Unbiased look at the Sint Maarten Elections
POND ISLAND--As the future of thousands of people of Haitian descent hangs in the balance in neighbouring country the Dominican Republic (DR), veteran Caribbean politician Dr. Ralph Gonsalves said the situation "has the potential to become a serious humanitarian disaster" in the Caribbean.
Dr. Gonsalves, who is prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, was speaking at an Emancipation Day Lecture, themed "Reparations," hosted by Independence for St. Martin Foundation at University of St. Martin on Saturday night.
"As I speak here at this hour, 10 after 10, Haitians and people of Haitian descent are going home from work, from a plantation ... from sweeping the streets ... they can't speak for themselves so we have to speak for them ... We have to defend the voiceless," Dr. Gonsalves said.
A 2013 court ruling in the Dominican Republic stripped children of Haitian migrants of their citizenship retroactively to 1930, leaving 10s of thousands of Dominican Republic-born people of Haitian descent stateless.
International outrage over the ruling led the Dominican Government to pass a law last year that allows people born to undocumented foreign parents, whose birth was never registered in the Dominican Republic, to request residency permits as foreigners. After two years they can apply for naturalisation.
However, many have actively resisted registering as foreigners because they say they are Dominican by birth and deserve all the rights that come with it – for example a naturalised citizen cannot run for high office.
Dr. Gonsalves said the action of the Dominican Republic Government has "brought shame to the region." The government's actions appear to be discrimination purely based on "ethnicity." The Caribbean as a whole and individual countries "need to speak out" about the human rights violation against Haitians and people of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic.
The visiting prime minister's call amplifies that of independent Member of Parliament (MP) Leona Marlin-Romeo, made last Thursday, to Parliament to take a stance on the issue.
St. Maarten is home to a large number of people from both the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Within those communities, there are high numbers of naturalized Dutch citizens and born-Dutch citizens (nationality acquired from parents).
The humanitarian disaster of which Dr. Gonsalves has sounded the bell is coming to the fore. Many Haitians and people of Haitian descent born in the Dominican Republic are steadily flowing to the Haitian border. They are not being deported, yet, but fear among the community is on the increase. There are confirmed reports of homes of many people being ransacked and people beaten.
Some 12,000 people mostly women and children, had arrived at the border within a three-day span a week ago, he said. "It will become a flood [of people at the border – Ed.]," he forewarned.
And for that flood, many of the reception depots on the Haitian side of the border are not ready to cater to those fleeing the only home and life they have known.
Dr. Gonsalves pointed to a tragedy in Europe where people were forced from their homes and eventually led to gas chambers. Of the Holocaust, he said had European countries spoken out earlier things may have been different. It is for a difference for Haitians and people of Haitian descent that he is calling on the Caribbean countries to speak out.
Beneco Enecia, director of a community development group called Cedeso that works with Haitian immigrants and Dominicanos of Haitian descent in the town of Tamayo, says his organisation does not recommend those born in the Dominican Republic to apply for residency. "We tell people to resist and we will continue to press for their recognition as citizens," he said in a report from UK-based The Guardian newspaper. "They are Dominican, not Haitian."
Under the regularisation programme, non-citizens who could establish their identity and prove they arrived before October 2011 are also eligible for residency. But for many Haitian migrants – born in Haiti but living undocumented in the Dominican Republic – getting passports or identity cards from their country's embassy has proven slow and costly. Many cannot show they have been in the country for more than five years because employers refuse to admit they have been hiring illegals.
Throughout the year during which the regularisation plan has been implemented, recent immigrants continue to be picked up and expelled under a programme known as the Shield.
In the first quarter of 2015 some 40,000 people have been deported to Haiti. Human rights groups have also documented numerous incidents in which people on their way to apply for residency were swept up and taken to the border.
