Why Haitian leaders will skip President Abinader’s inauguration in Dominican Republic
The president of the Dominican Republic, Luis Rodolfo Abinader, who has implemented tough migration policies toward neighboring Haiti and led his nation’s transformation into an economic and tourism powerhouse, will be sworn in for a second term on Friday in Santo Domingo.
Abinader and his Modern Revolutionary Party handily defeated rivals in May to clinch the vote on a first round. His inauguration in Santo Domingo is expected to be attended by a number of hemispheric leaders such as Colombian President Gustavo Petro, whose hopes of hopping over to Port-au-Prince the day after the ceremony were dashed by Haitian authorities this week.
The Biden administration, meanwhile, says that a U.S. delegation, which will include former U.S. senator and Special Presidential Adviser for the Americas Chris Dodd along with Daniel Erikson, senior director for the Western Hemisphere at the National Security Council and the White House, will be headed by Jennifer M. Granholm, secretary of the Department of Energy.
Missing, however, will be high-level representation from the country next door, Haiti. Both Prime Minister Garry Conille and Edgard Leblanc Fils, head of the Transitional Presidential Council, have declined the invitation to fly into the Dominican Republic for the swearing in. Here is why and what all sides are saying about the latest diplomatic hiccup between the two contentious neighbors.
Closed airspace
Dominican authorities first notified Haiti officially of the closure on April 5. After three months, they continued to renew their decision every 30 days. However, the airspace between Haiti and the Dominican Republic had been closed to commercial flights since an attack by armed gangs near Port-au-Prince’s international and domestic airports in late February left a Sunrise Airways aircraft, leaded from the Dominican Republic, riddled with bullets. The Haitian-owned airline company is registered in the Dominican Republic, and has been cited in conversations by Dominican authorities as the reasons why the decision was made.
What Sunrise Airways says
Sunrise Airways President Philippe Bayard told the Miami Herald late Tuesday that he asked the Dominican civil aviation authority in a May 24 letter to reopen the airspace. Bayard says he even suggested a soft reopening by using the Hugo Chavez International Airport in Cap-Haïtien, Haiti’s northern city, for flights if the Dominican government was not totally comfortable with having planes fly in and out of Port-au-Prince. But Bayard said he never received a response. “I’ve never asked for the airspace to be closed,” he said.
What the Dominicans say
Dominican Foreign Minister Roberto Alvarez, in a series of social media postings on Tuesday, said while the airspace remains closed to commercial flights “it’s not closed to official, humanitarian and similar flights. There is no impediment to Haitian authorities attending the inauguration of President Abinader.”
Haitians note, however, that Air Caraibes, a commercial airline, flies from Port-au-Prince to Paris every Monday with a stopover in Santo Domingo to drop off and pick up tourists visiting the country’s resorts.
Why it matters
Both Conille and Leblanc were invited to attend the swearing in. Instead they opted to have Haiti represented by a low-level diplomat from the Haitian embassy in Santo Domingo, a sign of their protest over current relations. Haitian authorities discussed whether to attend the inauguration, but could not conceive doing so when those who have Dominican visas or legal authorization to travel to the Spanish-speaking country cannot do so from Haiti. Getting there requires flying to Miami and then into Santo Domingo. Haiti Foreign Minister Dominique Dupuy asked whether the airspace would be opened ahead of Friday for everyone before Conille sent his regrets weeks ago and Leblanc officially declined Tuesday.
READ MORE: Colombian President Petro wants to visit Haiti, but timing isn’t right, authorities say
The issue took on added significance this week when Petro informed Haitian officials he wanted to visit the country, requiring him and his high-level delegation to fly through the closed airspace. Haiti turned him down.
Tensions at the border
In his postings, Dominican Foreign Minister Alvarez said the swearing in “would have been a propitious moment to restart dialogue with the transitional government” of Haiti. Alvarez did not provide details on the current friction but the two nations, which share the island of Hispaniola, have a contentious history. Tensions erupted most recently when Haitians in the north decided to build a canal along the Massacre River near the Ouanaminthe-Dajabón border in northern Haiti in 2023.
The construction, which united Haitians both in and out of the country, enraged Abinader. In September he announced sanctions against some of the Haitians involved, issued a visa ban and shut down his nation’s land, sea and air border with Haiti. After Haitians gangs united in late February, Santo Domingo launched stricter measures and refused to allow even U.S. citizens of Haitian descent or those with permanent residency in the United States to cross into its territory to escape the violence in Haiti. The Dominican government also increased the number of expulsions of undocumented Haitians across the land border.
In March, as Ariel Henry, Haiti’s prime minister at the time, was seeking to return to Haiti from a visit to Kenya amid the gang uprising, the Dominican Republic refused to let his charter plane land.
The future
All eyes are on the border to see if Dominican authorities, who have advocated for international security assistance for Haiti, will relent and allow hassle-free travel to resume for those with passports and legal documents. Alvarez announced in July at a United Nations Security Council meeting that it will support the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support mission currently being deployed to Haiti to help fight armed gangs “by providing medical assistance” on Dominican territory.
This story was originally published August 14, 2024 at 11:47 AM.
