Haitians deported from Dominican Republic wait to board a bus to be taken to their hometown.
WASHINGTON, Jul 9, CMC – Haiti has called on the Dominican Republic to end its forced deportation of people of Haitian decent and return to the negotiation table in a bid to find a “more humane treatment” in dealing with the migration crisis affecting both countries.
Foreign Minister Lener Renauld in an address to the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) said it was important to avoid the massive deportations “which would lead to splitting households and tearing children away from their parents”.
He told the OAS that his country has “not come here to get on its knees and ask for mercy. Haiti has come … to ask the Dominican Republic to appeal to reason”.
An OAS mission is due to arrive in Haiti and Dominican Republic this weekend to find “a fundamental solution” to the crisis.
OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro Lemes said he was hoping to “resolve it once and for all”.
The Dominican Republic had given June 17 deadline for people of Haitian descent to apply for legal residency. The Dominican Republic has said migrants who can prove they entered the country before October 2011 can qualify for legal residency. Otherwise they could face deportation.
Haitian President Michel Matelly described the situation facing his country as a “humanitarian crisis because we are talking about non-Haitians, most likely Dominicans (who are) taken out of their country” and appealed for a peaceful resolition.
Last week, Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders issued a statement following their summit here in which they expressed “their abhorrence and outrage with respect to the treatment of Dominicans of Haitian descent and Haitian migrants in the Dominican Republic.
“This human rights situation is exacerbated as the tempo of so-called voluntary repatriation gathers pace in unregulated conditions resulting from pressures and the threat of violence as well as the absence of a revised bilateral framework between Haiti and the Dominican Republic that the latter has been unwilling to conclude,” the regional leaders said.
In his address, the Haitian foreign minister his country “will not accept Dominican citizens in the territory.
“It is OK for returning Haitians to their own land, but this will be done according to a protocol,” he said. Wednesday’s sitting of the OAS Permanent Council was less acrimonious that a week ago when the Dominican Foreign Minister Andrés Navarro and Haiti Ambassador Bocchit Edmond got into a verbal argument.
Renauld and Dominican Ambassador Pedro Vergés Ciman also got into a diplomatic war of words, with Vergés accusing the government of Haiti of adjusting “realities to its own interests and thereby distorts it.
“Haiti had an opportunity to regularize its nationals but they were simply not interested,” Vergés said, noting that only a third of the 288,000 registered in the programmehad passports.
He said the Dominican Republic welcomed dialogue, but no one could force policy on the sovereign nation.
