Foreign Minister Miguel Vargas Maldonado said the Dominican Republic would not be signing the Global Pact on Refugees on 17 December 2018, during the plenary session of the 73rd General Assembly of the United Nations in New York City. In a document explaining the Dominican position, Vargas said the country identifies with the spirit of the pact, but pulls out on grounds that it is based on conventions on stateless persons that the country has not ratified. Vargas says that all commitments taken on by the government need to comply with the Constitution and Dominican law.
Vargas argues, as stated in a press release, that in the national territory only the Dominican state can grant the condition of refugee. Nevertheless, the UN Pact seeks to provide a basis for the distribution of the burden and responsibility among UN member states that could be contrary to the national interest and Dominican law. From a practical point of view, that distribution of burdens and responsibilities could affect the capacity of the Dominican Republic to host considerable numbers of persons susceptible to be declared refugees according to the new international statutes.
Once the text of the pact became widely circulated in the media outlets throughout the country late last week, there was a crescendo of criticism. Many experts highlighted the porous Dominican border and the political, social and economic instability in neighboring Haiti as grave concerns for national security in the context of the proposed language in the pact.
The Dominican Republic in recent years is also experiencing an unprecedented influx of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants who are fleeing the economic turmoil and political unrest in their country. Contrary to the Haitians who usually are employed as unskilled laborers in the country, Venezuelans, many of whom are highly skilled and educated, are thought to be competing with professional, middle-class Dominicans for jobs in a wide range of industries and sectors.
PRSC president, Federico Antun Batlle, said that if the country signed the refugee agreement it was propitiating the destruction of the Dominican Republic. The PRSC president said that it is “unacceptable” that the Dominican government sign the Pact for Refugees after the generalized Dominican rejection of the Global Migration Compact that would have been signed in Marrakesh, Morocco on 7 December 2018. He said the Pact for Refugees puts in danger national sovereignty because it stimulates and protects undocumented Haitian immigrants who come en masse to the Dominican Republic and who have already taken over a large part of the national territory.
Santiago Mayor Abel Martinez spoke up forcefully to reject the Global Pact on Refugees promoted by the High Commissioner of the United Nations for Refugees. He said it would have untellable consequences for the country. He urged the government not to sign because the pact obligates those signing to guarantee the entry, stay, feeding, health services, education, documentation and nationality of the undocumented that enter.
Martinez said the country is already a victim of what he called a “passive invasion of undocumented Haitians.” Undocumented Haitians receive free medical services and free education in the Dominican Republic. “Right now the country is full of undocumented Haitians; imagine if the government signs that pact. Then we would have a greater problem when Haitians begin to enter in caravans, effectively using the Pact promoted by the United Nations as an entry permit.” He called for a comprehensive solution to the problem of immigration of undocumented Haitians into the country.
A commentary in Pagina Abierta blog written by Central Bank staff and placed on the Central Bank web site observes that the pact represents indefinite expenditures that the country is not in the capacity to absorb. The blog says it would oblige the country to provide additional commitments without taking into consideration the local labor situation, the financial and economic costs of illegal immigration. Furthermore, the author says the Pact could open a debate on the right of even the existence of a nation-state and could provoke instability in the country.
In the blog, “A economic look at the proposed migratory pact,” the writer states that the concept of an open land, free to settle on demand, refers to the origins of human history, an era characterized by violence, where, with the exception of insurmountable geographies, every frontier was drawn by battle. In this sense, the Central Bank blog summarizes that the UN could, therefore, be inducing humanity to revive the dispute process by defining territorial spaces instead of defending peace and prosperity, its central and critical mandate.
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17 December 2018
