The Danilo Medina administration has yet again decided to allow individuals, primarily of Haitian descent, to remain in the Dominican Republic without providing the necessary documentation as required by the Regularization Plan, a now visibly failed attempt to radically alter the demographics of the once safe nation.
As a corruption probe running from Jordan to Brazil engulfs members of the Medina clan, many argue that the president has decided to create an artificial crisis to distract from the fact that the largest contract doled out to the corruption-tainted construction firm Odebrecht was signed during his administration, and that it was heavily overvalued.
Indeed, the Dominican Republic now finds itself in a situation that could result in a constitutional crisis, or worse, with many netizens already calling for the overthrow of the democratically-elected Medina, who is accused of caving in to international influence and of plotting to "fuse" Haiti and the Dominican Republic into one single political entity.
In 2013, the Constitutional Tribunal under the presidency of Milton Ray Guevara clarified citizenship for more than 230,000 people of Haitian descent, with the court's president recently remaining silent on his opinion as to the fate of those who could not provide the necessary documents to acquire residence permits, arguing that the court could soon examine the constitutionality of the Regularization Plan and of the 5-year time period which the Medina administration has provided to those affected.
It is fairly likely that the Constitutional Tribunal will declare that endlessly giving extensions to foreign nationals and providing them with temporary residence permits violates the Constitution of the Republic, and it is also probable that President Medina may end up being in contempt of court, forcing the military to effectuate a coup while new elections are overseen by Milton Ray Guevara.
 |
| The necessary solution? Telegraaf |
With Milton Ray Guevara running a provisional government, the military will likely be ordered to deport anyone who, after 5 years, hadn't bothered to do the necessary paperwork. Human rights groups in recent weeks have accused the Dominican Republic of detaining more than 100 individuals who had residence permits provided through the Regularization Plan, but one fact has been overlooked by the Dominican media who pander to anti-Dominican groups acting as a Fifth Column: the Netherlands and other developed countries regularly detain residence permit holders for investigative purposes, with the Marechaussee -- a military/police hybrid -- grabbing one of our editors at the train station by Schipol Airport and keeping him overnight in a cell.
Although it may seem tyrannical, the situation is dire and the Republic could crumble should the Dominican military not follow the lead of the Marechaussee and begin detaining the 230,000 Haitians who've been granted unconstitutional extensions to their temporary residence permits by President Medina. At this stage in history, a provisional military government may be the only thing that could prevent the Dominican Republic from falling into anarchy, ending up a failed state like Haiti.
