Deputy: U.S. heads push for Dominican solution to Haiti’s problems

Santo Domingo.- Washington heads the open or disguised push to establish "a Dominican solution to Haiti’s problems," as evidenced by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission’s (IACHR) request in 1999 to deny Dominican Republic of its right to control Haitian migrants within its territory.

Deputy Pelegrin Castillo made the statement Tuesday, and said the IACHR based its request 14 years ago arguing that the Dominican State wasn’t able to exercise immigration and border controls, regardless of legal or illegal status, respecting minimum human rights standards.

Castillo, of the pro-government FNP party, said the current campaign against Dominican Republic in the heels of the Constitutional Court’s controversial ruling, looks to intimidate the country.

He said allegations that the ruling violates human rights by creating stateless people to conduct mass expulsions, ethnic cleansing, xenophobia and racism, aim to prepare public opinion abroad for acts of intimidation, sanctions or intervention based on the IACHR’s "legitimate" decisions.

"At this time it’s very important that the Dominican people know this historical fact, this background verified in the first hearing of the process after showing the infamous documentary entitled ‘Dominican Republic Apartheid of the Caribbean,’ to introduce a case which, like most of those submitted to that Court in this issue, have the same characteristic of a farce as the recent case of William Ferreras Medina or Winet Yean," the lawmaker said.

He warned that Dominican Republic’s experience at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has always been negative because in his view those entities are “mere instruments of powerful interests in the United States that in an open or disguised push to establish a Dominican solution to Haiti’s problems."