Between a closed border and a poisoned border, the people will choose the lesser.

This is an unprecedented and historic victory. The inhabitants of the commune of Ouanaminthe, Haiti, who viscerally engaged in a struggle for dignity with the Dominican Republic (DR), entered triumphantly into the annals of history.

 President Luis Abinader, exhausted by the resilience of Haitians, abdicates. Faced with the invincible shield of a people that is its self-determination, the Dominican Republic renounces its vaporous, unjustified and ineffective diplomatic attacks.

On Friday September 15, 2023, at the tempestuous orders of President Abinader, the Haiti-DR land, air and sea borders were completely closed. The strengthening of the military presence all along the border matched the exploits of Hollywood. As in an imperial verdict, President Abinader believed to seal the fate of Haitian trade and limit the movement of Dessalines’ descendants.

Two days later, on Sunday September 17, the president of the DR reaffirmed that the border between his country and Haiti will remain closed. Finally, he insisted: “These measures will remain in force until we obtain a definitive halt to the construction of the canal.”

Today, October 10, 2023, we read in the columns of the newspaper “Listin Diario”: “…la reapertura del mercado binacional con Haiti…” (The reopening of the binational market with Haiti).

President Luis Abinader ordered the reopening of the binational market with Haiti. However, in Haiti, the construction of the canal continues vehemently, night and day. Like a hub, work intensified.

However, the mouth which ordered the closure of the borders by setting a condition for reopening is the one which declared its reopening, without the essential condition having been respected.

 This is what we call a historic victory!

 As for the announcement of a partial opening, it is only the perfect euphemism to hide a bitter failure. If total closure could not shake Haitians in any way, they would make fun of a partial opening.

Ironically, at the moment when President Abinader publicly signed his defeat, civil society in Ouanaminthe, Haiti, returned to the scene with other subsidiary demands.

Not only will work on the canal continue, but civil society will refuse to allow border trade to resume its course in the same execrable, degrading and inhumane conditions. Otherwise, those who hold the financial capital will look elsewhere. The border will be open and soon there will be no one to enter.

Furthermore, on Monday October 9, 2023, in Ouanaminthe, Haiti, a civil society unit met, made up of lawyers, entrepreneurs and journalists, after having objectively examined the history and relations of the two peoples, and agreed that the picture of Haiti-DR diplomatic and commercial relations is abominable, revolting and intolerable.

Upon observing the devilishly lamentable border reality, the citizens present shouted: O diplomacy, oh infamy!

Sacks of rotting meat leave Dominican territory and regularly cross borders. After making it impossible to obtain a Dominican visa through regular channels, every evening, certain senior officials in the DR organize clandestine trips at exorbitant cost. The next day, these same high-ranking officers demanded and obtained the mass deportation of Haitians who had already paid for the trip. And the sordid trade begins again in full view of President Abinader.

In fact, almost all Haitian workers in the DR are subject to human trafficking. Human trafficking is a crime present in daily Dominican life. Skyscrapers are built on the blood of Haitians. However, the Haitian worker who prepares the concrete in the morning is deported in the evening, before he is paid.

Dominican visas are sold to the highest bidder. Even passports are kept in consulates as a guarantee of the triple price of a visa which should have been a courtesy. Under penalty of deportation, Haitian students regularly admitted to a Dominican college cannot obtain a student visa for the entire duration of their studies.

Without any digression, the participants at the October 9 meeting worked out and retained seven (7) first mandatory conditions, as parameters for redefining the area of diplomatic and commercial relations of Haiti with the DR.

1. The DR must peremptorily recognize the right of use of the Republic of Haiti regarding shared water resources. In the event of concern about the method of use of a shared resource, a binational commission will be created whose work will be the subject of a memorandum of understanding or convention.  Any sanction or prior deprivation measure will be interpreted as an obvious obstacle to the search for an amicable solution.

2. The binational market must be rebalanced. The rights of each state must be equitably distributed. Dominicans will benefit from a market day; the Haitians, as much;

3. The Dominican state must respect the rules for deporting Haitians crammed into suffocating cages. Human rights violations including physical attacks, rape and human trafficking must stop. The perpetrators of these abuses, like the organizers of clandestine trips, must be brought to justice and their conviction widely published. Deportation acts must respect times, days, pregnant women and homes.

4. Haitian students, regularly established in the DR, must benefit from a student visa for the entire duration of their studies, without the need to pay an entry tax monthly or quarterly.

5. An international audit commission must be created to examine the geographical delimitation of the two States and report thereon to each Government.

6. Goods coming from the DR and destined for Haiti must be particularly evaluated and approved by a Customs service. Their quality must be certified by the said service, a copy of the document of which can be obtained by any right holder.

7. Haitian victims of immigration and any instance of the DR must be the subject of an investigation by a special “Justice and Truth” Commission, made up of Haiti, the Dominican Republic and other countries . Report will be sent to each Government.

Furthermore, it is appropriate to recognize the manipulation of simulated geopolitical and economic interests, the victory in the primary elections of President Abinader, the adoption of the UN resolution authorizing a multinational armed force in Haiti, with the corollary the establishment of ‘a new class of entrepreneurs intended to replace those who are sanctioned, rightly or wrongly, the oligarchies of the two States which collide, not to mention those who take advantage of the game of internal politics to the point of deceiving the humble, are all considerations. In short, this absurd and criminogenic measure would have served something else, and everyone, as far as they are concerned.

In the end, beyond all the geopolitical divisions, some less pronounced than others, the population of Ouanaminthe, Haiti, helped by the rest of the Haitian nation, inflicted a lesson in dignity on the Dominican president.

 Instead of complaining, the population transformed the DR measures into a vast synergy to remobilize the popular will to change things. The mystical silence of the Haitians, who we hoped to see massed in their thousands at the border, was enough to stir up the Dominicans. These increased the number of demonstrations and riots until the activities of CODEVI were blocked.

The Dominican people now know that there is no measure taken or to be taken that is capable of influencing the will of a determined and reasoned people, claiming a just cause.

 That the closure and reopening of the borders are the works of Luis Abinader, without intervention or request from the Haitian people. That no one is above the law. That his arbitrary acts, already recorded in the bloody pages of history, will be the subject of an international trial that years, even after his mandate, cannot wither, like the trial pending in New York against barbarism, the genocide of the 1937 massacre, perpetrated by his counterpart Raphaël Trujillo.

Moreover, the legal fight continues. Ouanaminthe, Haiti, only won one battle peacefully. In any case, the two neighboring peoples are condemned to live together. However, the Haitian people, through the population of Ouanaminthe, demands a new definition of diplomatic and commercial relations with the DR.

Human trafficking, racial discrimination, mistreatment of Haitians are revolting. Recurrent and irregular mass deportation constitutes a crime against humanity. The products shipped to Haiti are execrably spoiled, poisoned with the odors of an imminent genocide.

If corrective measures are not promptly adopted, incidents will resurface out of nowhere. Because there is no force or diplomacy that can contain an injustice that is at its height, like the larvae of an erupting volcano.

Silence or retreat is only utopia. Only appropriate and just measures can generate lasting peace.

Ouanaminthe, October 10, 2023.

(English Translation from the participants and members  of the civil society unit who signed the above memorandum written originally in French: Mouvement Mutation Haïti (MMH), Albert Pierre Paul Joseph, Clément Pierre, Dionel Germain, Simpson Charles Amazan, Emmanuel Raphaël, Thony Desauguste, Hérald Myritil, Hervé Pierre, Patrick Emilien , Bélizaire James Dobson, Gérald Jean Charles, Saint Preux Rolanson, Roselène Pierre).