The massacre that marked Haiti-Dominican Republic ties
12 October 2012 Last updated at 21:39 ET
The massacre that marked Haiti-Dominican Republic ties
By Nick Davis
BBC News, Caribbean correspondent
Seventy-five years ago, the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic was the scene of a mass slaughter that has long burned in Haitians' collective memory but was either unknown or forgotten in the wider world.
It earned the name the Parsley Massacre because Dominican soldiers carried a sprig of parsley and would ask people suspected of being Haitian to pronounce the Spanish word for it: "perejil".
Those whose first language was Haitian Creole found it difficult to say it correctly, a mistake that could cost them their lives.
Historians estimate that anywhere between 9,000 and 20,000 Haitians were killed in the Dominican Republic on the orders of the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo.
More:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-19880967
Trujillo was an ally to Cuba's butchering, torture and death-squad loving dictator Fulgecio Batista.
