Richard Lord

Cari­com will de­fer its con­sid­er­a­tion of an ap­pli­ca­tion for mem­ber­ship to the re­gion­al move­ment by the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic (DR) and re­view its re­la­tion­ship with that coun­try in Car­i­fo­rum, Com­mu­ni­ty of Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS).

Those were the ma­jor de­ci­sions an­nounced by Cari­com chair, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad, at a news brief­ing fol­low­ing yes­ter­day's three-hour meet­ing of the Cari­com Bu­reau at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann's, which dis­cussed the Sep­tem­ber 23 rul­ing of the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court in the DR.That rul­ing, which can­not be chal­lenged pro­vides for peo­ple born in the DR to Hait­ian par­ents not be giv­en birth cer­tifi­cates retroac­tive­ly.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar chaired the three-hour meet­ing which was at­tend­ed by Hait­ian Pres­i­dent Michel Martel­ly, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­salves and Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Ir­win LaRocque."It can­not be busi­ness as usu­al," she said.The DR has been un­der mount­ing re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al pres­sure for the rul­ing, which Per­sad-Bisses­sar said made tens of thou­sands of peo­ple born in the DR "state­less and with no course of ap­peal."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Cari­com wel­comed an in­ter­ven­tion by Venezuela to bring the two coun­tries to­geth­er for face-to-face talks last week­end.But Martel­ly said the talks in Cara­cas did not ap­pear to suc­cess­ful as the DR has sub­se­quent­ly mis­rep­re­sent­ed the agree­ment reached.He said the agree­ment in Venezuela pro­vid­ed for bi-lat­er­al talks to be giv­en top pri­or­i­ty while the DR took steps to act in good faith and not im­ple­ment the rul­ing.

He said the DR was in­sist­ing it be al­lowed to im­ple­ment the mea­sure. Martel­ly said a sec­ond round of talks be­tween the two coun­tries in Venezuela may not take place lat­er this week as the DR was not act­ing in good faith.He said a few days ago, the DR repa­tri­at­ed new­born chil­dren who were be­tween one and three days old. He said young girls and boys were al­so sent to Haiti and they could not even speak French or cre­ole.

The Hait­ian leader ex­pressed un­cer­tain­ty about his coun­try's fur­ther par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Venezuela ini­tia­tive.Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Cari­com want­ed DR to show "im­me­di­ate, cred­i­ble steps as part of an over­all plan to re­solve the na­tion­al­i­ty is­sue for peo­ple born there to Hait­ian par­ents."At this time we will sus­pend con­sid­er­a­tion of the re­quest by the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic for mem­ber­ship of Cari­com," Per­sad-Bisses­sar added.Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Cari­com con­demned the DR's Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court rul­ing.

She said the DR must take "the nec­es­sary po­lit­i­cal, leg­isla­tive, ju­di­cial and ad­min­is­tra­tive steps ur­gent­ly to re­dress the grave hu­man­i­tar­i­an sit­u­a­tion cre­at­ed by the rul­ing. She al­so called on oth­er coun­tries and or­gan­i­sa­tions to add their voic­es to urge the DR "to right this ter­ri­ble wrong."She said the glob­al and re­gion­al com­mu­ni­ty should put pres­sure on the DR Gov­ern­ment "to adopt ur­gent mea­sures to en­sure the jaun­diced de­ci­sion of the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court does not stand."

She said the full cit­i­zen­ship rights of peo­ple of Hait­ian de­scent, born in the DR were guar­an­teed.Com­ment­ing on a sched­uled vis­it to the DR by of­fi­cials of the In­ter-Amer­i­can Com­mis­sion on Hu­man Rights, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Cari­com sup­port­ed that ini­tia­tive and would "re­quest ad­vi­so­ry opin­ion from the In­ter-Amer­i­can Court on Hu­man Rights."She said Cari­com would al­so "con­sid­er the in­tro­duc­tion of a res­o­lu­tion at the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly con­demn­ing the rul­ing."