Written by Rickey Singh–in Barbados 
AS PUBLIC outcry beyond the Caribbean continues against a recent controversial ruling by the Dominican Republic’s constitutional court that could negatively impact thousands of Haitian immigrants, the CARICOM Secretariat has warned of the danger of spreading “deep distress” for this region.

The Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr Ralph Gonsalves, incoming new chairman of the Community, in a letter to the DR’s President, Danilo Medina, has urged him to intervene for a change in the law before it is too late.
The Foreign Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Mr Winston Dookeran, — whose Prime Minister (Kamla Persad-Bissessar) is the current CARICOM chairman — has called for immediate “mediation efforts” in the interest of the affected generation of Haitians.
In a statement issued by the CARICOM Secretariat on Thursday, Secretary-General Irwin La Rocque stressed that the “implications of tens of thousands of persons of Haitian descent being plunged into a constitutional, legal and administrative vacuum by the court’s ruling are a source of deep distress…”
Application of the new law could mean that descendants of undocumented migrants, who have been living in the Dominican Republic and are registered as Dominicans since 1929, can no longer be categorised as nationals of that country, since their parents are considered to be “in-transit”.
They cannot vote at national elections, and would be vulnerable for deportation without the right of appeal.
The single largest bloc of such affected migrants would be descendants of Haitians who had survived a history of slavery on sugar cane plantations in that Spanish-speaking Caribbean nation that shares borders with Haiti.
UN’s stand
The United Nations Human Rights Office in Geneva has lost no time in denouncing the Court’s ruling as being grossly unjust. It urged the government of President Medina to ensure that citizens of Haitian origin are not deprived of their right to nationality. Warnings without practical initiatives to prevent this from occurring would be useless.

Jamaica’s former Prime Minister, P. J. Patterson, was blunt in his brief, angry assessment. “No one can be hoodwinked,” he said, “as to the reason and the purpose of this kind of discriminatory legislation…
“Within this region,” declared Patterson, who serves as a special advisor on Haiti to CARICOM, “we have an obligation to speak, and we cannot allow such inequities to go without our strongest condemnations…”
While CARICOM was considering the modalities of “mediation”, Vincentian Prime Minister Gonsalves — respected for his alacrity in seizing opportunities to sustain good-neighbourly interventions — dispatched a three-page letter of appeal to the DR’s President.
He told President Medina that the government and people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines were “deeply distressed by the Constitutional Court’s ruling…
“As you are no doubt aware,” contended Dr. Gonsalves, who  is the new incoming Chairman of CARICOM, “the decision of the Court is being widely interpreted internationally as being grounded in a jaundiced anti-Haitian or even racist mindset, given the fact that most of the persons deprived of their ‘citizenship by birth’  are black …”
Therefore, he said, it is “incumbent on the government and people of the Dominican Republic to stand askance from the Court’s decision, and set about promptly and practically to make the requisite corrective in accordance with your international obligations…”
Given the plausible expressed sentiment, at various levels within CARICO, the question is: How soon would the suggested “mediation” process begin?
There is no shortage of people of goodwill and expertise who could be mobilised for the mediation process. For a start, it is felt by informed “CARICOM watchers” that the current chairman of the Community, Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar, could seek to involve, for instance:
Former Prime Minister Patterson; Dr Norman Girvan, former Secretary- General of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS); Sir Shridath Ramphal, former chairman of The West Indian Commission; Reginald Dumas, the shrewd retired T&T diplomat; Foreign Minister Dookeran; and, of course, the Community’s Secretary-General LaRocque, with perhaps her colleague Head of Government, Prime Minister Gonsalves serving as chairperson, in her absence.
Whatever its operational modalities and composition, there seems to be an emerging consensus for the proposed mediation process to get into action soon while due regard is paid to the sensitive question of the DR’s national sovereignty in dealing with the Court’s controversial ruling.