LATIN AMERICA-EU:
Migration, the Elephant in the Room at Ministerial Meet
Diógenes Pina

SANTO DOMINGO,  (IPS) - The 13th European Union-Rio Group ministerial meeting taking place this week in the Dominican Republic has its attention firmly focused on neighbouring Haiti, but has drawn fire from local activists for ignoring migration issues.

The foreign ministers of Latin American and European Union (EU) countries are discussing, among other things, the extreme poverty faced by 80 percent of the over 8.5 million Haitians, and the longstanding social and institutional crisis suffered by Haiti, which shares the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic.

In fact it was the Dominican government that proposed these items for inclusion on the working agenda.

The Dominican Foreign Ministry said in a communiqué that the "great expectations" aroused by the meeting had drawn around 50 foreign ministers from both regions, and other delegates totalling some 2000 participants.

Also on the table are the harmful effects of climate change, energy issues, and the creation of new cooperation mechanisms for developing countries of the South.

On Thursday, parallel meetings are planned between the EU and Mercosur (the Southern Common Market), made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela, and between the EU and the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), comprising Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Chile is in the process of re-joining CAN.

The Rio Group, which is Latin America's highest-level political forum, was created in 1986 to support the peace efforts in Central America, and now includes all Mercosur and CAN countries, together with Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama, as well as Guyana in representation of the Caribbean states.

"We thought migration issues would be included," former Haitian consul general in the Dominican Republic Edwin Paraison complained to IPS. Paraison served as consul during the administration of Jean Bertrand Aristide, who was overthrown in February 2004, and continues to live in the Dominican Republic.

"We thought it was a good opportunity to discuss the topic, particularly since this ministerial meeting was going to be about the political situation in Haiti," he said.

Jesuit priest Regino Martínez echoed Paraison when he told IPS that a good opportunity to find solutions to migration problems had been wasted, especially since the Dominican Republic faces a constant influx of Haitian immigrants across the 380-kilometre common land border.

The Dominican Republic has a surface area of 48,000 square kilometres, and shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, which has a territory of 30,000 square kilometres.

Martínez has carried out his pastoral work for more than a decade in the border town of Dajabón, which is 300 kilometres northwest of Santo Domingo and some 250 kilometres from Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital.

Unofficial statistics indicate that there are more than 800,000 Haitians living in the Dominican Republic, which has a population of over 9.1 million.

There are constant reports of ill treatment and abuse of Haitians in Dominican territory, both within and outside the country. The mass deportations periodically ordered by Santo Domingo involve inhumane practices, the reports say.

The London-based human rights watchdog Amnesty International published a study in March 2007 documenting discrimination against Haitian migrant workers and their children in the Dominican Republic.

The number of Haitians who are deported is growing. According to a study on Haitian Migration and Human Rights in 2005, by the Support Group for Refugees and Repatriated Persons (GARR), 14,700 people were deported in 2003, 15,464 in 2004 and 20,811 in 2005.

The problem made international headlines when Dominican authorities in charge of issuing birth certificates recently initiated an investigation into the legality of the birth certificate of Sonia Pierre, a human rights activist of Haitian descent, and threatened to revoke her Dominican nationality.

The investigation was later cancelled on the grounds that the statute of limitation for annulling citizenship had expired, according to the daily Dominican Republic News.

Migration and related problems are common to "nearly all the Rio Group member countries," Paraison said. "Many governments could contribute their experience to the case of the Dominican Republic and Haiti," he added.

The Dominican authorities said that the meeting would address Haiti's institutional and technical progress, so that the international community would start transferring "the funds that have been committed to its development."

"Funds have been promised at more than 10 international forums, but have still not been disbursed to Haiti," Deputy Foreign Minister Alejandra Liriano pointed out, while saying that migration issues can be dealt with separately by both countries, apart from the Rio Group.

Haiti is not a member of the Rio Group, but its Foreign Minister Jean Rénald Clerismé was invited to the ministerial meeting with the EU as a special guest.

The government of Haitian President René Préval (1996-2001, 2006- ), who took office last May, is the intended recipient of international aid to consolidate democracy and support economic recovery, after a turbulent interim period experienced by the country between the ousting of Aristide and the election of Préval. Funds have been approved by different bodies, including the donors' meeting held at the World Bank headquarters in Washington in 2004.

But only a tiny trickle of the 1.75 billion dollars earmarked for Haiti has actually reached the country. Before the February 2006 elections, the international community argued that Haiti lacked reliable, trustworthy authorities to manage the funds.

Resolutions by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund could now reduce Haiti's 1.3 billion dollar debt to these agencies by more than 15 percent. The Inter-American Development Bank has also announced relief measures.