NewsWhore
03-08-2007, 06:50 PM
Chamber of Deputies president Julio Cesar Valentin responded yesterday to the US State Department's 2006 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor of the State Department. Valentin rejected claims that the Dominican Republic systematically abuses the rights of Haitians in the DR. Valentin said that it is possible that some international groups want to use the report to damage the country and affect the sugar quotas. Valentin said that before the United States comments on someone else's problems they must first look at their own. He pointed to the treatment of POW's and immigrants. Radhames Batista, president of the National Border Council, said that this was just another effort to laden the DR with the Haitian poverty problem. Batista continued by saying that only those that have not experienced the Dominican reality can speak of racism in a country that invests 40% of its public health budget to serve illegal Haitians and where most public hospital beds are filled by illegal Haitians. Archbishop Ramon Benito de la Rosa considered the report to be unjust and incomplete. Presidential candidate Danilo Medina also refused the idea that Haitians in the DR are discriminated against and said that illegal Haitians in the DR receive better treatment than Dominicans living in Haiti. He pointed out that Haitians, regardless of their legal status, walk around freely on the streets of Santo Domingo. 6,000 Haitian students study at Dominican universities where they are privileged to pay the same rates as Dominicans, and not the premium normally charged foreign students.
See http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78889.htm
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#3)
See http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78889.htm
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#3)