President Luis Abinader again referred to the dire situation affecting Haiti in an international forum.
Delivering his speech on Tuesday, in front of the leadership of the European Union (EU) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), he said he could not end his words without speaking about Haiti. He said the Haiti crisis is urgent not only for the region, but for the whole world.
He reiterated that all countries and the international community can get tired of Haitian problems, but the Dominican Republic cannot. The Dominican Republic and Haiti share the same island.
The Dominican President highlighted that only 30% of Haiti’s students are going to school and that most public hospitals are closed.
“Here is their prime minister, a very brave man who is facing that big problem, but who needs the international community’s help,” Abinader pointed out.
President Abinader has been emphatic in different national and international scenarios on the urgent need for the international community to intervene to bring peace to the country so that the economic, political and social crisis facing that nation can be tackled.
President Abinader has been calling for help for Haiti in several recent forums he has attended.
The “Declaration of Santiago de los Caballeros”, approved in December 2022, at the LVI Meeting of Heads of State and Government of the member countries of the Central American Integration System (SICA), expressed its support to the call made by the Dominican Republic to the international community to make efforts to seek answers to the Haitian crisis.
The document, signed by the highest body of the entity comprising Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize and the Dominican Republic, expresses the “concern for the serious situation affecting the Republic of Haiti, in the economic, social, political and humanitarian fields, which hinders the development of its institutions and citizens”.
At the beginning of the meeting, President Abinader called for the attention of the member countries of the Central American Integration System (SICA) to the problem of irregular migration in the region and raised the Haitian crisis with its impact on the Dominican Republic.
President Abinader’s position was also supported by several leaders present in March 2023 at the plenary session of the XXVIII Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government, held in Santo Domingo, when he declared that the only way to act in Haiti to bring peace.
In his speech before the UN General Assembly in September 2021, President Abinader raised three actions that he considered urgent and necessary for the region, these being the response to the crisis in Haiti, the need for credit facilities for countries in difficulties due to the indebtedness generated during the pandemic and more investment to restore natural resources affected by global warming.
President Abinader asked the international community to urgently and once and for all take on the Haitian crisis, after warning that there is not and never will be a Dominican solution to this problem.
In this scenario, the President said that he has announced the possibility that the situation in Haiti could spill over the border and become a factor of insecurity in the region.
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Presidency
19 July 2023