IT IS taking quite some time for the Caribbean Community and Dominican Republic (DR) to work out so-called "grey areas" in their quest for closer cooperation within the context of CARIFORUM, the regional grouping through which structured dialogue occurs with the European Union (EU).

The need for more efficiency and pragmatic forms of mutually satisfactory relations has long been recognised by both and would have become all the more important for CARICOM in the challenging negotiations between the European Commission (EC) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states for regional Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs).

It may not be pleasant for the DR to be reminded that at the best of times, whether it is trade negotiations on bananas or sugar with the EU or diplomatic initiatives within the Western Hemisphere, there have been quite puzzling variations in positions adopted, resulting in expressed concerns by some member governments of CARICOM.

So far as regional trade with Europe is concerned, the DR has emerged the better from both the loss suffered by Windward Islands banana exports to the EU although, at the beginning, they were not part of the banana regime under the ACP/EU Cotonou Agreement.

Further, without involvement in the vital Sugar Protocol under Cotonou, the DR is now seeking to secure for itself some 100 000 tonnes of sugar under the proposed EPA for the Caribbean region.

Unlike CARICOM sugar exporters, it would undoubtedly be pleased with a price reduction in the commodity aware of the advantage it already has in sugar production with the use of comparatively cheap Haitian labour.

The exploitation of Haitian labour on the sugar plantations and agriculture sector in general in the DR is an old problem and one frequently exposed by regional and international human rights organisations and advocates, including Amnesty International.

For puzzling reasons, the exposures of recurring human rights problems in the DR have not troubled or excited the interest of the European Union in contrast to its stand against reported human rights violations in Cuba.

However, CARICOM has a moral obligation to pay some focused attention to new reports of racial discrimination and violence against migrant workers, and Haitians in particular, in the DR. Worse, there have been reports of lynchings as recently highlighted by the BBC Caribbean Service.

In one case a man (of unknown nationality) was brutally attacked by a mob and hanged from a tree after witnesses claimed he had been caught trying to steal cassava. That killing occurred in Santiago, the DR's second largest city.

Earlier, according to the BBC Caribbean Service, authorities had confirmed that "a Haitian man had been beaten to death in that same city after being accused of robbery . . ." .While, therefore, the DR and CARICOM move to strengthen relations, it is imperative that our Community governments demonstrate their concern about reported human rights violations and, worse lynching, in that Caribbean state.