Dominican Republic Will Close Border With Haiti Amid Water Dispute

The Dominican Republic stated it might seal its border with Haiti on Friday morning amid a battle over entry to a river shared between the 2 traditionally contentious neighbors. The transfer would additional isolate Haiti, a nation that has descended into gang violence and rising starvation.

Tensions have grown in current days over building within the Massacre River, which straddles each nations.

President Luis Abinader of the Dominican Republic, who claimed that the excavation of a canal on the river in Haiti would hurt Dominican farmers, froze Haitian visas this week and threatened to shut the greater than 220 miles of border if the 2 sides didn’t attain a decision.

A Haitian delegation met with the Dominicans in Santo Domingo, the capital, on Wednesday for Eleventh-hour negotiations, however there was no obvious decision, and on Thursday, Mr. Abinader introduced his resolution to close the boundary between the 2 Caribbean island nations beginning at 6 a.m. native time Friday.

“The entire border of the Dominican Republic, both land, sea and air, will be closed,” Mr. Abinader informed reporters as he stood in a army base in Santo Domingo amongst 20 armored automobiles that he stated would quickly be dispatched to the border. “The Army, the Navy and the Air Force will be prepared to comply with this decision.”

A spokesman for Ariel Henry, the performing prime minister of Haiti, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

The resolution is more likely to deepen the financial turmoil in Haiti, the place almost half of the inhabitants is liable to hunger, in accordance with the United Nations. More than 25 % of Haiti’s official imports come from the Dominican Republic, although one other massive share of products, together with meals, enters unofficially alongside the porous border, in accordance with a report from the International Monetary Fund.

Haiti is closely reliant on commerce with the Dominican Republic, in addition to the United States, in accordance with the U.S. Department of Commerce. Haiti is the Dominican Republic’s third-largest buying and selling accomplice.

“Haitians are already in a very difficult position in terms of food security and I’m anticipating this will exacerbate that problem,” stated Daniel Foote, the Biden administration’s former particular envoy to Haiti. “It’s going to have a particular negative impact on these desperate people who are barely surviving.”

Closing the border between the 2 nations might additionally harm the Dominican Republic since so lots of the nation’s items are destined for the Haitian market.

“This border closure generates an evident lose-lose situation,” stated Antonio Ciriaco, an economist on the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo. The Dominican Republic additionally depends on Haitian laborers who cross into the nation day-after-day to work in industries like agriculture and building, he added.

The Dominican Republic final closed its border with Haiti after the assassination of the Haitian president, Jovenel Moïse, in July 2021.

Mr. Abinader has since often closed components of the border and begun establishing a wall between the 2 nations after violence escalated in Haiti. Dominican officers stated they sought to cease the smuggling of weapons and unlawful crossings into the Dominican Republic.

On Thursday morning, Dominican army forces have been already gathering on the border.

The use of the Massacre River, named for a bloody battle between Spanish and French colonizers within the 1700s, has lengthy been a supply of stress between the 2 nations. The river was additionally the positioning of a bloodbath of 1000’s of Haitians by Rafael Trujillo, the Dominican dictator, in 1937.

In 2021, Haiti and the Dominican Republic issued a joint declaration acknowledging a 1929 settlement between the nations establishing that each nations had the appropriate to make use of water from the river.

The excavation of the river, Mr. Abinader stated, was not sanctioned by the Haitian authorities and was being carried out by former politicians and native businessmen. Dominican officers stated the unauthorized building was one other instance of the rising dysfunction in Haiti and the federal government’s lack of management over the nation.

Some water specialists stated they believed the Dominican authorities was overreacting provided that there are 11 current canals on the Dominican aspect of the Massacre River.

“I think it is something that has been completely blown out of proportion, where the political is reigning more than the technical,” stated Martín Meléndez, an engineering professor on the Santo Domingo Institute of Technology, including that Haitians “have the right” to attract water from the river, too.

“This can be resolved taking turns as to who is going to take water, on what day, and how much,” Mr. Meléndez stated.

The United States embassy in Santo Domingo issued a warning to American residents in Haiti that the United States wouldn’t be capable to assist them attain the Dominican Republican within the occasion of a border closure.

Mr. Abinader stated the border would keep shut “for as long as it takes for this provocative action to be eliminated,” and that the closure can be enforced by the army and the nationwide police.

“The Haitian government itself has admitted to having problems controlling its territory,” he stated. “And, if there are uncontrollables there, they will be uncontrollable for the Haitian government, but they will not be uncontrollable for the government of the Dominican Republic.”

But Jean Brévil Weston, the chief of a farmers’ group in Haiti that’s engaged on the development within the canal, stated nobody within the Haitian authorities had informed any of his members to stop work. And that they had no plans to cease doing so.

“We get water or death,” he stated in an interview with Magik9, a Haitian radio station. “If we don’t find water for agriculture in the plain, we are already dead.”

Harold Isaac contributed reporting from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and Emiliano Rodríguez Mega from Mexico City.