I was hoping to write about something other than Haiti this morning, but it seems there is no escaping the Haitian refugee issue—it is everywhere in every alert on refugees. This is a short article that says that the International Organization for Migration (IOM), by the way largely funded by US taxpayers, wants to set up a refugee camp in the Dominican Republic. A priest implied it would drag down the Dominican Republic and commenters mostly blasted him.
One commenter (one of those leftist faux humanitarians) wants to poke his eyes out for giving a rational suggestion. Don’t you just love it when those people who demand everyone be kind and generous are the meanest SOB’s themselves. But, I digress, here is the article from Dominican Today about the Priest and what he said:
SANTO DOMINGO. – The charity organization Dominican Border Solidarity, characterized for the defense of human rights of Haitians immigrants in the Dominican Republic, opposes the International Organization for Migrations’ (OIM)[IOM] alleged attempt to build in this country a refugee camp to house 100,000 victims of Haiti’s quake.
The Jesuit priest Regino Martinez, Solidarity coordinator, said there are enough places in Haiti to shelter people in the camp which the IMO [IOM] proposes.
He said the Dominican Government has supported the Haitian people with solidarity after the catastrophe and the help for Haitians to respond to their calamity, but in their own country, is the effort which should prevail for now.
All of the commenters however did not criticize the Dominican. A commenter named NegroDeLaBachata from Stuttgart, Germany had a whole series of good suggestions and comments, including this one:
As far as camps go, set them up in Haiti. There’s sufficient room for this. Haiti has 10 states, nearly 11,000 sq. miles. There’s plenty of room to set up tent cities where the international community can care for the survivors of the quake, evacuate the capital if deemed necessary, and organize the rebuilding of the Haitian capital. There is absolutely no reason that Haitians need to evacuate Haiti.
Makes sense to me!