Foreign Minister Roberto Alvarez once more appealed to the United Nations Security Council to take decisive actions in Haiti. So far, the only international actions have been sanctions by the governments of Canada and the United States to leading business people in Haiti that are said to be backing the gangs.
Speaking at the UN Security Council on Wednesday, 26 April 2023, Foreign Minister Roberto Álvarez warned that the world is witnessing the dissolution of the Haitian state due to the serious insecurity and social problems affecting that country.
“We have said this in the past in this Security Council and we reiterate it today. The situation in Port-au-Prince is comparable to that of an internal armed conflict, saving the difference in this case on the qualification of belligerent. In fact, we are witnessing today, the dissolution of the Haitian state,” said the Dominican Foreign Minister as he finished his turn at the quarterly meeting of the UN body to deal with the situation in Haiti.
The minister added that any decision that evades urgent effective assistance for Haiti could be considered an abdication of its responsibility mandated by the charter of the UN Security Council and international law.
“We do not understand why it has taken so long for this vital body to do what is necessary to comply with the aid requested by Haiti (…). Being honest, we are inclined to think of the possibility that, as some say: countries receive attention according to a differentiating stratification,” said the Dominican foreign minister, observing that there are examples of other initiatives to support countries in crisis, for which international assistance has not met with such reticence.
Álvarez explained that the sovereignty of the state entails the obligation to protect its own people, but that when a state is unable to do so fully, this responsibility corresponds to the international community, for which diplomatic, humanitarian and any other means within its competence must be employed.
Alvarez did recognize the work of the Sanctions Committee and its Panel of Experts, which have made efforts to identify the sectors within Haiti that promote criminal activities and contribute to insecurity, reiterating the urgent need to send an international force to support the Haitian National Police, as requested by the Haitian authorities themselves.
In this regard, he informed that the Dominican government has imposed entry bans on a number of Haitian citizens in order to safeguard the security and integrity of Dominican territory and as a way of supporting the efforts of the Security Council.
The position of President Luis Abinader is that the Dominican Republic needs to concentrate now on defending the security of the country. Abinader says that the Dominican Republic can do no more for Haiti. The Dominican Republic is impacted by the large number of undocumented Haitians that migrate the country seeking work and basic social services, such as identification, health and schooling, not available in Haiti.
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27 April 2023