Honorable Joseph Champagne, Mayor of South Toms River, New Jersey
The National Haitian American Elected Officials Network (NHAEON)
strongly condemns the Dominican Republic court ruling (Sentencia 168-13) which renders
stateless thousands of Dominicans, mainly of Haitian and Caribbean origin.
Media Contact: Joseph Makhandal Champagne, Jr., Esq., Chair
Tel: 732-240-0030 and email: nhaeon.chairman@gmail.com
The ruling officially states that
any Dominican citizen without one parent of Dominican nationality will have
their citizenship stripped retroactively to 1929. This ruling violates the Dominican constitution and a number
of international conventions.
Consider the vast implications of
this ruling. Without citizenship, these
Dominicans have no property rights; they are unable to use hospital facilities
their children cannot go to school; their passports are void and they cannot
travel. They are in limbo. An 80-year old grandmother living in
the Dominican Republic for generations just lost everything – as have her children
and grandchildren. Most concerning
to my organization is that a disproportionate number of Dominicans affected by
this ruling are black and of Haitian descent.
Multilateral institutions,
including the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), Organization of
American States (OAS), the United Nations (UN), and the Inter American Human
Rights Commission, have condemned the decision. Haitian President Michel
Martelly addressed the OAS on February 7, 2014 calling for constant vigilance
on this issue (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kk8Byb-kQA&list=PLkh9EPEuEx2sNOv3Z8kwhcHuDZXHHQTt8&index=3).
Twelve days after that speech, CARICOM countries called on the OAS Permanent
Council to consider the report of the Inter American Commission on Human Rights
calling for the Dominican Republic to respect its international obligations (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq34GEHxU1E&index=2&list=PLkh9EPEuEx2sNOv3Z8kwhcHuDZXHHQTt8).
Many human rights organizations
have joined the condemnation, including Amnesty International and the Robert
Kennedy Center for Human Rights and Justice. Human rights activist and winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize for
Literature, Mario Vargas Llosa, has likened the Dominican court ruling to
tactics used by the Nazis and the brutal Apartheid regime in South Africa. Unfortunately for Haitians, who are the
main ethnic group targeted by this ruling, there is a troubling historic
precedence underpinning this comparison.
In 1937, Dominican President Rafael Trujillo directed the purge of black
Haitian workers and murdered as many as 40,000 Haitians without repercussion.
In the face of international
pressure, the Dominican Government has only minimally responded. They have engaged the Haitian
government in a bilateral dialogue, which has resulted in no serious solutions
to date. Rather, the Dominicans
have focused on a tangential issue, namely “regularizing” undocumented workers,
and have issued two decrees that provide papers to those citizens. Undocumented workers are not the core
issue. The rendering stateless of
tens of thousands Dominicans is the core issue.
NHAEON is calling upon multilateral
institutions, the Dominican and Haitian Diaspora, as well as human rights
groups, and the global community to mobilize against this state-sponsored
ethnic cleansing of Dominicans of Haitian and Caribbean descent by calling for
the following actions:
1) UN
Security Council, the Secretary General and the Organizations of American
States officially condemn the ruling of the Dominican court;
2) Additional
efforts by the CARICOM to suspend Dominican Republic participation in
multilateral organizations, including the OAS, UN, the African Union, European
Union, and PetroCaribe.
3) Call
for the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the Inter American
Development Bank to consider sanctions;
4) Appeal
for U.S. Diplomatic intervention and for Haitian Americans to build coalitions
with our friends and allies in the Congressional Black Caucus, the Latino
Caucus, the Progressive Caucus, the NAACP, Urban League, and religious groups
to join us in protecting the citizenship of all Dominicans; and,
5) Mobilize
the Dominican and Haitian Diaspora to boycott the Dominican government and
businesses and request host nations to condemn the Dominican ruling and impose
trade sanctions.
ABOUT NHAEON
National Haitian American Elected
Officials Network in the United States (NHAEON) is a non-partisan coalition
determined to promote Haitian culture, education, welfare and well being while
improving relations between the United States and Haiti. NHAEON is committed to bringing a
renewed national and local focus on key legislative, diplomatic, security,
economic and human rights issues affecting Haiti.
State Department Human Rights on the Dominican Republic, see: http://www.state.gov/j/drl/