutter]

I was very forceful.

I insisted that they were

the ones who were supposed to leave

and I would not move.

I was very fortunate that the dwellers of the batey

encouraged by my stand, the, especially women,

all gathered around me

and started screaming at the military supporting me.

[camera shutter]

Finally the military gave in and they never came back again,

but just to be on the safe side, our first major investment

at a tremendous expense was to build this very high wall

around the property because unfortunately

in places where the rule of law does not exist,

walls speak much more eloquently than signatures.

[Paul Newman] Father Christopher raised money

from the Spanish government to build a compound

in the middle of Batey Paloma

and began to serve meals on a grand scale.

[Father Christopher] We are at present feeding over 450 children

every day Monday through Friday.

It's the only decent meal that they are going to have

in the whole day.

[soft music playing]

[Father Christopher] The Vicini had the intention

of beginning the harvest this season

without telling them the price per ton of sugarcane

that they were going to be paid.

"Oh! They'll find out on first payment day."

But did anybody ever take up a job

without knowing how much they were going to be paid?

I went to every batey and I said: "Nobody works."

It was the first strike. You start with a strike.

[Paul Newman] The head of the Vicini plantation guards,

Merité, tries to intervene.

[Father Christopher] They try to avoid as much as they can

a direct confrontation with me.

Because psychologically on the employees

it looks very negative if they have a confrontation

and they lose every confrontation.

Because I don't budge.

[Father Christopher] It also would be very negative if I lost

one of these confrontations.

That's why I always try to be very sure

that what I am doing is right.

It might be dangerous, it might be risky,

but it has to be right

because that's my only protection.

[people talking]

We began to explain to them

some of the teachings of the church,

which sometimes are even very unknown to Catholics,

but the church in the Second Vatican Council,

of all documents,

says that workers have a right to strike.

[Paul Newman] After strikes in 23 bateyes,

the Vicini concede to the workers' demands

and tell them how much they will be paid...

even giving them a small pay raise.

But there would be consequences.

[Father Christopher] This year has been a terrible drought

and they had plenty of fires,

which they are trying to blame on me.

[Father Christopher] I have been threatened several times.

The last one was only about a week ago.

The message that was sent to me was,

"Tell the Reverend that one day

someone is going to find him lying in the sugarcane fields

with his mouth full of flies."

And the other was a threat,

especially nasty because what it implied is,

we're not going to hurt you,

we're going to hurt the people who work with you.

[Father Christopher] I mentioned these threats on a Sunday Mass at my sermon.

Where I said: "May everyone be aware

that this has happened.

I want to make it very clear that nothing,

absolutely nothing in this world is going to stop me."

[singing]

[Paul Newman] Father Christopher's latest effort at helping the Haitians

gives his enemies an opportunity to attack him.

[Paul Newman] For 15 years Vicente lived in Batey La Redonda

in a dark and tiny shack.

[singing]

[camera shutter]

After years of struggle, Father Christopher has been able

to persuade the Dominican government

to provide a few new houses in Batey Gautier.

[camera shutter]

The first houses that we built

were built with government money.

It is the first time in the history of this country

that the government has invested a dime

in building a home for a Haitian.

[Paul Newman] In the end, fewer than half the homes

were given to Haitians.

But now Vicente lives in a three-room house

complete with indoor plumbing.

[radio music playing]

[children cheering]

[Paul Newman] Although most of the houses at Gautier

were given to Dominicans,

word spreads that the Priest is being unfair to the locals.

I'm very frequently scared,

but it's something I've learned to live with

so I very seldom think about it.

I don't think the times that I've experienced fear

has ever changed my life in any shape or form.

[Paul Newman] The turmoil in Father Christopher's parish

attracts the attention of the media

in the United States and Europe.

Even Dominican reporters cover the story.

[reporting in Spanish]

[Paul Newman] But the international attention

hasn't protected Father Pedro Ruquoy.

Like Father Christopher, he is under attack

for defending Haitian cane workers.

After he is physically assaulted,

Amnesty International starts a campaign in his defense.

Despite letters from Human Rights groups

around the world,

the Secretary of the Interior and Police

refuses to take the complaints seriously.

When Father Pedro finally meets with the Secretary

he is ridiculed in front of the press.

The message is clear,

priests who advocate for the Haitians

will have no guaranty of protection

from the government.

[fire crackling

[Father Christopher] As events have unfolded in the past months,

the sugarcane industry has been trying to pressure me

and the people who work with me to basically back off

and to leave things the way they are.

I am worried about him,

because I know that he is not going to stop.

He is very much an all or nothing person

and if he has to hedge his ideals,

I think it would be very sad, I'd rather see him go out

true to his beliefs

than hang around not being true to his beliefs.

The Dominican media rarely supports the Haitians.

Consuelo Despradel has two shows a day

and she is not shy about speaking her mind.

I've been accused of every possible scheme, crime,

immorality that you can possibly conceive

through a smearing campaign.

The church is fully aware that this is a staged campaign

and the Bishop is not going to give in.

[Paul Newman] The Vicini pressure the Bishop

to remove Father Christopher.

But Bishop Ozoria has stated publicly

that he supports his Priest.

[Paul Newman] Father Christopher's comments

rarely make the Dominican news.

[Father Christopher] I have about seven hundred square miles of a parish

with sixty villages and bateyes.

I travel just about every afternoon

to a different village to celebrate Holy Mass.

[Paul Newman] Today he has brought

the American doctors to El Manguito

to help his Dominican parishioners.

This is not a batey eh? These are Dominicans.

It's not? It seems like people were a little better off here.

No. They... no... and they own the land.

This is their piece of property, generation after generation.

They are not rich, maybe they are just as poor.

- You can see the houses look... - But they take care of it.

Yeah. And you own the place.

How do these folks feel about the Haitians?

[Father Christopher] Ah, historically there is a tremendous hostility

toward the Haitians.

Remember that this country never became independent from Spain,

it became independent from Haiti.

When the Spaniards left the island,

they abandoned the island,

Haitians moved in for twenty-two years

so their freedom, their independence is from Haiti

so they, they view them as the aggressor, etcetera.

And then of course there is the question of race,

they see them, but they are just a little more black

than they are,

so they are just about the only people they can look down upon

because they are poorer and blacker.

I've been in many places in the Dominican Republic

and in many other developing countries

I have been taken to places where people have said:

"Oh, look at this. Isn't this terrible?

Isn't this tragic? Isn't this poor?"

You know they really all pale in comparison to the bateyes.

[guitar music playing]

[Paul Newman] Father Christopher arranges for the American doctors

to hold a clinic for the children of three bateyes.

[Dr. Wilson] Rates of AIDS here

are among the highest in the world.

This is a real hot spot now and the rates are increasing.

Over half of the adults have tuberculosis

and we know that over a quarter of the children here

have had tuberculosis.

Many women die prior to giving birth or in childbirth

and we know that infant mortality

and children who die in the first month after birth

or at birth is just, it's just incredibly high.

And what's really tragic about those numbers

is that we know how to treat all those conditions,

we know how to prevent them and we know how to treat them

and the treatments are simple and they are cheap

and what's truly tragic is how very few

of those simple basic life saving interventions

are getting out here

to the people who need them the most.

He has a skin disease. Has bacteria.

This is also malnutrition.

[children crying]

[Paul Newman] Besides the help the church provides,

there is almost no outside aid

to the Haitian cane workers in this parish.

Just three Peace Corps volunteers

work in the vast Vicini plantations.

I have never had a sit down conversation

with Juan Bautista Vicini.

Most of my work comes from, is with people at lower levels.

The administrative head of this region of bateyes,

I work very closely with him,

possibly closer than Father Chris does

because he's working with them at a very high level,

change this, pay them more,

uphold your health care commitments, uphold...

And my work here is about really, my neighbors,

how can we make their lives better tomorrow.

So that's an easier question to go to them with:

"Okay, we want to do a garden can we get some seeds?"

That's an easier thing than

"change your entire system of existence."

Father Christopher comes off as kind of proud

and that kind of, in my opinion a little bit

can be kind of brash, like: Who do you think you are?

You know, aren't the issues more complicated than that?

Don't the Vicinis have a right

to at least have a sugarcane industry,

maybe they owe their workers more than they are giving them,

but don't they have the right to be doing this?

Or don't they have some rights too and,

and he is just so committed to the rights of the people

that, that sometimes it's easy to imagine

that he is not really that balanced.

[speaking Spanish]

But I think at his core he is humble

beyond anyone I've ever known because none of this is for him.

He is in it to change the system

that causes people to live in poverty

while a billion dollar company profits off of it.

[Christie] Another problem with not having papers

is that they're trapped in the batey.

If these people try to go, move to Santo Domingo

or even travel throughout the country

they are stopped every hour on public transportation,

hauled into prison for however you know,

week, two weeks, three weeks,

and then deposited back in Haiti,

not at their house, just across the border,

wherever, wherever the military may see fit to deposit them.

So it's a huge problem

because it keeps people trapped here.

[Father Christopher] They are beautiful children with no hope for a better life.

[soft music playing]

This is the residence of the Administrator

Mr. Ricardo Hernández who is the ultimate responsible

for the entire process

from the bateyes to the sugar mill.

He has about twenty-five to thirty thousand people

under his care, his responsibility.

One of his main responsibilities is to make sure that the people

that they bring across the border

into the sugar mill, into the bateyes,

into the sugarcane fields, never leave,

so at any cost he has to make sure

that these people remain here and do not escape

because they've invested money in bringing them over

for this particular purpose, this agricultural activity.

[cameraman] Have you ever spoken to this man?

I've spoken to him many, many times.

[cameraman] What does he say?

He basically hates me.

He hates anybody that interferes

with his business and with his job.

He would be very happy that I went around every batey

and he would be my best friend if all I did was celebrate Mass.

[Paul Newman] Instead, Father Christopher and the Church's lawyers

have been organizing the batey dwellers

to stand up for their rights.

[speaking Spanish]

[Paul Newman] By working together the bateyes have gained

some concessions from the Vicini.

Leading today's meeting is Jhonny Belizaire.

Representing Batey Cánepa is Yela Machasa.

[Father Christopher] One of the things that have changed

is now people enjoy a freedom of movement

and I actively encourage

the workers who are unhappy to leave.

[upbeat music playing]

[Paul Newman] With the guns gone,

Haitians can now leave the bateyes.

But without papers they still risk arrest and expulsion.

Many who dare to flee pass through the town of Los Llanos,

where Father Christopher lives.

Los Llanos has become the center of the Vicini's campaign

to have the Priest expelled from the country.

I am Haitianizing this country?

And I am antagonizing Dominicans and Haitians?

The ones who are funding the campaign, the Vicinis,

who are funding this campaign

by accusing me of 'Haitianizing' this country

are the only ones who cannot live without them.

[Paul Newman] The likelihood of Father Christopher

being forced out increases dramatically

when news breaks about his colleague,

Father Pedro Ruquoy.

After 30 years of working with Haitian cane cutters,

death threats and the lack of protection

have forced Father Pedro to abandon his mission

and leave the country.

[background music]

[Paul Newman] And now the Company

has made it clear to the Haitians

that improved conditions will remain only as long

as Father Christopher is there to protect them.

"When the Father leaves..."

This is a phrase that the Company

continually repeats to the workers.

"Things are the way they are because he is here,

but just you wait until he is gone

and we will remind you who is in charge of this."

[Paul Newman] Day by day protests mount.

[Father Christopher] I think it's very important for me to be present

for them to know that there is leadership,

that there is presence, that I have not gone

because I can't just leave the battle to my parishioners.

[Virginia] He has this sort of outward personality

of what his mission is but there is, you know,

very much a human person behind

with the pain of being very lonely in what he's doing,

of being, feeling very misunderstood.

Feeling inadequate in what he's trying to do,

as a man struggling there,

you know, very lonely, very often.

[fire crackling]

[soft music playing]

[Father Christopher] In a country where people are working for almost nothing,

the Vicinis have spent an absolute fortune,

thus far, God knows how much they are ready to spend

in the days to come,

in getting me out of the country.

[soft music playing]

[Paul Newman] There's a massive demonstration planned

for the streets of Los Llanos.

And the possibility

of a violent confrontation is high.

[engine running]

[Paul Newman] At the center of the rally

is the television host Consuelo Despradel.

[Paul Newman] Haitians arrive from the bateyes

to support Father Christopher.

They gather in the church

with a crowd of Dominican supporters.

[clapping and singing]

[Paul Newman] But outside protesters assemble.

[Father Christopher] If I give in what am I saying to the worker?

It says "You are the Priest,

you have all the means at your disposal

and you couldn't stand the pressure?

But you come to us and you tell us to not be afraid?"

I think I would be a fraud

if I took even one step back.

[Father Christopher] One of the beautiful things for me is to see the support

and the backing of the community.

If the community had backed my accusers

I would certainly be history today.

[clapping]

[singing]

[Paul Newman] The batey is still a dangerous place.

Jhonny has been fired.

He and his family have been threatened

with eviction from their home.

But without legal status,

they are unable to go elsewhere to make a living.

And the attacks on Father Christopher continue.

[Father Christopher] I would like to be buried in the clandestine cemetery

because I think that's where I belong

with those un-named tombs,

without even maybe a cross and a prayer.

These are my people.

I have come to live in solidarity with them

and whatever happens to them I would like it to happen to me.

[singing]

[sprinkling]

[singing]