OAS delegation conducts
The government of the Dominican Republic has rejected a dialogue with Haiti requested by the head of the Organization of American States, saying Secretary General Luis Almagro is biased when it comes to the issue of the immigration situation on the Caribbean island. Dominican Vice President Margarita Cedeno said Friday that “Almagro showed not to have an impartial stance on immigration issues between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which disqualifies him from exercising his role as a neutral entity.”
Cedeno's comments, reiterated on her Twitter account, support earlier statements by Dominican Foreign Minister Andres Navarro, who also said the Dominican government is unwilling to discuss immigration issues with Haiti. Navarro accused Almagro of hindering the role the OAS is intended to play in the region and predicted the OAS would deliver a “biased” report on the migration and human rights situation on the shared Caribbean island. The response comes after OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro asked the Dominican Republic and Haiti to sit and talk about the tensions that have recently flared between the two neighboring countries.
Haiti has accused the Dominican Republic of violating the human rights of Haitian migrants and provoking a humanitarian crisis on the shared island through immigration policies that are discriminatory towards Haitians. Meanwhile, the Dominican Republic has insisted it has a right to self-determine immigration law as a sovereign issue and has demanded an apology from Haiti for hurling criticisms at its policies. “We have the inalienable right to regulate foreign presence in our territory,” said Cedeno, “respecting human rights.” Some may have misinterpreted Almagro's request for dialogue as a call for unification of the island, as the OAS chief later issued a clarification on his Twitter account. “I called for dialogue between two countries that share one island, the Dominican Republic and Haiti. A different interpretation is a misinterpretation,” wrote Almagro.
The call for dialogue comes after an OAS mission visiting the Dominican Republic and Haiti to meet with state officials and civil society to assess the migration plight concluded earlier this week. A report from the delegation is expected before the end of the year.
Longstanding tensions between the two countries on the shared island of Hispaniola have intensified recently, as tens of thousands of Haitian-Dominicans face mass deportation from the Dominican Republic and poverty-stricken Haiti lacks the resources to support a massive influx of migrants. In 2013, a Dominican court decision to retroactively strip Haitian descendents of citizenship instantly made some half a million people stateless. A recent a recent deadline for undocumented migrants to register with authorities as part of a state regularization plan has essentially been a mass deportation order for Haitian descendents, with limited spaces available and many challenges navigating the process. Tens of thousands of Haitian-Dominicans have been forced to leave “voluntarily” under pressure and threats or been deported.
Human rights activists say this law just shows the Dominican Republic's long history of discrimination against Haitians. Migration from Haiti to the Dominican Republic is a generations-old phenomenon dating back to the late 1800's. Haitian migrants have long provided a foundational labor force for the Dominican sugar industry, one of the country's most important exports.
Dominican Republic: Widow of Lynching victim in dire need
By Kim Ives & Ray Laforest, Haiti Liberté, July 22, 2015
The widow of Henry "Tulile" Claude Jean, a 35-year-old Haitian shoe-shine and cobbler was found lynched in a park in Santiago, Dominican Republic on Feb. 11, is sick, destitute, and living in fear in a Santo Domingo shanty town. She also longs to see her children, from whom she’s been separated for over five months.
Photo journalist Tony Savino, a Haïti Liberté collaborator, visited Erzulia Selima, 22, at the home of her parents in the Dominican capital’s suburban barrio of Rosa Carito.
“The apartment is in a basement with no windows, and at the time, there was no electricity,” Savino reports. “The heat and humidity were unbearable.”
Erzulia moved to the Dominican Republic with her parents from Plaisance when she was 11 years old, so she has spent half her life in the country. But she fears the repression and deportation campaign which Dominican authorities are currently waging against Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian ancestry.
After her husband was killed, Erzulia contracted first malaria and then typhoid fever. Now she has kidney stones, which make it difficult for her to bend over or do any strenuous lifting. Furthermore, she recently broke a tooth and now has a serious mouth infection.
With Tulile, she had two girls: Yulisa Jean, 10, and Juliana Jean, 8. After the lynching, both daughters were sent to Haiti for their safety and have not been told that their father is dead. Juliana has been asking for him, Erzulia says. The sick mother doesn’t even want to tell Yulisa, who may be old enough to understand, for fear that she may tell her younger sister, traumatizing her.
In her dire state, Erzulia says she has only received some help from Edwin Paraison, a former Haitian consul and long-time Haitian activist in the DR.
Erzulia is appealing to the world for financial help so that she can visit her daughters. People can contribute to her by going to the Go Fund Me appeal at http://www.gofundme.com/ztp7t8r or can send money directly to her via Tony Savino’s PayPal account at tonyfoto1@yahoo.com.