Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 24 juin 2015

 Stop mass deportation from the Dominican Republic to Haiti

Washington and the international community must pressure Santo Domingo to avert impending crisis

June 19, 2015 2:00AM ET

by Lauren Carasik

The Dominican Republic is expected to begin deporting an estimated 500,000 undocumented immigrants after the deadline to file paperwork for adjustment of status expired on June 17. The specter of mass deportations has raised alarms about an unfolding humanitarian disaster. Yet the crisis has generated little international attention, much less condemnation from world leaders.

Billed by Dominican authorities as a legitimate immigration policy to deal with undocumented immigrants, the policy targets Haitians and those who trace their roots to Haiti. There are two distinct Haitian populations in the Dominican Republic: Dominicans of Haitian descent, born in the country, who were citizens until Santo Domingo unlawfully denationalized them in 2013, and Haitian immigrants, many of whom are low-wage workers engaging in manual and domestic labor.

Dominican nationalists have long agitated to rid the country of its darker-skinned inhabitants. The impending deportations suggest that this social cleansing may now be conducted under the patina of legitimacy. But legal and humane deportations require individual screening and orderly repatriation, not mass expulsions to a ravaged country ill prepared to absorb them.

Immigrants face increasing hostility in the Dominican Republic. Tensions intensified in 2010 after a flood of Haitians crossed the border after the devastating earthquake in Haiti. In February unidentified assailants lynched a Haitian in Santiago, the country’s second-largest city, fueling concerns of escalating racial violence. The prospects for repatriated Haitians and expelled Dominicans are bleak. For Dominican-born children of Haitian descent, Haiti has never been home. Many have no family connections. They do not speak the local language and lack Haitian citizenship or its accompanying rights.

It wasn’t always this way. Historically, all children born on Dominican soil were granted citizenship, except children of diplomats and foreigners in transit. But a 2004 migration law extended in-transit status to nonresidents, including undocumented Haitian immigrants. The law retroactively equated people whose families have been in the country for nearly a century with those en route to another destination.

A 2013 Dominican court decision, which stripped citizenship from children of undocumented immigrants born in the Dominican Republic, has rendered more than 200,000 people stateless. After an international outcry, last year the government backpedaled from the unlawful denationalization, creating a path to citizenship for undocumented children born in the country through what was called a regularization process.

Applicants seeking to adjust their status were supposed to obtain the necessary documents by February and complete the process by June 17 or face deportation. But the process has been fraught with delays, bureaucratic impediments and corruption, causing anguish and uncertainty. Few of those eligible for adjustment of legal status have succeeded in changing it.

The US and the rest of the international community must pressure Dominican authorities to end efforts to deport Dominican-born citizens and to halt the impending mass deportations of Haitian immigrants.

The country’s well-documented efforts to denationalize Dominican-born children of immigrants suggest that these problems are at least partly by design. Fewer than half of the country’s 500,000 foreign workers who are eligible for legal status have initiated the regularization process. To date, only about 300 have received permits. And only a small percentage of Dominicans of Haitian origin have started the naturalization process.

For Dominicans of Haitian descent, obtaining proof of birth is difficult. And many immigrants cannot prove they have met the residency requirements or obtain work permits because employers are loath to admit hiring undocumented immigrants. Those born in rural areas or at home are typically not issued birth certificates. The process is further hampered because transportation to immigration processing centers and costs associated with obtaining the paperwork are prohibitive and minor inconsistencies are grounds for denial. And even for those who manage to gather the required documents, the processing centers are under resourced and difficult to navigate.

Those who are not immediately deported, including those with residency permits, will continue to face difficulty accessing basic services. “While the terms ‘resident’ and ‘stateless’ might seem bureaucratic, in reality, legal citizenship can be vital to open up access to education, health care and work, among other fundamental rights,” Erika Guevara Rosas, the Americas director for Amnesty International, wrote in January. 

Some Dominican-born people of Haitian descent have refused to accept the second-class status conferred by the naturalization process. Even those who qualify for citizenship will not be entitled to full benefits such as running for office, further enshrining inequality. The timing of the deportations, which coincides with the start of the 2016 election season, has not escaped notice by critics.

The Dominican Republic is dependent on immigrant labor. It is more stable and affluent than its deeply impoverished neighbor. Dominican authorities have a long history of inviting Haitians to work on sugar cane plantations and perform other manual jobs shunned by the locals.  But some Dominicans resent the immigrants as a social burden. Despite the inhospitable reception, dire conditions in Haiti have compelled many Haitians to flee instability and poverty. As a result, Haitian immigrants have long been buffeted between nationalist vitriol and the demand for low-wage laborers, whose precarious legal status leaves them vulnerable to exploitation.

Meanwhile, Dominican officials continue to send mixed signals about the pace and timing of the deportations, sowing confusion that has only heightened fear and uncertainty. It is still unclear whether deportations will start immediately or after a 45-day grace period. Interior Minister José Ramón Fadul said that authorities will not engage in mass roundups. But the country’s immigration agency says its officers will start patrolling immigrant neighborhoods on June 18 and that security forces have been readied for deportation duty. Authorities have set up reception centers to house Haitians before repatriation and reserved buses to transport deportees to the border, suggesting that action is imminent.

Dominican officials have staunchly defended the country’s right to make sovereign immigration policy decisions and brushed off criticisms about unlawful, inhumane and racially motivated treatment of immigrants. This may explain the U.S. State Department’s muted response to the crisis, as it echoes Washington’s approach to its immigration troubles. But the U.S. and the rest of the international community cannot remain silent: They have a moral responsibility to implore Dominican authorities to end efforts to deport Dominican-born citizens and halt the impending mass deportations of Haitian immigrants until they are afforded fair and effective regularization and repatriation processes.

Lauren Carasik is a clinical professor of law and the director of the international human rights clinic at the Western New England University School of Law.

The bloody origins of the Dominican Republic's ethnic 'cleansing' of Haitians

ABBY PHILLIP | THE WASHINGTON POST

There is an artificial line that splits the island of Hispaniola in two. On one side is Haiti, and on the other is the Dominican Republic.

There was a time when that split between the two countries was drawn with blood; the 1937 Parsley Massacre is widely regarded as a turning point in Haitian-Dominican relations. The slaughter, carried out by Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, targeted Haitians along with Dominicans who looked dark enough to be Haitian — or whose inability to roll the “r” in perejil, the Spanish word for parsley, gave them away.

The Dajabón River, which serves as the northernmost part of the international border between the two countries, had “risen to new heights on blood alone,” wrote Haitian American author Edwidge Danticat.

“The massacre cemented Haitians into a long-term subversive outsider incompatible with what it means to be Dominicans,” according to Border of Lights, an organization that commemorated the 75th anniversary of the massacre in 2012.

Today, things are as tense on the island as they have been in years. Within days, the Dominican government is expected to round up Haitians — or, really, anyone black enough to be Haitian — and ship them to the border, where they will likely be expelled.

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that the head of the Dominican Republic’s immigration agency, Army Gen. Ruben Paulino, said his agency will begin patrolling neighborhoods with large numbers of migrants on Thursday.

“If they aren’t registered, they will be repatriated,” Paulino said, according to the AP.

The government has described it, in terms chillingly reminiscent of the Holocaust, as a “cleansing” of the country’s immigration rolls.

Cassandre Theano, a legal officer at the New York-based Open Society Foundations, said the comparisons between the Dominican government’s actions and the denationalization of Jews in Nazi Germany are justified.

“We’ve called it as such because there are definitely linkages,” she told The Washington Post this week. “You don’t want to look a few years back and say, ‘This is what was happening and I didn’t call it.’ ”

In other words, 78 years later, these are the fruits of Trujillo’s bloody campaign to sow anti-Haitian sentiment in the Dominican Republic.

“The root cause is discrimination; it’s really a long-standing discrimination against those of Haitian descent,” said Marselha Goncalves Margerin, ‎advocacy director for the Americas at Amnesty International. “The Dominican Republic has not been able to establish a strong policy to combat it.”

The discrimination starts with the long-standing practice of not recognizing as Dominican people of Haitian descent who were born in the Dominican Republic. Instead, they are lumped in with a second group: Haitian migrants who came to the country — sometimes brought by force — to work in the sugarcane fields.

Then, in 2013, the country’s Constitutional Court ruled that no longer would people born in the Dominican Republic automatically be considered citizens. The rule, the court decided, would retroactively apply to anyone born after 1929.

The change overwhelmingly affects Haitians and people of Haitian descent. And its impact reaches back generations.

In reality, Theano said, “cleaning” the Dominican registration rolls to root out fraud and non-citizens entails identifying Haitian-sounding names, then forcing Haitian migrants and Dominicans of Haitian descent to prove that they are citizens.

The deadline for procuring the documents necessary to prove citizenship if you were born in the Dominican Republic lapsed in February. And on Wednesday, the deadline for migrants to “regularize” their statuses will also expire.

What happens Thursday is unknown.

“People are concerned that they will be indiscriminately targeting people who are darker skinned, black Dominicans, Dominican Haitians and Haitian migrants,” said Theano. “There is no science behind how they pick people.

“They literally look at you and decide whether you fit the profile or not.”

© 2015, The Washington Post

220,000 Dominicans of Haitian Descent Facing Deportation from the Dominican Republic

STOP THE DEPORTATION!!

Community Members and Students Stand Against Mass Deportations of Haitians in the Dominican Republic

TALLAHASSEE, FL - On June 19, 2015 at 1:00 pm a rally was scheduled to be held in front of the Florida Historic Capitol, where State Representative Daphne Campbell, community members and students from various organizations were to protest the mass deportation of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic.  The protest was organized by State Representative Daphne Campbell. Also scheduled to be in attendance were Representative Hazel Rogers, D-94 and Haitian Lives Do Matter, Black Liberation Action Coordinating Committee (BLACC), Dream Defenders and Recycle4Haiti Foundation Inc.

Two years ago the Dominican Republic introduced a law known as TC 168/13 which has striped thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent of their Dominican citizenship. The law charges and denationalizes Dominicans of Haitian descent born after 1929.  From one day to the next, thousands of Dominicans were revoked of their citizenship and are at risk of facing deportation starting on June 15th, 2015. Haitian Lives Do Matter and other groups demand the Dominican Republic to stop violating the human rights of black Dominicans and halt the deportation!

Haitian Lives Do Matter! No Human is Illegal! #HaitianLivesDoMatter  #HaitianLivesMatter

Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 1 juillet 2015

 IDB opens new office in Haiti

PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti (CMC) – Five years after a powerful earthquake caused widespread damage and death in Haiti, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has inaugurated a new country office building in the French-speaking Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country while pledging its commitment to help rebuild the country.

IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno described the event as “one of transition, shifting from primarily addressing urgent post-quake demands related to the most basic elements, such as providing food, shelter and water, to a more forward-looking set of sustainable initiatives that will improve lives”.

More than 200 people, including Prime Minister Evans Paul, Haiti’s Finance Minister and IDB Governor Wilson Laleau as well as other members of the Government and the diplomatic community attended the ceremony.

The IDB said that the new building houses one of the IDB’s largest country offices, with 85 full-time personnel, “all dedicated to working with the government and private sector to build institutional capacity, improve quality of life, and increase economic opportunity in the Caribbean nation”.

It said the building was designed and constructed to meet the most stringent of international structural and seismic standards and incorporates a number of sustainability features, including solar panels for electricity generation, rainwater harvesting, insulated walls, and occupancy sensors for lighting control. The building also utilizes an open space plan, which contributes to and reflects the Bank’s goals of efficiency, collaboration, innovation, and transparency.

The IDB said the completion of the building coincided with the midpoint of the its  10-year, US$2.2 billion commitment to support the Haitian Government’s efforts to improve the efficiency of its operations, increase economic opportunities and improve quality of life.

Following the 2010 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people, the IDB announced that it was pardoning Haiti’s $484 million in debt and agreed to provide all future aid in the form of non-reimbursable grants, at the rate of US$200 million a year from 2010 through 2020.

Dominican Republic Deportations Affects Haiti Border Region

TeleSUR - The deportation of thousands of Haitians will have an adverse effect on some parts of the Dominican economy. Tensions have been mounting in the northern border region between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, as Dominican officials start enforcing new strict immigration policies that could see up to 30,000 Haitians deported. The border town of Dajabon has long been a popular spot for Haitians to find work, either in the service or agricultural sectors, or to buy and sell market goods. Border officials have traditionally allowed these temporary crossings, as many of the Haitians return to Haiti at the end of the day.

According to reports from the Washington Post Wednesday, the new immigration regulations in the Dominican Republic will make this open border and working scenario much harder for Haitians, while it will also have a huge impact on the local economy that depends on Haitian labor and business. “They make our economy dynamic,” Ana Carrasco, a Dominican restaurant owner in Dajabon told the Washington Post. “People come to buy eggs, chicken, spaghetti. If they don’t buy it in this market, they don’t eat. Hunger doesn’t have a flag, nor a border, nor a color, nor politics. It’s hunger. It’s necessity.”  Just as Haitians have come to depend on Dajabon to find work and food, local Dominican business owners in the town have come to rely on Haitians to supply much needed labor. “Haitians make our economy dynamic” “This issue affects my business, because my employees can’t come to work,” said Carrasco. According to Dominican rice farmer Hiroshi Rodriguez, the manual labor on his farm is done by trucked-in Haitian workers because “Dominicans don't want to work,” he told the Washington Post.   The new stringent immigration laws are part of the Dominican Republic's new plan to “bring order to the country,” according to government officials. Tens of thousands of Haitians are expected to be deported since they are living in the country without proper papers, even though many of them were born there or have been there for years. Haitians were given a June 17 deadline to apply for residency permits, if they could prove they had lived in the Dominican Republic prior to 2011. RELATED: Haitian-American Author: Deportations 'State-Sponsored Open Season' The northern border area has also seen an influx of Haitians from all across the Dominican Republic, who have already started to leave through the Dajaban border crossing. According to reports by the Washington Post, some 12,000 Haitians have voluntarily fled, fearing that pending deportations could turn violent. Many Haitians have ended up in Ounaminthe across the border, not knowing what to do next.

The mayor of New York speaks out on the tragedy of the deported Haitians

In a declaration last week, the Mayor of the City of New York, Bill de Blasio, said he was extremely worried by the deportation of hundreds of thousands of people from the Dominican Republic to Haiti, including many children, learnt HPN.

Bill de Blasio called on the Dominican government to respect the guaranteed fundamental rights for every people, including the Dominicans of Haitian origin, by virtue of international law.

"I also ask the government to avoid the inevitable errors, the dangers and the humiliation of deporting by force people from their homes. Among the people the most the affected by this action will be descendants of Haitians, born in the Dominican Republic, but who are inequitably deprived of their nationality and their legal status, simply because of their ancestry", declared the mayor of the City of New York.

"The Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulates that the nationality is a fundamental law to all the individuals," continued Mr. De Blasio.

The mayor hopes to see a compassionate and human resolution to this alarming situation. HPN

The Dominican Republic Wants To Deport 60,000 Stateless Kids

THE HUFFINGTON POST

LAGUNA SALADA, Dominican Republic -- When the summer draws to a close, it should be time for Elaihi Chalis, 15, to go back to school.

But without a birth certificate, she says she won’t be able to enroll in her local high school and will have to stay home or find a job -- not only dashing her hopes to continue educating herself, but also limiting her ability to significantly contribute to national economy down the road. Going back to school is just one of Chalis' worries. Though she was born in this country, she and her mother say the hospital refused to provide documentation of her birth because her mother is an undocumented immigrant from Haiti. Like thousands of other minors, she does not have citizenship in either the Dominican Republic or Haiti, making her stateless. After the deadline to register with the Dominican government as a foreign national passed last week, Chalis now faces the threat of deportation.

"Why do they want to take us and send us to Haiti?" Chalis said in an interview with The Huffington Post. "I don't want to go. I don't know anything about Haiti."

A series of Dominican legal developments since 2004 have eliminated the concept of birthright citizenship here. A 2013 decision by the Constitutional Court applied the new standard retroactively, effectively stripping thousands of Dominican-born people of their citizenship.

Dominican officials have staunchly defended their widely criticized efforts to codify citizenship standards that exclude people born in the country to undocumented parents, arguing that sovereign countries have the right to decide their own citizenship laws. To highlight how reasonable their policies are, they point to a program that ended in February and was designed to restore citizenship to those who once held a Dominican national ID card or passport, and to allow people born in the country to register as foreign nationals with a two-year pathway to citizenship.

Roughly 56,000 people who had previously held Dominican passports or other national identification documents will have their citizenship restored through the plan, which ran for over eight months, officials say.

But fewer than 9,000 people born in the country who lack proper documentation signed up for the naturalization plan, a figure that immigrant rights groups and international human rights organizations say falls short of the roughly 200,000 people they think may have qualified. A coalition of nongovernmental organizations including Save the Children and World Vision says 60,000 of those stateless people are children or teenagers. The overwhelming majority of the Dominican Republic's stateless people are of Haitian descent and black, leading critics to say racism has played a role in pushing these policies forward.

A second plan to normalize the status of undocumented immigrants passed last week, leaving those who didn't register no further options for obtaining legal residence.

A visit to the Dominican Republic's impoverished countryside highlights the number of children who, like Chalis, have a claim to Dominican citizenship and missed the change to register for naturalization. It's a problem that promises to expand with time, as new generations of children born here to undocumented or stateless parents will continue to lack access to Dominican citizenship.

Dozens of children and teenagers in Laguna Salada who were born in this country say they left the hospital without proper documentation.

Part of problem is authorities who have refused to give birth certificates to children born to undocumented parents, people here say. Some parents say the hospital where their kids were born never gave them a record documenting the child's birth. Others say they gave birth at home -- which still occurs with some regularity in the Dominican countryside -- and that authorities said they had no way of proving the children weren't born in Haiti.

Bureaucratic inefficiency also plays a role. Many parents with several children say some received documentation at birth while others did not, without explanation.

Congresswoman Clarke asks the Dominican Republic to reconsider its policy

Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke published a statement on the humanitarian crisis in the Dominican Republic, where the government threatens to repatriate several hundred thousand Haitian.

"There are nearly a half million people of Haitian origin in the Dominican Republic. 288,000 people registered to legalize their status to stay there, but reports indicate that 90 % of the candidates could not provide the required evidence, to have lived in Dominican Republic constantly since October, 2011.

Today, hundreds of thousands of Haitian nationals and people of Haitian origin are threatened with eviction from the Dominican Republic, a policy which will only aggravate the humanitarian crisis in Haiti, which has not recovered from the 2010 earthquake with numerous families displaced from their homes. Many people targeted by the deportation were born in the Dominican Republic or have lived there for most of their lives […] As a result, I am profoundly worried by the policy requiring Haitians to carry with them documents proving their legal status in the Dominican Republic to avoid arrest [notes: all nationalities are concerned]. This is reminiscent of the policy of South Africa under apartheid, in which blacks had to carry a travel book. Without jobs in Haiti, without families to support them, or houses where to live, these displaced families will experience extreme poverty.

I implore the Government of the Dominican Republic to reconsider this deportation policy and to work with the community of Caribbean nations to prevent this useless crisis from occurring.

With my colleagues from the Congress and with the State Department, I am going to work to prevent the forced mobilization of hundreds of thousands of Haitians and people of Haitian origin from their homes."

The United States denounced the "discriminatory measures" against Haitian immigrants and their descendants in Dominican Republic.

The document notes the controversial decision of the Dominican Constitutional court of September, 2013, which fixes the parameters of acquisition for citizenship.

"This decision stipulates that the descendants of people considered illegal in the country, among whom many are of Haitian origin, do not have the right for the Dominican nationality," noted the report which is use as a guide for Congress to decide on granting assistance to every country."

This report examines the behavior of governments all over the world (except the United States) on human rights.

Last Monday, approximately 200 people gathered in front of the embassy of the Dominican Republic in Washington to press this country to stop the process of "deportation" of more than 200,000 people, including Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian origin who have become stateless, and could be expelled to Haiti.

The main fear of the NGO (NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION) and the international organizations is not only the risk of massive deportations, but the eviction of people born in the country, because they are the daughters and sons of Haitian illegal immigrants.  This is taking place in spite of the fact that they played an important role in the social, economic and political life of the country, having been able to vote during the last presidential election which brought the president Medina to power.

50 % of the Haitian population consumes some contaminated water

The platform of the organizations of defense of human rights (POHDH), declared critical and alarming the water problem in Haiti. This statement was made during its traditional press conference last Friday under the theme: “The marginalization of the water a threat for human rights.”

The person in charge of education, culture and human rights for Alermy Kervilus’ platform, said that according to the last report by DINEPA, about 50 percent of the population uses some contaminated water and 30 % walk more than 30 minutes before finding some water.

For his part the executive secretary of the POHDH, Anthonal Mortime, considers this situation a violation of human rights, because the state is not taking care of the population. According to him, the right to water is a sacred right just as civil and political rights.

Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 8 juillet 2015

Deputy Castillo demands to remove the Dominican diplomatic staff accredited in Haiti

The Dominican Deputy Vinicio Castillo Semán, of the Progressive National Force    (FNP), (the ultra-nationalist right) asked President Danilo Medina to remove the Dominican diplomatic staff accredited in Haiti, for fear of demonstrations in Haiti against the Dominican Republic because of his immigration policy.

"Haiti declared a diplomatic war against the Dominican Republic. Danilo should remove the diplomatic staff in Haiti, where they will be at risk in the next weeks," writes the Member of Parliament on his Twitter account. Assuring that the Government of Haiti "is going to toughen its offensive against the Dominican Republic, manipulating its population to cause an angry outburst against the Dominicans ".

President Martelly at the 36th meeting of the conference of the heads of state of the Caribbean

Last Thursday, President Michel Martelly left the country and headed to Bridgetown (Barbados) to participate in the 36th regular meeting of the Conference of the Heads of State and/or Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), under the chair of Prime Minister Barbadian Freudel Stuart.

Accompanied by, among others, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defense, Lener, and the Minister of Justice, Pierre Richard Casimir, the Head of State attended the official launch ceremony of this 36th ordinary meeting of the leaders of this community. He acknowledged the warm welcome reserved for the Haitian delegation by the Barbados authorities.

These conferences addressed several key issues, in particular the sustainable development of the community internationally, and relations with the Dominican Republic.

President Martelly’s Speech

The President of the Republic, Joseph Michel Martelly, has changed his tone and speech regarding the repatriations of Haitians and Dominicans denationalized by the Dominican Republic, observed the on-line AlterPresse agency.

During the 36th summit of heads of Caribbean state and government, Martelly has called for multilateral negotiations regarding the repatriations-evictions by the Dominican Republic.

During the plenary session last Friday, Martelly condemned, for the first time, the Dominican policy towards the Haitian migrants and the Dominican citizens denying them citizenship by a ruling taken in 2013.

The Dominican government prefers to speak about citizens' "voluntary departure" Haitian citizens towards their country.

It is, in fact, about "often violent deportations,” specified Michel Martelly in his speech on July 3rd, 2015.

While recognizing the right of Haiti’s neighboring country to decide on its own migratory policy, Martelly also pointed out that the political administration in Santo Domingo refused, in all the meetings, categorically to negotiate a protocol on the process and the mechanisms for repatriations.

Martelly especially called upon CARICOM, the Organization of American States (OAS), and the United Nations Organization (UNO).

"The international community cannot keep silent, when people, whose labor was exploited during several decades, are being chased away, without having the possibility of receiving a pension, let alone regain their heritage," asserted Martelly.

Martelly’s intervention, on July 3rd, 2015, at the CARICOM summit seemed to follow the position taken this week by his Prime Minister Evans Paul, who, in a communiqué, deeply criticized the night repatriation (from Wednesday, July 1st till Thursday, July 2nd, 2015) of 21 migrants.

OAS urges Caribbean countries to take advantage of Panama Canal expansion

JAMAICA OBSERVER

WASHINGTON (CMC) – The Inter-American Committee on Ports (CIP) of the Organization of American States (OAS) wants Caribbean countries to take advantage of commercial opportunities offered by the Panama Canal expansion.

Addressing the opening of a three-day meeting on Wednesday, Executive Secretary for Integral Development of the OAS, Sherry Tross, recalled that more than 80 per cent of world trade is transported by sea, and noted that the redevelopment of the Panama Canal will increase traffic and maritime trade worldwide.

“This increased capacity not only implies savings for world trade, but has the potential to increase trade between Latin America and the world,” she said.

“The impending expansion of the Panama Canal presents both challenges and opportunities for the entire region,” she added. “This expansion has the potential to stimulate trade in the region and, as we know, has already spurred infrastructure development designed to increase port capacity for large vessels post-Panama.”

The OAS official also said the increase in maritime traffic requires OAS member-states to modernize their laws, guidelines and regulations for the implementation and enforcement of international safety standards.

During the meeting, OAS member-states are expected to discuss the prospects for strengthening regional port dialogue in order to promote competitiveness in the sector with the imminent enlargement of the Panama Canal.

Inauguration of Port Lafito

The President of the Republic, Mister Michel Joseph Martelly, took part on Thursday, July 2nd, in Lafito, in the inauguration of the new port.

In the presence of members of government, the managing director of the National Harbour Authority (APN), Alix Célestin, representatives of the private sector, and police authorities, the Head of State praised the efforts of all those who participated in the realization of this big project. President Martelly took the opportunity to indicate the importance of the construction of these infrastructures in the process of economic and tourist development in Haiti.

For his part, the managing director of the APN, Alix Célestin, indicated that the realization of this project was the result of a real partnership between the Group Biggio, the Haitian State and several entrepreneurs from the Haitian private sector.

Gilbert Biggio thanked President Martelly and the Managing director of the APN who contributed to the realization of the new Lafito Port.

This multifunctional terminal shelters the deepest port in the country, with 12 meters of draft and 450 meters of mooring berth. Initiated by the Group Biggio, this project, which cost $150 million, is part of Global Lafito Project. This big first in the Haitian maritime and harbor sector has the potential to create 20,000 jobs in the next four years.

Sen. Durbin in Haiti

CHICAGO (AP) -- The office of U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois says he has met with officials in Haiti to discuss the status of U.S. assistance programs more than five years after an earthquake killed thousands.

A news release from Durbin's office says he and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida were in Haiti over the weekend. The release says they met with Haiti President Michel Martelly, U.S. Ambassador Pamela White and other officials. Durbin said in the release that he's "encouraged" by recovery efforts that he has seen.

Discussions also addressed Haitian border issues after its neighbor, the Dominican Republic, said it would start deporting some non-citizens.

Durbin's office says it was his third trip to Haiti in 10 years.

Haiti - Economy: Haiti owes more than $2 billion to Venezuela

Haiti Libre – Friday (June 26th) in a press conference, the Venezuelan Ambassador Pedro Antonio C. Gonzalez reiterated the commitment of his government to pursue the PetroCaribe cooperation agreement with the Haitian government, which has funded nearly 300 projects and recalled that on 29 June PetroCaribe will celebrate its 10th anniversary, with the participation of a Haitian delegation to Venezuela that will travel to Venezuela for this anniversary.

The Ambassador recalled that this fund is part of efforts to consolidate the ideology of Hugo Chavez and to promote the elimination of social inequalities. According to Pedro Antonio C. Gonzalez, the funds are used in projects related to the needs of the Haitian population.

How the PetroCaribe funds work:

The Office of Monetization plays an intermediary role between the Venezuelan supplier PDVSA Petroleo S.A. and local oil companies in Haiti. To each delivery PDVSA Petroleo SA bills the BMPAD which in turn provides the bill to local oil companies who pay the state 100% of the FOB value of the cargo.

According to the price of oil on the international market, the Haitian Government transfer 40% to 75% of the amounts collected, to the PDVSA Petroleo SA. The remaining balance must be paid by Haiti, over 25 years at an annual interest rate of 1% after a grace period of 2 years. The change in the percentage retained by Haiti depends on the price of the barrel, the higher the price of oil is, the higher the portion retained by Haiti down and vice versa.

Part financed over 25 years with 1% annual interest including 2 years of grace:

If the price of barrel is $150 or more: Part Cash 30% - Part Funded 70%

Between $80 and $100. Part Cash 50%: Part Funded 50%

Between $50 and $80. Part Cash 60%: Part Funded 40%

Between $40 and $50. Part Cash 70%: Part Funded 30%

Part financed over 17 years with 2% annual interest including 2 years of grace:

If the price per barrel is between $30 and $40: Part Cash 75%: Part Funded 25%

234 projects funded by the PetroCaribe funds:

This PetroCaribe agreement, signed by Haiti on May 14, 2006 with the Venezuelan government. has helped to finance between 2011 and 2014, 234 projects for nearly $1.2 billion. All the details on these investments are available in a report of over 200 pages, which summarizes and illustrates all public interventions undertaken for 31 months under the Martelly-Lamothe administration through this mechanism.

Download the PetroCaribe Report: http://www.haitilibre.com/docs/GZS_13183_Bilan_PetroCaribe_2015-02-23.pdf :

According to the Bureau of Monetization of Development Assistance Programs (BMPAD) the PetroCaribe long-term debt, accumulated as of January 31, 2015, to be paid over 25 years amounted to nearly 2 billion US dollars (1,999,265,940.11).

IDB funds for Haiti

WASHINGTON, (CMC) –The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Tuesday said it would provide a US$15 million grant to Haiti for a sustainable artisan-fishing development project in the south of the country.

It said fishing is a key socioeconomic sector in Haiti, generating some 77,000 full-time jobs. Artisan fishing still remains the predominant type of marine fishing in the country and takes place in 420 localities in 9 of the 10 departments.

The project seeks to improve artisan fishermen’s productivity and income in the Grand’Anse, Sud and Sud-Est departments by providing improved public services for the fishing sector.

These are the most productive departments in terms of fishing and house most of the fishing localities, which has made them a key priority for the government. Additionally, institution-strengthening and capacity-generation activities will benefit all fishing communities in the country.

The new grant complements other financing sources for the projects, including a US$2.7 million grant from the Spanish Cooperation Agency for International Development (AECID) and US$1.5 million in local funding.

The IDB is Haiti’s largest multilateral donor. In the past four years it has provided US$1.2 billion in grants and disbursed more than US$686 million to support the country’s economic recovery and its long-term development investment in areas such as agriculture, water and sanitation, transportation, energy, education and private sector development.

Approximately 200 of 300 prisoners who escaped from the Prison of Croix-des-Bouquets again under lock and key

The search continues at the level of the head office of the Criminal Investigation Department (DCPJ) to catch all of the escaped prisoners.

Those were the words of the National police force inspector Garry Desrosiers.

For the moment only 200 of those who escaped from the civil prison of Croix-des-Bouquets in August, 2014, have been returned to their cells, added the spokesperson of the PNH.

Garry Desrosiers again called upon the population to collaborate with the PNH and to alert the police immediately about any suspicious fact.

Approximately 300 prisoners, including criminals, escaped, on Sunday, August 10th, 2014, from the civil prison of Croix-des-Bouquets.

Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 15 juillet 2015

 Haiti in the international Exhibition of Milan: Expo Milano 2015

This exhibit during which Haiti was honored on July 10th presented Haitian fashion, farming, and cooking. This day was especially dedicated to Haiti.

A total of 150 countries were present in Milan for the occasion. Among them the United States, Germany, Italy, England, Japan France, Argentina, Brazil, Angola Qatar, Nepal, Haiti, Togo, Zimbabwe and the Dominican Republic.

Every country had a pavilion revealing the identity of the country with its customs and its traditions. Haiti’s pavilion was offered by Italy and would have cost 1.2 million dollars, according to the newspaper The Nouvelliste.  

A small detached pavilion but decorated with a lot of care, revealing the country’s original flavor.

We noticed in Milan the presence of the Prime Minister Evans Paul, the husband of the designer Maguy Durcé.

There were also designers and stylists such as Sybille Denis Touat, Maguy Durcé, Maelle David, Michaëlle Baussan, Miko Guillaume. Daphnée Karen Floréal, Michel Chateigne, Marie Lucie Cadet (MALOU), Stella Jean. The cooking of Gladys D. Nazemi and her collaborators was very appreciate judging by the crowd that rushed for three hours to go taste the popular, delicious dishes which make our country unique.

This was not the first time that Haiti was present at this exhibit. Under the government of President Dumarsais Estimé, Haiti was even the host country of the World Fair.

It was in 1950, for the occasion of the bicentennial of the city of Port-au-Prince.

The year’s theme was: "Feed the planet, Energy for life." During his presentation, the Prime Minister was eager to underline that "The participation of Haiti with Expo Milano 2015, had a double significance. It is a question for Haiti, on the one hand to protect the historical heritage of the Amerindians by presenting their nutritional best practice, for the benefit of its population of more than 10 million inhabitants and, on the other hand, to share its heritage with the visitors of the universal exhibit.

The head of government paid tribute to Gladys Exil Guyteau, commissioner at Expo Milano 2015 who, "Thanks to her dedication, and her patriotism outdid herself to ensure the Haiti’s participation."

The Italian authorities had been eager to offer a copious lunch to the Haitian delegation and the Prime Minister offered a book to the Italian authorities highlighting the places of interest of the country.

Monseigneur Pierre André Pierre was a member of the Haitian delegation in Milan. "Ayiti paka pa la," he declared with pride. He mentioned the partnership between Notre the Dame University of Haiti, the University of Milan Aquaplus, AVSI and the Rotary club of Milan who all contributed to the searches for the development of the MORINGA (Benzolive) in the country.

Maguy Durcé, special adviser to the Prime Minister and the coordinator of Haiti’s participation in Expo Milano 2015, underlined to The Nouvelliste that Haiti’s participation in the event had not exceeded 200,000 dollars thanks to the Italian authorities who donated the pavilion.

Expo Milano 2015 will continue until October 31st, 2015. Like the other countries, Haiti is not going to close the doors of its pavilion, even if it already had its special day on July 10th.

At the beginning of renovation of the runway of the airport …

Work on the rehabilitation of the runway of the Toussaint Louverture International Airport began on Tuesday, July 7^th. The work aims at returning the runway in compliance with the standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

The Haitian authorities agreed to complete these projects to avoid penalties from the ICAO. The recent inspections revealed that the runway is unfit to support the loads of jumbo jets. The basement of the platform must be treated to allow it to have a stronger support structure, explained the engineer Jean Marie Vorbe.

The work will allow the width of the runway to be enlarged. It will go from 42 to 60 meters following the recommendations of the ICAO. At the same time the width of the traffic lane, which channels the traffic towards the main terminal, will be practically doubled going from 23 to 44 meters.

The work will be realized over one year by the Haitian firm Vorbe and Son Construction and Razel, a French company that specializes in civil engineering.

The last renovation work on the runway was completed in 1988 by the French firm, Fougerolle. Twenty-seven years later a new rehabilitation is essential, explained Vorbe.

Under Michel Martelly's administration, several renovation projects have been realized at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport, more notably the enlargement of the departure and arrival rooms.

Statelessness at the UN: Reaffirming the Right to Nationality

By: Sebastian Kohn & Katrine Thomasen

Today the UN’s Human Rights Council—a body responsible for promoting and protecting human rights around the world—passed an important resolution on the right to nationality, focusing specifically on women and children. This is an important step to further strengthen international legal norms in this area. It is also a strong indication of increasing understanding and concern for those who have no nationality anywhere—the stateless—and those who experience severe discrimination when they attempt to obtain proof of their nationality.  

The resolution is the culmination of nearly two years of advocacy by the Open Society Justice Initiative. The idea was proposed to the US Department of State in the autumn of 2010 as a measure to strengthen children’s right to nationality, an issue that overlaps in significant ways with the department’s concern with discrimination against women in nationality laws and practices. In early June 2012, a draft resolution was presented to other states in Geneva—where the Human Rights Council meets three times every year—after which negotiations about the content began. The Justice Initiative made an intervention during the session of the council to highlight the importance of this resolution.

Statelessness affects more than 12 million people around the world, among whom the most vulnerable are children. The Justice Initiative estimates that as many as five million may be minors. The consequences of lack of nationality are numerous and severe. Many stateless children grow up in extreme poverty and are denied basic rights and services such as access to education and health care. Stateless children’s lack of identity documentation limits their freedom of movement. They are subject to arbitrary deportations and prolonged detentions, are vulnerable to social exclusion, trafficking and exploitation—including child labor.

Perhaps the most detrimental consequence of statelessness for children is with respect to education. While some countries do offer educational opportunities to stateless children, many do not. In Malaysia, stateless children of Indian, Filipino, or Indonesian descent in Selangor and Sabah are frequently denied access to basic education in state schools: if a child’s birth certificate has “foreigner” written on it, or if the child doesn’t have a birth certificate at all, the child is simply unable to enroll. Similarly, in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights case of Yean and Bosico v. The Dominican Republic, the two applicants—both children—had been arbitrarily denied Dominican nationality. As a result they were barred from going to school since identity documents were a pre-requisite to enroll. Denying children a right to education can cripple entire communities for generations to come.

Few stateless children are able to obtain passports or other travel documents. This has serious implications for their right to freedom of movement, and bars them from travelling abroad to visit relatives or pursue educational opportunities. Similarly, the right to healthcare and social security is severely compromised for many stateless children. Statelessness jeopardizes their parents’ economic opportunities, and many grow up under conditions of extreme poverty, where access to medical treatment and immunizations are scarce.

Evidence from some parts of the world suggests that stateless children are at greater risk of human trafficking and other forms of exploitation. This connection is evident in the case of the Hill Tribes in Thailand, for example, who—because they are not ethnic Thais—have struggled with statelessness for generations.

The resolution by the Human Rights Council acknowledges these important challenges faced by stateless children and calls on governments around the world to reform legislation that discriminates against women. Indeed, one important cause of statelessness among children is the violation of women’s right to confer nationality to their off-springs. According to UNHCR, at least 26 countries still have gender discriminatory nationality laws. For example, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia—both members of the Human Rights Council—do not allow their female citizens to transmit nationality to their children. In a place like Kuwait, where an estimated 100,000 people are stateless, children of a Kuwaiti woman and a stateless man thus inherit the father’s predicament. On a positive note, many countries including most of North Africa, have recently reformed their nationality laws.

The resolution highlights many important international legal norms, including the right to free birth registration—a crucial measure to reduce the risk of statelessness. The resolution also calls upon states to protect the right to due process in all nationality-related matters, and to provide effective remedies where the right to nationality has been violated.

The resolution does, unfortunately, fall short of accepted treaty standards on one point. More than 100 countries have an explicit obligation to grant nationality to children born on their territories who would otherwise be stateless. This obligation is also implicit in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been ratified by all but two countries. The council resolution, however, only encourages states to “facilitate, in accordance with their national law, the acquisition of nationality by children born on their territories or to their nationals abroad who would otherwise be stateless.” Moreover, the resolution fails to acknowledge the right to nationality for children not born in the country where they habitually reside. International law requires states to ensure that all stateless children have access to nationality through a process of facilitated naturalization, regardless of place of birth. Unfortunately this provision—which was proposed by Costa Rica—was opposed by several states including Algeria, China, Egypt and Iran and was struck from the draft resolution.

Nevertheless, the resolution reiterates many of the crucial norms in this area. It was unanimously adopted and does as such represent a broad consensus among governments about the state of international law in this area.