Minister of Foreign Relations Eduardo Latorre appealed to the US to revise the new migration laws that have allowed the deporting of criminals with unfulfilled sentences. The criminals, that do not have cases pending with the DR justice and thus are freed in the DR, are believed to have contributed to an increase in the crime rate in the DR. Latorre said that from 1994, the US has deported 9, 510 Dominicans with unfulfilled sentences. He also criticized the retroactivity of the law. Minister Latorre is representing the DR in the II Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Relations of the Caribbean and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright taking place in New Orleans. The meeting is a follow up to the Caribbean-US summit presidential summit held in Barbados in 1997. The Caribbean wants the US to support the World Trade Organization waiver that the region needs for the recently negotiated Suva Convention (that will replace the Lomé Convention) and is slated to be signed in Fiji in June with the European Union. The waiver will permit the Caribbean to continue to enjoy preferential trade treatment with the European Union, until these are gradually phased out to comply with WTO trade rules. Members of the national delegation are Minister of Foreign Relations Eduardo Latorre, Ambassador Roberto Saladin; ambassador Alejandra Liriano, in charge of multilateral affairs of the Ministry; Joaquin Antonio Balaguer, Dominican consul in New Orleans. During the event, the DR will also lobby for a chair in the 2002-2003 United Nations National Security Council. Other issues on the agenda are the banana dispute, the offshore tax regimes, organized crime and narcotics trafficking through the region. Caribbean countries would also like the US to focus on development opportunities within the Caribbean.
