Dominican President Danilo Medina
Here is a new digest on the Dominican/Haitian refugee crisis for June 28, 2015:
- Dominican President Danilo Medina reaffirmed his support for the removal program (Spanish language). Medina said Dominicans will not allow “blackmail or smear” campaigns to derail his country’s plans. He also denied that there have been any forced deportations yet.
- This is consistent with other government statements that there will be a period of “incentivized” voluntary removals from the Dominican Republic before forced relocations begin. As of yesterday, the official Dominican line is that 17,456 people have left the Dominican Republic voluntarily.
- In an insightful op-ed in English, former Haitian Ambassador to the United States Raymond Joseph analyzes many of the underlying issues in the current crisis including racism in the Dominican Republic, Dominican electoral politics, the United States’ role in moving Haitians to the Dominican Republic during its occupation of the two countries and the failure of the Haitian government to deal with this problem multilaterally.
- The Dominican media continues to offer up images of friendly border guards taking willing Haitian citizens to the border in comfortable vans (Spanish language).
Stateless on Hispaniola 