Haiti, Dominican Republic meet to discuss disputes
By Trenton Daniel From Boston.com
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haitian and Dominican officials met Tuesday in an effort to resolve mounting tension between the Caribbean neighbors that was reflected in a recent court ruling that threatens to strip the citizenship of people of Haitian descent who were born in the Dominican Republic.
The talks are part of a new binational commission that aims to discuss issues including commerce, migration, the environment and border security. The countries share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola.
But the main topic under discussion was a September court ruling that threatens to revoke citizenship from thousands of people living in the Dominican Republic who are mostly of Haitian descent. They could be sent to Haiti even though they weren’t born there.
‘‘The Haitian government is asking for concrete measures to be taken to protect the fundamental rights of people of Haitian origin,’’ Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe said in a prepared statement following the talks at an industrial park in the Haitian border town of Ouanaminthe. ‘‘The Dominican government made this guarantee.’’
Then he added, his remarks broadcast live on national television: ‘‘The two parties recognize that this subject was not neglected’’ in the talks.
The closed-door discussions were the first of what will be monthly meetings to discuss trade, the environment, security and the court ruling, which has been condemned by the United Nations, Caribbean leaders and human rights groups.
Representatives from the U.N., Caribbean Community, European Union and Venezuela will serve as observers and lend advice, Lamothe said.
The Dominican Republic’s National Office of Migration said it’s going to provide temporary papers for Haitians who work in the country, Lamothe also said.
Details will be discussed further at the next meeting, scheduled for Feb. 3 in the Dominican Republic.
The Tuesday gathering was scheduled after a December meeting in Venezuela at which Haitian President Michel Martelly and Dominican President Danilo Medina agreed to try to resolve tensions surrounding the court decision and other differences
Dominican officials had initially said they wouldn’t discuss the court ruling, which they say cannot be appealed. Dominican and Haitian officials will have to find a creative way to annul the decision.
The decision from the Dominican Republic’s Constitutional Court states that people born in the country after 1929 to foreigners living illegally in the country are not automatically granted citizenship.
Human rights groups decried the plan and the ruling, saying that an estimated 200,000 people could lose their citizenship, the majority of them of Haitian descent. The government maintains that only some 24,000 would be affected.
Associated Press writer Ezequiel López Blanco contributed to this report from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
For more on this story go to:
See related stories published in iNews Cayman:
“Dominican Republic ruling regarding Haitian-origin descendents a worry for Haitians” October 9, 2013 at: http://www.ieyenews.com/wordpress/dominican-republic-ruling-regarding-haitian-origin-descendents-a-worry-for-haitians/
“OPINION: Hypocritical bashing of Dominican Rep” December 1, 2013 at:
http://www.ieyenews.com/wordpress/opinion-hypocritical-bashing-of-dominican-rep/
The Haitian-Dominican meeting that was held on 07 January 2014 in the city of Ouanaminthe located in the Nord-Est Department of Haiti, will be known in history as a day of infamy for the Martelly-Lamothe Government.
This meeting must be equated as an act of high treason against the national interests of the Republic of Haiti and against the Dominican born of African ascendancy because the Dominican Court ruling TC/0168/13 issue which is the crux of the matter presumably was excluded from the agenda. Even if the TC/0168/13 agenda was surreptitiously discussed at the meeting, the fact that the Haitian press release was vague at best and used vice de form and technicality to label the Afro Dominicans as people of Haitian origins instead of Dominican of Haitian ascendancy which will facilitate their deportation to Haiti at an opportune time. It means that Haitian masses and the Dominicans of African ascendancy will continue to live in wretched conditions, oppression and humiliation under the capricious thumb of their historical mulatto bigots who are oppressing blacks on the occidental and oriental sides of the Haitian Island aka Kiskeya.
The legal action against Dominican Republic immigration bigotry, spearheading by CARICOM political Titans and Titanesses such as Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: Ralph Everard Gonsalves; Prime Minister of Jamaica: Portia Simpson Miller; Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago: Kamla Persad-Bissessar have given impetus and momentum against the Dominican Republic court ruling bigotry TC/0168/13.
The CARICOM intervention draw the world attention on Dominican Republic iniquitous tribal mentality practices which prompted other countries and international organizations to warn D.R to repel the TC/0168/13. Among them are: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro Moros; OAS-Inter-American Commission on Human Rights-IACHT; U.S. State Department; U.N. High Commission on Human Rights. This in turn generated tremendous pressure on Dominican Republic by tarnishing its human rights practices which will entails some far reaching consequences on its diaspora and economy. Thus it was absurd for Haiti to accept a bilateral meeting with Dominican Republic that arrogantly said that its illegal law TC/0168/13 is not negotiable.
This bilateral meeting that occurred in Ouanaminthe was simply a gentlemen agreement between the Dominican mulattoes oligarchy and the Haitian mulattoes oligarchy that have interwoven economic interests they are sharing on the island of Haiti aka. Kiskeya.
The Martelly-Lamothe acted as a 9-1-1 Emergency Services to rescue Dominican Republic oligarchy from a diplomatic, political and public relations debacle and nightmare of the first magnitude from world opinion. By doing so, both are protecting their fortunes and privileges at the expense of the human rights of the masses.