The Caribbean Community (Caricom) is not in a position to sanction the Dominican Republic (DR) for the ruling of its constitutional court on naturalisation, as the DR is not a member of Caricom, the DR’s deputy foreign affairs minister, César Dargam, was quoted as saying in the DR daily newspaper Diario Libre. In a story yesterday headlined, “Foreign Affairs Ministry affirms that Caricom can’t impose sanctions on the Dominican Republic,” Dargam pointed out that all the DR has with Caricom is a free-trade agreement.
The DR, he was quoted as saying, is a member of Cariforum, which is an organisation linked to the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of states. The story did not mention that the DR had expressed interest in joining Caricom, and following the court ruling, at least two Caricom heads of state have said they could forget about it.
“A lot of these things we are seeing in the international arena are noises and smokescreens. We have seen how the DR has been threatened to be hauled before a meeting of Caricom where it will be sanctioned. The meeting has not happened, and neither is Caricom in a position to sanction the DR,” Dargam said.
Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar convened a special meeting of the Caricom Bureau on Tuesday to consider “effective initiatives” against the controversial new law in the Dominican Republic that jeopardises the citizenship status of thousands of immigrants of Haitian descent. The prime minister later said the meeting had to be rescheduled as several key members, including the representative from Haiti, were unavailable.
Dargam said the DR has been prudent and conscious of its international obligations, and vowed to continue to defend the country’s position, according to the newspaper. “The DR is a member of Cariforum, and in Cariforum, it is not up to the member states to decide on the integration or non-integration of the countries. Instead, it’s a forum within the ACP, in which the DR has been participating very actively since the signing of the Lome Convention in 1989,” he said.
The Dominican Republic is one of only two Caribbean countries that benefit from natural gas exports from T&T. The other is Puerto Rico.