A tense relationship between the two neighboring countries heated up this week due to border and country disputes.
A tense encounter on Tuesday occurred between Haiti and its neighbor, the Dominican Republic. Armed Haitians and Dominican civilians faced off this week at their border, which was recently closed by the Dominican Republic due to a conflict about diverting the Massacre River (río Masacre or río Dajabón in Spanish).
Though no casualties or violence was reported, Homero Figueroa, Dominican spokesperson for the government, claimed that this must have been a “misinterpretation” of the border limits by Haitian nationals, who crossed it and blocked the path of a Dominican military vehicle, and called it a “provocation”.
The Haitian Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed that the Dominican Republic interpreted the event as an incursion, and reacted by violating Haitian territory. According to Reuters, Jean-Junior Joseph, a spokesperson for the Haitian government, said both countries’ foreign ministers had spoken and agreed every effort should be made to calm the situation. “We prefer the path of dialogue and consultation,” Joseph said.
The ongoing border dispute, which started over the construction of a canal on Haitian soil, began to grow more tense Monday as each side accused the other of unlawfully entering its territory.
The incident on Tuesday occurred days after Dominican President Luis Abinader met U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House, where they discussed the security situation in Haiti.
The latest clash between the two countries, which share the island of Hispaniola, unfolded in the vicinity of what’s known as Pyramid 13 near the Haitian city of Ouanaminthe. There are 311 pyramids placed marking the current border between the Haitian and Dominican Republic, each numbered and distinguished into either Dominican or Haitian territory.
Pyramid 13 is also where the Dominican Republic is building a wall inside its territory to keep undocumented Haitians out. That wall, Dominican authorities admit, appears to have led to confusion about where the Dominican Republic ends and where Haiti begins.
Disagreement over a peace treaty
In recent months, the Dominican Republic has reinforced its border security and migrant deportations amid worsening gang violence in Haiti. And in mid-September, the Dominican Republic announced a complete shutdown of the border and denial of visa issuance to Haitians due to the construction of a canal from Haitians diverting water from the Massacre River to their country.
According to Dominican officials, this action violated a peace treaty from 1929 signed between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
According to the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), a non-profit research organization, construction of the canal itself began in 2018 and the Dominican Republic started taking measures to cancel the project in 2021.
It was stopped because of the Dominican pressure and the assassination of the Haitian president in 2021, but Haiti restarted the project in last August due to a popular movement. After Haiti restarted the project is when the Dominican Republic decided to close the border to them.
A fraught relationship between Haiti and the Dominican Republic
Haiti remains in a state of humanitarian crisis as of 2022, according to Human Rights Watch, due to the country’s extreme poverty, and an earthquake in 2021 affecting 800,000 people. Access to clean water is limited to just two-thirds of the population. Their recent report communicated that up to 40% of the country suffered from food insecurity and that 22% of children were malnourished.
After the Dominican Republic closed the border in September, an expert on Haiti of the United Nations (UN), William O’Neill, requested that the country reconsider its decision and reopen negotiations, given its neighbor’s problems.
“Essential products like food, medical equipment and supplies are imported into Haiti from the Dominican Republic,” O’Neill said. Reportedly, 25% of food is imported from the neighboring country. “There are lives at stake.”
Haiti is also suffering from political uncertainty, since its previous president, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated in 2021 and there is no president that has been elected in office. More than 2,400 people have been killed in Haiti since the start of 2023 amid rampant gang violence, including hundreds killed in lynchings by vigilante mobs, the UN said last Friday.
Historically, Haiti and the Dominican Republic have had a fraught relationship. The Dominican Republic gained its independence from 1844 onwards, and has been characterized by its leadership’s lack of regard for Haitians.
In 1937, ex-president of the Dominican Republic, Rafael Trujillo, ordered the killing of at least 14,000 Haitians living on the northwestern border in the “Parsley Massacre”.
In 2013, the highest court of the Dominican Republic ruled that children born in the country to Haitian parents would not be considered Dominican citizens, affecting all born after 1929, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without citizenship. However, the Dominican Republic was among the first to aid Haiti after a devastating earthquake took place in 2010.
