Hands Across the Border
Dominican President, Leonel Fernandez, talks about a new chapter in relations between the two countries that share the island of Hispaniola.
The president of the Dominican Republic, Leonel Fernandez, made a unprecedented helicopter trip to search for his good friend, Haitian president Rene Preval. |
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Although they share the same island, relations between Haiti and the Dominican Republic are scarred by a bloody history.
That changed when a massive 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti on Jan 12th. Barely two days after the earthquake, the president of the Dominican Republic, Leonel Fernandez, made a unprecedented helicopter trip to search for his good friend, Haitian president Rene Preval. He was worried that Preval was still incommunicado, unable to coordinate any kind of response to the disaster, let alone rally the world’s help.
“I said this is the right time to go in there to show our sense of solidarity at the highest political level,” Fernandez said in an interview at the presidential palace in Santo Domingo. Unable to contact Preval himself, Fernandez landed and went in search of the president. He found him shell-shocked in an unlit office at a police station near the airport.
“There he was all by himself, I think overwhelmed by the situation perhaps with no specific plans at that moment because he had no contacts with his ministers,” said Fernandez. “We started building some solutions [about] what the Dominican Republic could do, and from there we have just been working very closely together. “
Few countries have been more generous than the Dominican Republic, itself a poor and undeveloped country. Crews of Dominican electrical engineers helped fix power lines, while telecom technicians worked on restoring communications. Fernandez sent 15 mobile, trailer-sized kitchens to provide hot meals to hundreds of thousands of survivors in the weeks after the tragedy, as well as 100 old buses, refitted with desks and chairs to serve as temporary classrooms.
The Dominican Republic had waived visa restrictions for Haitians seeking emergency medical care, authorized nearly 300 flights carrying aid and donated $11 million, according to Dominican officials. One of the country’s wealthiest corporations, Grupo Vicini, has also donated millions of dollars for the recovery, including raising money for St. Damien pediatric hospital in Port-au-Prince.
Dominican cardiologist, Dr. Victor Atallah, has been instrumental in helping put together a makeshift hospital in Jimani on the border with Haiti, staffed by volunteer doctors and nurses from around the world, treating earthquake victims.
“The Dominicans have been very good to us,” says Joseph Williamson, a 26-year-old Port-au-Prince university student, who lost a leg when his classroom collapsed. Atallah is already starting to build a rehabilitation clinic in Jimani where he hopes to fit some of the thousands of victims who lost limbs with prosthetic arms and legs, a vital medical service that is virtually non-existant in Haiti. “That’s my only hope in this life – a new leg,” says Williamson
Fernandez is also taking a lead role in an internacional reconstruction effort for Haiti, agreeing to host a major conference in June in Santo Domingo with major donor countries. He talks of the need for a $20 billion Marshall Plan for Haiti, including funds for education, healthcare, roads and infrastructure, as well as longterm institution building.
It will be years before Haiti recovers – if it ever can. If solutions are not found fase, Fernandez is understandably worried about the potential for increased migration of Haitian into his country looking for work. But it’s not just Hispaniola’s problem.
“This is also a national security problem for the U.S., because if Haiti falls apart, drug trafficking will increase, we’ll become failed status, and could end up as a platform for terrorism,” he warns.
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