Resolution on Haiti from the II World Social Forum on Migrations, in Madrid Region (Spain), in the municipality of Rivas Vaciamadrid, from June 22nd to 24th, 2006,
Received by AlterPresse on June 26, 2006
The delegates and members of the II World Social Forum on Migration have analyzed with deep concern the Haitian situation. After having been France’s richest colony, Haiti proclaimed its independence in 1804 as the world’s First Black Republic, declared the land of freedom for black slaves. A nation founded on solidarity, it contributed to various liberation movements in Latin America.
Two hundred two years later Haiti registers the lowest human development rate in the Western Hemisphere, together with serious problems of governance, political violence and unprecedented rates of urban delinquency as a consequence of social and political divisions, the expansion of drug trafficking, the deportation of criminals from the United States and the permanent influence and interference of countries from the North that weigh on the Haitian national life. In just one decade, in 1994 and 2004 under the umbrella of the United Nations (UN) and the Organization of American States (OAS), the country suffered two armed interventions.
The massive participation in the presidential election this past February, 2006, and the results of the legislative elections constitute, however, a clear determination of the Haitian people to freely elect their leaders to decide their destiny and above all to have the right to live in their own land.
Around 2.5 million Haitians have emigrated to other countries, mostly to North America. For close to 100 years, in the neighboring Dominican Republic, the use of Haitian labor, fundamentally in agriculture and the construction industry, is an undeniable reality. However, fewer than 5,000 Haitians have legal status in that country. Their descendants in violation of the constitutional provision of "jus solis" are not recognized as Dominicans, while at the same time they are victims of constant massive violent repatriations, which in the past 12 years have affected nearly 300,000 persons.
The II World Social Forum, meeting in Rivas Vacia Madrid, has resolved to ask the international community and the networks of the organizations of society worldwide a more authentic solidarity for the Haitian people through:
1- Starting a plan for the withdrawal of the troops of the United Nations Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti (MINUSTHA) which must be accompanied by technical assistance for the professionalization of the Haitian National Police (PNH).
2- A review by the new Haitian Government of the Interim Cooperation Framework (ICF) presented and approved in Washington in June, 2004, with the participation of popular, rural and civic organizations, in order to achieve a broadening of this program which responds to the most urgent needs of the Haitian people.
3- The disbursement by the pertinent financial and governmental institutions of the funds for the projects approved at the Montreal and Cayenne summits on Haiti during the year 2005.
4- Encouraging the Haitian actors to establish a true national dialogue with the purpose of achieving the reconciliation of the Haitian family, in order to build a new nation project.
5- Support by the peoples and the Governments of the Americas in particular, and of the world in general, for the remission of Haiti’s external debt, because it was the only nation on the planet that had to pay for its Independence to be recognized, through the so-called "Independence debt" of 150 million gold francs paid to France, with an added value of more than 21 billion dollars.
6- Taking into account the Sentence of the Inter-American Human Rights Court of October of last year, against the Dominican Government regarding the Yean-Bosico case, for the citizenship rights for children of Haitian parents, urging the Dominican and Haitian Governments to look for a solution to the migratory situation on the island that denies judicial existence to, and leaves in administrative irregularity, a community of more than 800,000 persons.
7- Requesting the United States and Dominican Governments, successively, to stop the deportation of Haitian nationals indicted by the United States justice system, and the massive repatriations of Haitians without documents.
Approved by the Assembly of the II World Social Forum, with the presence of 1,800 delegates representing 800 organizations from 86 countries.
June 24, 2006
Consulter +
