Fabio R. Herrera-Minino speculates today in Hoy newspaper that the preparation of former Cap Haitien police chief, Guy Phillippe, and his group in Dominican territory is evidence he had the backing of people in power in Santo Domingo. The Mejia administration granted political asylum to Phillippe after his exile from Haiti in 2000. Herrera-Minino writes that the “modern weapons and equipment, which were not hidden for more than 10 years, shows that the aim is to provoke a severe crisis in the neighboring state that could involve us, which, 80 days before the elections, would be another blunder the government’s re-election team has accustomed us to.” Herrera-Minino writes that in view of their low ratings in the electoral polls, the government “would do anything to:avoid submitting itself to the scrutiny of the public, after having ridden the crests of power and misspending all the national resources, the lack of which the government has tried to compensate for with the mad race of taking on loans that have enveloped us, increasing the foreign debt to unsustainable levels for the economy of more than US$8 billion.”
Herrera-Minino writes that Dominicans have maintained a laissez-faire attitude with Haiti and are only moved by the threat of “a human wave of destitute, uneducated Haitians, with nothing left on their side of the border due to the criminal devastation of their own ecological resources.” The writer concludes by saying there’s nothing left for them but to try the same thing here.