caricom - Haiti Observer Blog

Jamaica Takes the Lead on the Sustainable Development Agenda at 70th UN General Assembly. A. J. Nicholson, Jamaica's Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Minister, attended (along with his delegation) the 70th United Nations General Assembly. On the periphery of the General Assembly session, Minister Nicholson held multi-lateral talks with Foreign Ministers from Botswana, Senegal, the United Arab Emirates, and the Sudan. The goal of the discussions was to fortify relations and advance trade among the participant nations and Jamaica. Beyond discussions with the African and Arab ministers, Nicholson and other Caribbean community members will also meet with Sushma Swaraj, the Foreign Minister of India, in another series of talks.

Read more →  

The government of Haiti (GOH) is maintaining a stance to avoid applying sanctions against the Dominican Republic (DR) for its High Court ruling to displace up to 250,000 Haitians of illegal immigrants. The DR is willfully withholding identity documents for Haitians born in the DR, retroactive to 1929.

The GOH delayed its response to the ruling, but has finally come forward to say it wishes to maintain close ties with the DR. However, CARICOM has suspended the DR's membership in the regional Caribbean body. CARICOM will consider reabsorbing the DR if a bi-lateral commission can resolve the issue of the deportation of Haitians. In response, the DR has refused to continue discussions with Haiti since their suspensation from CARICOM.

Read more →  

Since the Dominican Republic (DR) Constitutional Court issued a ruling Dominicans of Haitian descent and the progeny of illegal immigrants are no longer citizens of the DR, the international community has been in an uproar. Haiti made no public comment on the matter until last week.

After a CARICOM meeting, President Martelly and CARICOM Chairman, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, held a press conference to discuss the situation. Martelly was emphatic Haiti would never cut ties in trade with the Dominican Republic. He said Haiti and the DR share the island of Hispaniola, and enacting a trade embargo would not benefit either nation. Trade revenue with the DR amounts to nearly two billion yearly.

Read more →  

Here is the video of the speech delivered by Haitian President Michel Martelly at the CARICOM recently. The speech actually contributed to the final decision of the Caribbean Community to defer a Dominican request to become a member of the trade bloc.

We need to give credit to where credit is due.

President Michel Martelly defended the nation very elegantly at CARICOM.

One day following the the CARICOM decision, Dominican Republic announced that they would no longer meet with Haitian officials to talk about a court ruling.

My conclusion to this is that the Dominican government thought that they would proceed with their policy while engaging us in never ending meetings.

Read more →  

Officials in the Dominican Republic have decided no longer to meet with Haitian authorities to talk about the recent court ruling in their country. I don't know if the decision from CARICOM to cancel the recent application of Dominican Republic to join the organization has anything to do with it; however, this sounds like they really feel it.

Since the Dominican Republic has decided to remove the citizenship of some of its population because of their link to Haiti nothing have been effective in making them reconsider their racism act. The decision of CARICOM to defer their request to become a member of the trade bloc certainly catches their attention.

Read more →  

The Caribbean community (Caricom) should be commended for taking its first action against a cancer that is growing and spreading in the Dominican Republic. Declaring that it can no longer be business as usual, they suspended the Dominican Republic's application to join its regional economic bloc, following the court decision in Dominican Republic to remove the citizenship of many Dominicans with Haitian background.

The Dominican Republic must really have a huge problem with Black people, Haitians in particular since not only they are black, they are also poor.

After the Haitians, will they ask that only white people comes to visit the country?

Read more →  

The controversy over the Dominican Republic (DR) High Court ruling may cause DR natural-born citizens of Haitian descent to become stateless continues to raise ire in the international community.

Dr. Gonsalves, St. Vincent Prime Minister, wants the DR excluded from CARIFORUM. He has informed DR President Medina that Gonsalves has advised Venezuelan President Maduro to ban the DR's participation in PetroCaribe. Gonsalves added if the DR did not force the Court to rescind its ruling when the PetroCaribe Summit took place, he would put the issue on the agenda for discussion.

General La Rocque, Secretary of CARICOM, commented the ruling brings to the fore ". . . a serious question . . ." regarding the situation of natural-born citizens of Haitian descent. Gonsalves wrote Danilo the ruling was "unacceptable in any civilized community."

Read more →  

The Dominican Republic (DR) Constitutional Court's (CC) ruling, denying citizenship rights to Haitian-Dominican citizens is coming from one government official in the Caribbean region. But the anger is not directed so much at the DR as it is at CARICOM, a regional body advancing and protecting Caribbean nations' interests. Dr. Timothy Harris, an MP representing St. Kitts and Nevis, charges CARICOM with dragging its feet on the ultimate effect of denying citizenship status to descendents of Haitian migrants, deportation.

Although CARICOM is reluctantly taking a position on the matter , that's not good enough for Harris, who claims, "CARICOM is losing its vitality . . . (in) "matters of governance" . . . (and) "is being undermined . . ." Harris adds ex-Jamaican Prime Minister, PJ Patterson, had to apply pressure to get CARICOM to respond to the issue.

Read more →  

Haitian President Michel Martelly has been long on the heels of American President Barack Obama, hoping for a meeting between the U.S. leader and the CARICOM members to discuss issues relating to both bodies. The Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, made a recent visit to Trinidad and Tobago which has given Martelly, and those hoping for a summit between CARICOM and the U.S., great hope.

Describing Vice President Biden's visit as a significant sign that the long wished for summit will eventually, if not soon, take place, Martelly, the recently named Chairman of the Caribbean Community, is finding the fruits of his labor coming to bear. This is the first sign of traction after his open call to the U.S. for a high-level summit with the region. The president made a visit to the region once after going into office in 2008 and was last in Trinidad for the Summit of the Americas in 2009.

Read more →  

In a dramatic political move, China kept Haiti out of the USD $3 billion support funds. China announced this support fund in form of concessional loans to those Caribbean Community countries (CARICOM countries) that support the One China Policy of the People's Republic of China.

The countries that will benefit from this funding include Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, The Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, Montserrat, Suriname, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. These countries support the One China Policy. One China Policy of People's Republic of China refuses to recognize a separate entity by the name Republic of China. Taiwan is administered by this separate entity.

Read more →