CARICOM HEADS OF GOVERNMENT meet in Barbados next week but to date this annual summit has generated very little interest among the Barbadian public. Yet there are issues which the regional leaders will be discussing that will affect all of us.
We would like to suggest that the matter of the ill-treatment of people of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic (DR) should be added to the agenda.
The planned mass deportation of just over 200 000 people has not generated the kind of outcry across the Caribbean that it deserves; as a region we have been very muted and laid-back on the issue.
To his credit, St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves has been consistently outspoken on the issue and has demanded that a tough stance be taken by CARICOM.
Five years ago, legislators in the Dominican Republic amended the constitution to limit citizenship to descendants of legal immigrants and subsequently the constitutional court in Santo Domingo has decided that as of 1929, anyone born to illegal migrants could not be registered as citizens of the Dominican Republic.
More than 200 000 people stand to suffer being robbed of citizenship and sent to a foreign country.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees have both denounced the move by the DR authorities, who have in turn responded that they are resolute and inflexible on this matter.
Perhaps because of the language barriers, neither Haiti nor the Dominican Republic has been close culturally or politically to us even though they are within our geographical space. But those reasons are not valid excuses for us in this region to stand by in silence and witness a gross infringement of people’s rights.
Such has been the case except for a few members of civil society and fringe political groups. Nothing from the ruling and opposition political parties, the churches, the trade associations or the trade unions. A few words of worry and condemnation of late from the Trinidad and Tobago Foreign Minister and his Jamaica counterpart. And little public agitation for action.
As long as the DR remains adamant about its racist anti-black bias, then CARICOM must be resolute in its position on certain issues as they impact relationship with the authorities in Santo Domingo. It must be made clear that the Dominican Republic will not be welcomed within CARICOM either as a full member or an associate.
Those ties we share with the DR through CARIFORUM – the subgrouping of African, Caribbean and Pacific states should also be reviewed. The case against the Dominican Republic must be outlined to partners in Africa, the Pacific and Latin America.
CARICOM must stand up for what is right and decent. The Dominican Republic’s action is a major breach of human rights.