If you visit Amnesty International USA, make sure you learn about HIV and AIDS: Amnesty International's Human Rights Concerns. Where you will be able to read more about the poor and HIV- Positive in the Dominican Republic.

Follow this other link to an article where according to Amnesty International you will:

Meet Rita, Felicia, Marlene and Adonis, whose stories illustrate some of the struggles faced by people living with HIV and AIDS in the Dominican Republic. Their courageous activism can bring real change in the Caribbean.

You can also click here for an AI report entitled "I am not ashamed!"- HIV/AIDS and human rights in the Dominican Republic and Guyana.

I would be happy to be wrong about this: As an expatriate from the Dominican Republic I am under the impression that back home we lack modern public libraries; I am referring to modern visualizing the relevance of the services and functionalities offered, considering the present and future needs of its citizen-clients.

As if by chance, nowadays I enjoy having access to a reasonable network of public libraries right where I stand. My favorite one –aside from its several collections— provides free access to wireless Internet and databases containing information relevant to my personal interests.

In a couple of hours I will be heading there, to my favorite library, which gives me another reason why to smile. After finishing some papers there, I might go to the language laboratory or who knows, even listen to some music.

I am sharing these three observations as a quick way to summarize what I believe about Morales Troncoso's letter to Hans Hertell:

1. The Judicial opinion by the Supreme Court of Justice violates the Dominican Constitutional framework.


2. Efforts to denationalize Dominican children of Haitian origin amount to official conspiracy against the Constitutional order of the Dominican Republic, and an interruption of the democratic process.

3. The reasoning used by the Supreme Court of Justice to favor the standing of the Immigration law 285-04 is against international law applicable in the Dominican Republic.

Carlos Morales Troncoso has recently (Nov. 24, 2006) sent a protest letter to Mr. Hans Hertell, the United States of America Ambassador in the Dominican Republic, facing declarations of the Ambassador when he addressed the American Chamber of Commerce of the Dominican Republic [This post is relevant to Dominican children of Haitian origin. Please bare with me].

In the body of this post you will find a translation of the protest letter written by Morales; as attachments to this post you will find PDF copies (printer-friendly) of the Ambassador's speech (English version) and Morales Troncoso's letter (both Spanish and the English translation).
on November 22, 2006.

Y. E.
Mr. Hans Hertell
Ambassador of the United States of
America
César Nicolás Penson St.
City,

Distinguished Mr. Ambassador:

I have read with thoroughness your recent farewell address to the American Chamber of Commerce, and I rush to express my appreciation for your genuine worry shown about the future wellbeing of the Dominican people.

Likewise, I would like to communicate my disagreement with some of your appreciations, by which you not only wrongly interpret the situations that you describe and comment about, but you incursion into topics that pertain to the sovereign realm of the Dominican State.

I refer to, specifically, to your allusions about the problem of the massive illegal immigration of Haitian citizens, a real headache in the everyday handling of our relationships with Haiti, country with which we share the island and from which we are separated by a lamentably, much vulnerable border.

Your comments about the topic breach the awareness of someone who during five years has taken notice of the hardships of a problematic situation, into the attitude of the foreign diplomat that takes public partisanship on a Dominican constitutional matter.

The lack of issuance of birth registrations to children of foreigners who find themselves illegally in Dominican territory, it is not, like you have wrongfully interpreted, an administrative problem.

I am amazed that you have taken the time to find this euphemism to advance this in your address, given that it is a matter that during your permanence here as an Ambassador has been clarified by a constitutional interpretation by our Supreme Court of Justice.

Also, we consider it unacceptable, Mr. Ambassador, your veiled suggestion that in some manner the Dominican Republic lacks the human resources or mechanisms to assure that the foreigners who reside in this country may enjoy the guarantees set forward by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Allow me to make use of this opportunity to reiterate sentiments of my highest consideration and personal esteem.

Very courteously,

Carlos A. Morales Troncoso
Minister of Foreign Relations

(November 24, 2006)