Hoy newspaper’s editorial today zeroes in on the possibility that a dangerous precedent has been set with the release of a Haitian rebel combatant who had been arrested as a suspect in the murder of two Dominican soldiers. John Robert was released after Haitian rebel forces kidnapped some 12 Dominican businesspeople who were held hostage. Foreign Relations Minister Frank Guerrero justified the release of the arrested combatant, saying: “Sometimes, unfortunately, one has to make deals that are not written in any of the books because of exceptional cases, and in the face of exceptional situations one has to find exceptional solutions.”
Hoy newspaper nevertheless supports the statement of the director of the National Department of Investigations, Major General Fernando Cruz Mendez, who said that a dangerous precedent has been set by giving in to pressures of a seditious Haitian group that had abducted the Dominicans on Dominican territory. The businesspeople were taken captive in Ouanaminthe, a rebel-held town along Haiti’s border with the Dominican Republic. The rebels had threatened to kill their captives if Santo Domingo did not release John Robert, said Ramon Garcia, a Dominican customs official.
Hoy says that the Dominican government should have passed the matter on to regional organizations, such as the Organization of American States (OAS) and the governments of the countries that have troops in Haiti, before giving in to the demands of the kidnappers. “We are talking about an armed gang that is boasting its strengths, that crosses the border when it wants to and causes provocations, probably seeking to cause frictions that we Dominicans should avoid,” states the Hoy editorial. It alerts: “We have negotiated with an illegitimate group that will not think twice before committing other provocative acts on the frontier, now that their ego has been fed with the success of having achieved the exchange. We hope we are not sorry.”