CARICOM monitoring Dominican Republic citizenship issue

Photos courtesy Jouvey Ayiti By Marcia Braveboy Caribbean News Now Senior Correspondent marcia@caribbeannewsnow.com  PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad -- Caribbean Community (CARICOM) chair, Trinidad and Tobago prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, said she is monitoring the situation in the Dominican Republic following a controversial ruling by that country’s constitutional court and, further, will consult with CARICOM Secretary General Irwin LaRocque on the best way forward to seek a solution to the issue. The prime minister’s statement was triggered by a petition that was delivered to her office by the Trinidad and Tobago-based mas and consciousness-raising organisation, Jouvay Ayiti, whose members, clad in jouvert costumes, led a demonstration in Port of Spain on Wednesday in support of some 200,000 Dominican-born individuals of Haitian descent, who have potentially been left stateless following a court ruling on September 23, 2013, that stripped them of their citizenship. Members of Jouvay Ayiti marched to the prime minister’s office in Port of Spain on Wednesday to deliver a petition, calling for her intervention in the citizenship matter. In acknowledging receipt of the petition, Persad-Bissessar said she noted with great concern the issues raised in the document. She said she recognises the difficulty and uncertainty facing those persons in the Dominican Republic whose status and rights have been cast in doubt.  However, the CARICOM chair indicated her respect for the independence of the constitutional court of the Dominican Republic. “Equally, the prime minister respects the sovereign independence of the Dominican Republic and of its Constitutional Court,” a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office said. In 2007, many Dominicans of Haitian descent were blocked by a law that did not allow them to acquire copies of their birth certificates or national identification cards. Juliana Dequis Pierre was one of the persons blocked. She could not get a national ID card and would later take her fight to the courts.  Though she had been born in the Dominican Republic, the high court ruled that 29-year-old Dequis Pierre did not meet the criteria for citizenship since her parents had not been legal immigrants. The court took the matter further, asking the authorities to identify similar cases that stretched back to 1929. And this is where the uproar started.  The matter has since attracted international and regional concern.  The UN refugee agency issued a statement saying: "Should this process indeed be carried out without the necessary safeguards, three generations of Dominicans of Haitian descent could become stateless."  The OAS also voiced its concern over the predicament that a great many Dominican-born individuals now find themselves in. Persad-Bissessar said she concurred with the Organisation of American States (OAS) position on the issue. “The prime minister also draws reference to the recent statement on this issue by the secretary general of the Organisation of the American States (OAS), His Excellency Jose Miguel Insulza, who affirmed that the OAS (of which Trinidad and Tobago is a member), through its Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), ‘will continue to work… to find a solution with the maximum degree of agreement, the maximum degree of openness and the maximum degree of goodwill,’” the statement read. Caribbean leaders have been urged to freeze the Dominican Republic’s pending application for membership in CARICOM and to review its economic and trading relations with the country. Saint Lucia’s Prime Minister Dr Kenny Anthony has referred to the ruling as a “most callous and insensitive invective of people based on their ancestry.”