SANTO DOMINGO.-  The deputy Pelegrín Castillo and the French journalist Jean Michel Caroit agreed yesterday in affirming that Dominican Republic has not  assumed a correct defense against the groups of human rights who "unjustly" accuse it of practicing xenophobia and racism against the Haitians resident here.

Both agreed, in addition, that in the same measure that those types of accusations against the country have increased internationally, the common border is increasingly vulnerable to the traffic of undocumented Haitians.

They criticized that the country has not implemented a new Immigration Law and the absence of a repatriations policy with the international agreements that it has signed in that regard, with which it could confront the organisms and the international community with a greater weight.

However, they marked his differences as to the reasons behind the information such as the one by Amnesty International, because while Caroit states that it doesn’t obey to a campaign of disrepute against the country, Castillo said that they are based on a perspective of “reductionism, false and superficial which in objective terms lends itself to the machinations and manipulations of other interests, other agendas."

Castillo said that the country’s defensive attitude is unacceptable because “if there is a country which is being victimized from an international crisis it’s Dominican Republic."

Caroit, Caribbean correspondent of the French newspaper Le Monde, interviewed by Manuel Jiménez on Channel 27, feels that that report in fact doesn’t involve an accusation against the Dominican Republic, instead a focus on the situation of the Haitians in the country, regarding repatriations and the problem of the children of Haitians born in the country who don’t have legal existence.

"I believe that the Dominican Republic doesn’t know how to defend itself and I also believe that those human rights organizations unjustly accuse this country of racial discrimination. How he can have racial discrimination in this country that is probably the world’s most mulatto," the French journalist said.

Castillo again criticized the fact that great powers like United States, France and Canada have been irresponsible with Haiti and that instead of contributing to rebuild the neighboring country they try to use the Dominican Republic as a "pivot State" for a solution to those problems.

The official warned that Haiti has become an "insolvent State" and suffers from the entire hemisphere’s most serious problems ranging from an ecological disaster to being controlled by the international underworld.

He added that the Haitian case isn’t merely humanitarian problem, "but an international crisis.”