The Foreign Affairs minister of the Dominican Republic, Víctor Bisonó, has criticized the “lack of continuity” and the limited effectiveness of international initiatives to address the security crisis in Haiti, calling for a faster response to a situation that, he stressed, has a strong impact on his country.
“The Dominican Republic perhaps is the first barrier (...) the borders are like a shockwave and that shockwave from the Haiti problem to the first one to arrive is the Dominican Republic,” he highlighted this Tuesday in an interview with Europa Press during his visit to Madrid on the occasion of the XXX Ibero-American Summit.
Beyond the support that the international community may be able to offer the Dominican Republic as that containment wall, Bisonó has reiterated that the priority must be to assist directly the Haitian State. “Haiti has to solve its problem with its people, with its initiative, and by supporting them,” he insisted.
In this line, he regretted the “lack of continuity” in the implementation of these support programs and cited as an example the still incomplete deployment of the international forces of the UN created to stabilize the country, halted mainly by bureaucratic obstacles and delays in payments by the great powers.
According to the chancellor, this deployment “has been extended for a long time” and, meanwhile, the Dominican Republic is acting to the extent of its possibilities. “We have contributed 20 million dollars to the fund and we have contributed in logistics (...) it is impossible for us to participate directly, but indirectly in everything that we have been able to provide, we have been present,” he recalled.
“Undoubtedly, we would like things to be faster, more efficient, and to have more success,” he added, stressing that Dominican and Haitian stability are closely interconnected.
In his view, a calm Haiti would also benefit the Dominican economy. “If Haiti had peace, where would the Haitians stay? In Haiti. And if they had peace, they had the capacity to make progress, and money too in their pockets, what would they do? They would buy more products from the Dominican Republic, which has an important trade exchange with them,” he said.
On the other hand, Bisonó has backed the presence of Salvadoran personnel in Haiti to recover his men, by having the approval of local authorities. "Under no circumstances in life would we bet on the intervention of another country (...) We understand that El Salvador's troops go with the consent of the Haitian Government and will help the police forces to fight the gangs," he specified.
The minister has avoided commenting on the fate of the four Salvadoran soldiers ambushed by armed groups a few weeks ago. "We would like them to be alive; we are betting on that. But the truth is that an atmosphere of total insecurity prevails, with gang control," he acknowledged.
"What we would always want is to bet on support from the Haitian authorities, so that, with the forces that Haiti has—there are few and they are beginning to train and equip themselves—gangs can be fought and Haiti can recover its stability and its institutional framework," he argued.
The head of Dominican diplomacy has warned that this "wave of repercussions" of violence in Haiti is straining the public services of his country and has linked, for example, overcrowding in the healthcare system with the irregular arrival of Haitians fleeing the crisis.
According to his data, the strong presence of irregular migrants coming from the neighboring country has driven up the demand for medical care by around 30%. "People who are in the Dominican Republic and who do not contribute to the system to sustain it," he said, insisting on the need to generate conditions for development and institutional stability in Haiti to prevent its population from being forced to emigrate.
"We are betting that democracy, freedom, equal opportunities, that resources are used in the best way so that people do not have to think about immigrating, but instead have opportunities where they live and meet the contributions they have to make to the extent of their possibilities," he further elaborated.
Ibero-American Summit and the Dominican model
Bisonó is in Madrid to take part in the Ibero-American Summit that will be held this Wednesday and Thursday, where the Dominican Government intends to present its experience of economic growth and social stability, which has allowed the country to maintain progress close to 5% over the last decade.
The chancellor has explained that “it would seem that the world is undergoing a shift” toward more conservative positions, favorable to the free market and greater economic efficiency, a context in which the Dominican trajectory may prove useful for the rest of the Ibero-American partners.
“We think we have a great responsibility because we can convey the experience that we have been able to maintain with the social, economic and political calm that is displayed in the Dominican Republic and that is the basis of that growth of 5% per decade and of an inflation that is more or less acceptable,” he said.
He also highlighted that the country “we continue to receive significant foreign direct investment, 5.5 billion last year. We are going to surpass that and our exports will grow. That is the drive to be here, to transcend, to be able to present what our growth has been and to see how we can project it in Ibero-America,” he explained.
Strategic relationship with the United States
Bisonó has also addressed the commercial and geopolitical dimension of the bond with the United States and praised the “interesting” figure of his U.S. counterpart, Marco Rubio, to whom he attributed the merit of having returned Latin America to the center of the international agenda “for the first time in a long time.”
“For the first time in a long time, attention is being paid to Latin America, and that is also due to Secretary Marco Rubio,” he stressed, underlining the importance of the Dominican Republic as a key partner of Washington and as a “significant” “frontier” against illicit economies and organized crime.
The minister also referred to the effect of the tariff measures promoted by the president of the United States, Donald Trump, and to the challenges involved in adapting to these restrictions and other commitments, such as the reinforcement in the area of security associated with his role in the so-called “shield of the Americas” promoted by Washington.
With a view to the future of regional dialogue in multilateral frameworks such as the Organization of American States (OEA) or a possible Summit of the Americas, Bisonó has shown confidence that these spaces will help coordinate the countries with converging agendas.
“This would be a good occasion for President Trump or the government of the United States (...) to be able to bring together what we are more or less aligned on in the best interests of democracy and freedom,” he concluded.