Environmentalists say it would have been better to spend the money planting a fence of trees. But the Ministry of Defense has kept up with the construction of around 25 km of fence on the border with Haiti initiated during the past Danilo Medina administration. The plan is to build many many more kilometers of the same kind of fencing.
The problem is not with the security, it is with the high cost and the actual type of construction. There are reports the government is spending US$200 million on the fence that is to serve to reduce contraband and people smuggling. The border with Haiti is more than 300 km long.
N Digital reports that the senator for the province of Dajabón, David Sosa, has criticized the purchase and contracting of equipment for the construction of the fence on the border of the Dominican Republic with Haiti, and the declaring of the process as a state secret. Sosa is a legislator for the ruling Modern Revolutionary Party.
He says he agrees with the project, however, he is against the choice of perimeter fence. “What I don’t agree with is the rubbish wall that is being built. Because it is clear, it is a fence, with very few blocks and a hurricane mesh that I know people are going to break in a first go,” said Sosa last Wednesday, 26 May 2021 when speaking in the Senate session. He criticized that the secrecy of the project was established by decree. He called on President Luis Abinader to be clear about what the fence is costing and what it is for.
“So, Mr. President, the border needs your continued support, that corruption be stopped and that many things be made clear,” concluded the legislator.
According to the Executive Branch, information regarding national security contracting is classified as “reserved”, in accordance with the provisions of Article 17 of Law 200-04 on Free Access to Public Information. The decree establishes the perimetral fence falls under these secrecy provisions.
Meanwhile, N Digital reports that the mayor of Jimaní, another important border city, says that the fence is all but a waste of money. Mayor Dionisy Méndez says so far it has been “of absolutely no use.” He said the situation of illegal crossings of people continues the same “or maybe even worse.” In his opinion, the fence is “of no use; this town is full of Haitians.”
He said it would be necessary for the fence to be completed to see if it has an effect on avoiding the transfer of weapons, undocumented migrants and all types of contraband. “We are going to wait until the fence is finished to evaluate it, because, up to now, it has not solved anything,” he said as reported in N Digital.
According to N Digital, the fence already covers the area of Carrizal, Tierra Nueva and Las 40, rural areas, where there is only the presence of Dominican Republic army members. “It is an Apache zone,” said Méndez. He said that Haitians pass very freely through the areas where the fence has not yet been erected.
The sections under construction are between the Jimani and Elias Piña border crossings, the second and third most important between the two countries, and work is still in progress, as Army brigade general Santo Domingo Guerrero Clase told Efe news agency.
Diario Libre features the first report in a aseries on the border fence. As reported, the Abinader administration has plans to build the fence along 200 of the 380 km of the border between the two countries, at a cost of around US$200 million. The newspaper is sharing its findings of the reality of what is the border between both countries, touring from the southernmost point in Pedernales to Jimaní, Elias Piña, the International Highway, Dajabón and Montecristi.
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N Digital
N Digital
31 May 2021