Undocumented, not stateless, says Dominican envoy to the UK

London.- The Dominicanambassador to the UK denied Thursday in the British Parliament the presence ofstateless people in his country, "as president Danilo Medina and foreignminister Andres Navarro have reiterated in various international forums."

Dr. Federico Cuellospoke after a meeting on statelessness of the British Parliament´s Inter-Party HumanRights Group, with the participation of Laura Quintana (MRG), the Londonrepresentative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Gonzalo VargasLlosa, and Rosa Iris Diendomi, of the Dominican movement Reconoci.do, todiscuss the situation of Dominicans of Haitian descent in the DominicanRepublic.

"There can be nostatelessness when what´s at issue are the undocumented Haitians withundeclared children. Article 11 of the constitution is clear, as are the bilateralagreements governing migration issues between the two countries since 1938,"Cuello said

Pressure against Dominicans

Vargas called on theNGOs present to resume pressure on the Dominican Republic to end "statelessness"once and for all and which in his view still persists in the country.

Nonetheless Rosa IrisDiendomi, delegate of the Reconoci.do movement, acknowledged the Dominicangovernment’s efforts to issue papers to those affected by the ConstitutionalCourt ruling.

She listed however specificcases of people who´ve faced administrative difficulties from the enforcementof the law known as the plan to regularize foreigners (PNRE).