The mission from the Organization of American States that arrived on Friday, 10 July 2015, to investigate claims by the government of Haiti of human rights abuses by the Dominican authorities surrounding alleged deportations of Haitians. At the border of Jimani with Haiti, the mission had its last meetngs with the border patrols (Cesfront) on Sunday, 12 July. The mission is scheduled to interview civil society groups, government and business sectors in Haiti through Tuesday, 14 July prior to rendering a report.
As reported in Santo Domingo, the mission met with Minister of Interior and Police Jose Fadul and Minister of Foreign Relations Andres Navarro, civil society organizations, immigrants, Haiti’s ambassador in the Dominican Republic, Daniel Supplice, US Ambassador James Brewster, and representatives of international organizations in the country. Meetings were also held with representatives of three United Nations Agencies: Development Program (UNDP), Refugee Agency (UNCHR) and the Childrens’ Rights and Emergency Fund (UNICEF) as well as the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
The mission met with a number of non-governmental organizations, including Centro Bono, Participacion Ciudadana, Centro Cultural Dominico-Haitiano (CCDH), the National Commission of Human Rights, the Women and Health Collective, Movement of Dominican-Haitian Women and Observatory of Caribbean Migration (Obmica), and Centro de Investigacion de para Accion Feminina (Cipaf).
The mission also met with representatives of Dominican businesses, including the executive vice president of the National Business Council (Conep), Rafael Paz, the president of the Association of Industries of Hrerera (AEIH), Antonio Taveras, and Jaime Gonzalez of the Dominican Employers Confederation (Copardom). These business leaders summarized programs of the Quisqueya Binational Economic Council which promotes job creation for Dominicans and Haitians in the border region. AS reported by Listin Diario, Antonio Taveras pointed out that the humanitarian crisis in Haiti is 50 years old and that these problems were not created by the Dominican Republic.
The mission also visited the Centro de Acogida de Haina, the transition center for illegal immigrants.
It is estimated that 288,000 people registered for the National Foreigner Legalization Plan during an 18-month period. Applicants were then given an additional 45 days to complete their paperwork.
The Dominican government has said that those who do not regularize their status are subject to deportation. An estimated 40,000 Haitians have voluntarily returned to their homeland.
The OAS mission is led by Francisco Guerrero, the secretary for political affairs of the OAS, and Gabriel Bidegain, the advisor to the OAS Secretary-General.
In the Monday, 13 July 2015 editorial following the visit, executive editor Adriano Miguel Tejada of the Diario Libre expresses his doubts that the mission will produce an impartial report on the visits. Tejada explains that it is very unlikely the report will contradict the already expressed opinion of Secretary General Luis Almagro, who has criticized the National Foreigner Legalization Plan (PNRE). The editor believes that OAS’s stand against the PNRE is being driven by a handful of member nations whose interests are served if the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic continues to be porous and unstable. The reasoning is that these smaller OAS states fear an influx of undocumented Haitian into their countries if the Dominican Republic clamps down on illegal immigration.
Tejada writes that if the report were to be impartial, it would have to recognize that the rhetoric used to criticize the PNRE is false and that a great part of the immigration problem on Hispaniola can be attributed to lack of capacity or will of the Haitian government to legalize its own citizens. He expects the report to conclude that the problem is not the unchecked flow undocumented Haitians into the Dominican Republic, but rather the condition of “stateless” of many Haitians as a result of the Constitutional Court Ruling 168-13 that ordered the implementation of the PNRE. Tejada concludes that the Dominican government’s obligation is to duly recognize those individuals who were born here and who have fulfilled the legal requirements of citizenship or residency. The Medina administration cannot buckle under pressure from abroad to annul the PNRE. Tejada alluding to the immigration crisis in the Dominican Republic, concluded that there is not a single nation in the world that forfeits its sovereignty. The PNRE cannot be compromised despite the efforts led by the Haitian government to undermine the program. “We can only prepare for the worst,” he writes.
http://www.listindiario.com/la-republica/2015/07/12/379984/la-misin-de-la-oea-concluye-jornada-en-rd
http://www.diariolibre.com/movil/noticias_det.php?id=1237981