Wes­ley Gib­bings

Grow­ing out­rage over the treat­ment of peo­ple of Hait­ian de­scent in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic has the po­ten­tial to ease do­mes­tic po­lit­i­cal pres­sures against the Michel Martel­ly ad­min­is­tra­tion but has the po­ten­tial to end in vi­o­lence of an­oth­er kind–against Do­mini­cans.Haiti's Min­is­ter of the In­te­ri­or, David Bazile, on Tues­day called on Haitians to re­main dis­ci­plined and not at­tack Do­mini­cans in the Hait­ian cap­i­tal. Vet­er­an jour­nal­ist Guy Del­va, who served briefly with the Martel­ly ad­min­is­tra­tion, told the T&T Guardian: "I have nev­er seen re­la­tions be­tween Do­mini­cans and Haitians get this bad."The coun­try's vig­or­ous diplo­mat­ic tit-for-tat with the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic es­ca­lat­ed last week with the ex­pul­sion of more than 300 peo­ple of Hait­ian her­itage and re­ports of killings, in­clud­ing the mur­der of sus­pects linked to the slay­ing of an el­der­ly Do­mini­can cou­ple near the bor­der with Haiti.

By the time Martel­ly re­turned from the No­vem­ber 26 Cari­com Bu­reau meet­ing in Port-of-Spain, the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic had al­so an­nounced the sus­pen­sion of fur­ther talks on the con­tentious Sep­tem­ber 23 im­mi­gra­tion rul­ing which could lead to the ex­pul­sion of thou­sands of Haitians from the DR."Go­ing to the meet­ing (with Haiti) will not be pri­ori­tised," an of­fi­cial state­ment from the Span­ish-speak­ing re­pub­lic said last Wednes­day. "Haiti has pre­ferred to take an­oth­er route and that ends our con­ver­sa­tions right now."The Cari­com Bu­reau is­sued a strong con­dem­na­tion of the rul­ing by the con­sti­tu­tion­al court of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and an­nounced sus­pen­sion of con­sid­er­a­tion of the coun­try's mem­ber­ship of the re­gion­al group­ing.Haiti and its Do­mini­can neigh­bours were due to hold Venezuela-me­di­at­ed talks in Cara­cas on Sat­ur­day. Martel­ly had, how­ev­er, al­ready im­plied in Port-of-Spain that Haiti had al­so lost in­ter­est in the meet­ing.The es­ca­la­tion in ten­sions be­tween the two coun­tries has served to dra­mat­i­cal­ly raise the pro­file of the is­sue do­mes­ti­cal­ly, even in the midst of last week's vi­o­lent demon­stra­tions seek­ing the ouster of the Hait­ian pres­i­dent over cost of liv­ing is­sues.

Ac­cord­ing to se­nior Hait­ian jour­nal­ist Got­son Pierre, in on­line cor­re­spon­dence with the T&T Guardian, the im­mi­gra­tion con­flict has in­deed be­come "a cur­rent is­sue."On­ly last week, thou­sands ral­lied on the streets of Port au Prince against the Martel­ly ad­min­is­tra­tion, which they claim has not done enough to ease the plight of poor Haitians since com­ing to pow­er two years ago. More demon­stra­tions are planned for com­ing days.They stand to be over­shad­owed, how­ev­er, by calls for demon­stra­tions to protest the ac­tion of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic against Hait­ian na­tion­als. Hait­ian so­cial me­dia posts are now call­ing for every­thing from a ban on Do­mini­can prod­ucts to a cut in diplo­mat­ic ties.Hait­ian jour­nal­ist Phares Jerome told the T&T Guardian: "There is a sense of out­rage among most Haitians" on the is­sue. "The repa­tri­a­tion of hun­dreds of Haitians in hu­mil­i­at­ing con­di­tions re­in­forces the wrath of Haitians," he said.

On Martel­ly's re­turn to the cap­i­tal af­ter Tues­day's Cari­com meet­ing, he was al­so met with news of the death of up to 30 Haitians seek­ing to sail il­le­gal­ly to the Unit­ed States on an over­loaded boat.The in­ci­dent ap­peared to link the pres­i­dent's twin chal­lenges of grow­ing in­ter­nal dis­sent over con­tin­ued poor eco­nom­ic con­di­tions and the at­trac­tive­ness of life be­yond the bor­ders of the im­pov­er­ished is­land state, at what­ev­er cost."The Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic re­it­er­ates its com­mit­ment to main­tain­ing in the coun­try a sta­ble en­vi­ron­ment con­ducive to in­vest­ment and job cre­ation in or­der to put an end to these dan­ger­ous prac­tices," Martel­ly said in a prompt re­sponse to news of the tragedy.Ob­servers say they are hop­ing for an equal­ly time­ly end to the mount­ing ten­sions be­tween neigh­bours.

Cari­com's State­ment (abridged)

The Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) con­demns the ab­hor­rent and dis­crim­i­na­to­ry rul­ing of Sep­tem­ber 23 of the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic on na­tion­al­i­ty which retroac­tive­ly strips tens of thou­sands of Do­mini­cans, most­ly of Hait­ian de­scent, of cit­i­zen­ship ren­der­ing them state­less and with no re­course to ap­peal. It is es­pe­cial­ly re­pug­nant that the rul­ing ig­nores the 2005 judge­ment made by the In­ter-Amer­i­can Court on Hu­man Rights (IACHR) that the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic adapt its im­mi­gra­tion laws and prac­tices in ac­cor­dance with the pro­vi­sions of the Amer­i­can Con­ven­tion on Hu­man Rights.The rul­ing al­so vi­o­lates the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic's in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man rights oblig­a­tions. Fur­ther­more, the rul­ing has cre­at­ed an en­vi­ron­ment where, with the ab­ro­ga­tion of rights that flow from cit­i­zen­ship, ar­bi­trari­ness can flour­ish as il­lus­trat­ed by re­cent me­dia re­ports of the forced de­por­ta­tion to Haiti of peo­ple claim­ing to be Do­mini­can and with no lin­guis­tic or fa­mil­ial ties to that coun­try.Cari­com re­it­er­ates its call to the Gov­ern­ment of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic to take the nec­es­sary po­lit­i­cal, leg­isla­tive, ju­di­cial and ad­min­is­tra­tive steps ur­gent­ly to re­dress the grave hu­man­i­tar­i­an sit­u­a­tion cre­at­ed by the rul­ing.

The Com­mu­ni­ty al­so calls on re­gion­al and hemi­spher­ic coun­tries and or­gan­i­sa­tions to lend their voice to urge the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic to right this ter­ri­ble wrong.The Com­mu­ni­ty wel­comes the in­ter­ven­tion by Venezuela to as­sist in re­solv­ing the is­sue but giv­en the grave hu­man­i­tar­i­an im­pli­ca­tions of the court rul­ing the Com­mu­ni­ty can­not al­low its re­la­tion­ship with the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic to con­tin­ue as nor­mal.In that re­gard, the Com­mu­ni­ty, at this time, will sus­pend con­sid­er­a­tion of the re­quest by the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic for mem­ber­ship of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty. Fur­ther­more, the Com­mu­ni­ty will re­view its re­la­tion­ship with the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic in oth­er fo­ra in­clud­ing that of Car­i­fo­rum, Celac and the OAS. It can­not be busi­ness as usu­al.Cari­com is pre­pared to en­gage the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic but the gov­ern­ment of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic must show good faith by im­me­di­ate cred­i­ble steps as part of an over­all plan to re­solve the na­tion­al­i­ty and at­ten­dant is­sues in the short­est pos­si­ble time.–No­vem­ber 26, 2013.