Daphne Campbell
SOUTH FLORIDA – On Thursday, May 28, 2015, Florida State Representative Daphne Campbell, vice chair of the National Haitian American Elected Officials Network for Haiti Inc. (NHAEON), filed House Resolution 37A strongly urging citizenship reinstatement of those Dominicans of Haitian descent adversely affected by the Dominican Republic Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling No. 168-13 and Naturalization Law No. 169-14.
The 168-13 ruling officially states that any Dominican citizen without one parent of Dominican nationality will have their citizenship stripped retroactively to 1929. While the 169-14 naturalization law provides an unrealistic and oppressive path for those affected by 168-13 to re-register their citizenship. Those who could not re-register their citizenship are now facing mass deportation or expulsion to Haiti scheduled for June 17, 2015. These laws not only violate international laws and conventions, they also create a harmful xenophobic and racist environment against all dark skin Haitians in Dominican Republic.
Representative Campbell states “as a mother, a daughter of both Haiti and Dominican Republic and State Representative of a district that includes Latinos and a large Haitian population, I could not seat idly by without expressing my outcry against this injustice. In fact, the United States of American must not be complicit by silence. We must break our silence to speak and act immediately to reinstate citizenship and democracy for those denationalized Dominicans!”
Representative Campbell is not only speaking out against this issue, she recently traveled to Dominican Republic on a fact finding mission with a six member delegation demanding answers and accountabilities for the stateless in Dominican Republic. Representative Campbell indicates that this House Resolution 37A is in direct response to what she witnessed in Dominican during he recent visit. She understands first-hand the implications of no outcry against statelessness and xenophobia for those affected Dominicans. She shared with us that, without citizenship, these Dominicans have no property right, no voting right to engage in democracy, no access to health care, no right to education, no right to travel, no right to work, and no social or personal security. An 80-year old grandmother living in the Dominican Republic for generations lost her citizenship and so did her children and grandchildren. This means generations of families are now facing expulsion to Haiti, a country some of them have never visited, much less lived. We cannot a spectator to injustice. We must do something! Now is the time! Now is the time to make real the promises of our democracy! Most concerning to our organization is the fact that a disproportionate number of Dominicans affected by this ruling are black and of Haitian descent.
Multilateral institutions, including the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), Organization of American States (OAS), the United Nations (UN), and the Inter American Human Rights Commission, have condemned the decision. Haitian President Michel Martelly addressed the OAS on February 7, 2014 calling for constant vigilance on this issue (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kk8Byb-kQA&list=PLkh9EPEuEx2sNOv3Z8kwhcHuDZXHHQTt8&index=3).
Twelve days after that speech, CARICOM countries called on the OAS Permanent Council to consider the report of the Inter American Commission on Human Rights calling for the Dominican Republic to respect its international obligations (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq34GEHxU1E&index=2&list=PLkh9EPEuEx2sNOv3Z8kwhcHuDZXHHQTt8).
Many human rights organizations have joined the condemnation, including Amnesty International and the Robert Kennedy Center for Human Rights and Justice. Human rights activist and winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature, Mario Vargas Llosa, has likened the Dominican court ruling to tactics used by the Nazis and the brutal Apartheid regime in South Africa. Unfortunately for Haitians, who are the main ethnic group targeted by this ruling, there is a troubling historic precedence underpinning this comparison. In 1937, Dominican President Rafael Trujillo directed the purge of black Haitian workers and murdered as many as 40,000 Haitians without repercussion.
In the face of international pressure, the Dominican Government has only minimally responded. They have engaged the Haitian government in a bilateral dialogue, which has resulted in no serious solutions to date. Rather, the Dominicans have focused on a tangential issue, namely “regularizing” undocumented workers, and have issued two decrees that provide papers to those citizens. Undocumented workers are not the core issue. The denationalization and mass expulsion of tens of thousands Dominicans to Haiti is the core issue!
Representative Daphne Campbell and NHAEON is calling upon you and multilateral institutions, the Dominican and Haitian Diaspora, as well as human rights groups, and the global community to mobilize against this state-sponsored ethnic cleansing of Dominicans of Haitian and Caribbean descent by supporting this recently introduced House Resolution 37A. We are calling upon Steve Crisafulli,the Florida State House Speaker, to bring this HR 37A on the floor during Special Session. We are calling upon all the State Representative of Florida who have been advocating the rights of their constituents to enjoy justice, freedom and equality to support House Resolution 37A because it is right thing to do!
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