This is part three of a four part series on the history of the Haitian-Dominican border (parts 1,2,3,4)

Following the signature of the 1936 border treaty, the Dominican President, Rafael Truijillo, began tightening restrictions on Haitians in the Dominican Republic and stepped up deportations in an effort to reduce the number of Haitians. He visited the border region in August and September 1937, and concluded that his policy was not working. On October 2, 1937, he gave the order that resulted in the massacre of tens of thousands of Haitians in the borderlands (Eric Paul Roorda, The Dictator Next Door: The Good Neighbor Policy and the Trujillo Regime in the Dominican Republic (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), p. 131). This massacre is brilliantly portrayed in Edwidge Danticat’s haunting fictional narrative, The Farming of Bones.

President Truijillo then began a policy of “Dominicanizing” and strengthening the border. He created new provinces with the border towns as the provincial capitals (see the table below), built a string of military observation points along the border, and providing incentives for Dominicans to live in the border region.

Current Name	Original Name	Year Created
Dajabon	Libertador	1938
Elias Piña	San Rafael	1942
Independencia	Jimaní	1948
Pedernales	Pedernales	1957

The origin of the main Dominican border provinces. Source: http://www.jmarcano.com/mipais/indice.html#indice

The importance of a strong border region is the third section of the 1955 Constitution with phrasing which has been repeated in every subsequent revision of the constitution including the current 2002 version:

SECTION III: Economic and Social Regime in the Border

Art. 7.—It is declared of supreme and permanent national interest the economic and social development of the territory of the Republic the length of the border line, as with the diffusion of the culture and the religious tradition of the Dominican people. The agricultural and industrial improvement of the border rivers will continue, regulated based on the principals consecrated in the article 6 of the Protocol of Revision of the 1936 Treaty of the Border of 1929 and the article 10 of the Treaty of Peace, Amnesty, and Arbitrage of 1929.[1]
(source: http://www.consultapopular.gov.do/reformas-anteriores.html ):

On the Haitian side, the government did little to reorganize the territories to reflect the new division of the island. As a result, the Department of the West is on the eastern side of the country below the Department of the Northeast and above the Department of the Southeast. None of the border towns are departmental capitals and, with a brief exception in the 1940’s, there was little government investment or focus on the border region until recently.

Although Haiti did not reorganize its geographic divisions, President Dumarais Estimé (Haitian President from 1946-1950) did start the process of strengthening the border in 1948:

Another Estimé project was the rebuilding of the border town of Belladère opposite Elias Pina, the town that Trujillo had rebuilt on the Dominican side of the border. Belladère was on the main road from Port-au-Prince to the Dominican Republic.  At a cost of $600,000 Estimé paved the main street, put in a new hotel and new homes, supplied them with electricity and drinking water.  It apparently made Trujillo unhappy to see such progress next door. In opposition, he rerouted Dominican traffic through the town of Jimaní, a more southern border exit, and Belladère was left isolated. (Diderich and Burt, p62)

Belladère remained a relic of its former glory until 2008 when the Haitian government undertook an ambitious project to repave the town streets, restore electricity, and rebuild the public buildings.

After the fall of the Trujillos in 1962 and the election of Juan Bosch as President in the Dominican Republic, anti-Duvalier forces began using the Dominican Republic as a base in their plots against the Haitian President. On April 26, 1963, the year that President Francois Duvalier’s term was to end, a former supporter of Duvalier shot the bodyguards and driver of Duvalier’s two children, Jean-Claude (age 11) and Simone (age 14) while the children were being dropped off at school. One of the suspects of the shooting took asylum in the Dominican Ambassador’s house. President Duvalier sent his Presidential guard after the suspects. The guard and some Tonton Macoutes forced their way into the Dominican Embassy and then into the yard of the Dominican Ambassador’s residence and stayed (Diderich and Burt, p192-205).

The following day, President Bosch issued an ultimatum to President Duvalier stating that if he did not withdraw the Haitian forces from Dominican embassy, the Dominican Republic would invade Haiti. Over the next several days as tensions increased, President Bosch worked with his army and air force to develop an invasion plan. The OAS was called in to investigate. While the investigation went on, the war fever died down in the Dominican Republic and the invasion never happened. Anti-Duvalier forces continued to work out of the Dominican Republic through the rest of President Bosch’s term and the Dominican civil war until the former Trujilloista, Joaquín Balaguer, won the Presidential elections in 1966.

From 1966 until the fall of the Duvalier government in 1986, the border remained open to trade, but little trade occurred. Although there were no paved roads to the border on the Haitian side, both countries maintained customs and migration facilities at the main border crossings. In an effort to stimulate trade, the governments of Presidents Antonio Guzmán Fernández and Jean-Claude Duvalier negotiated a free trade agreement in 1979. This agreement was ratified by the Dominican parliament in 1981, but never by the Haitian parliament.

Summary of the Commercial Agreement between the Dominican Republic and Haiti (December 13, 1979)

Article 1 states; “The two parties have decided to create, under this present agreement, a free trade zone between both countries for products that originate in their respective territories.” The accord provides for the elimination of quotas and the exoneration on all import taxes. (Art. 2)

The agreement applies only to products that are totally produced within the country of origin (Haiti or the Dominican Republic) or those that have an added value of at least 35% (Art. 8 ) with the exception of the production within free trade zones (Art. 5). Additionally, each country has excluded a short list of products. For the Dominican Republic, these were ceramics, refined salt, white cement, and pharmaceutical products. For Haiti, these were sisal wire, fruit juice (guyaba, pineapple, and mango) and artisanal products (except textiles). The agreement also prohibits the re-exportation of products that benefited from these exemptions (Art. 10).

The agreement stipulates that the commercial operations must follow each country’s procedures and requirements for customs, diplomatic, health and any other non-tariff barriers (Art. 7).

During this period, trade flows was roughly equal in both directions. For example, in 1983, the Dominican Republic exported to Haiti $US 5.4 million and imported more than $US 11 million. (Frontera en Transición, Dilla, 2007). During the collapse of the Duvalier regime in 1986, the Dominican closed the border for security reasons.

On March 13, 1987, the Foreign Ministers from the Haitian and Dominican governments signed an agreement [2] to reopen the Haitian-Dominican border with a promise to promote the open border “in a regular manner, the transit of people, personal effects through the border points of Dajabon-Ouanmainthe and Malpasse-Jimani” (source: El Nuevo Herald, March 29, 1987). However, for the next twenty years, the government in Haiti struggled with crisis after crisis and neither country focused on developing rules and procedures for the border region. Paradoxically, it was during one of Haiti’s greatest crisis, the time following the 1991 coup against President Aristide, that cross-border trade began to grow.

Part 4 will cover the modern situation on the Haitian-Dominican border.

Daniel J. O’Neil

The History Series:

Part 1: Gold, cows, and pirates: the story of the of how the island of Hispaniola (or Quisqueya) ended up split into two countries: 1492-1777

Part 2: The birth of the Haitian-Dominican border: 1777-1936

Part 3: The border becomes a wall: 1936-1987

Part 4: The porous border: 1987-present

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[1] The Spanish text is as follows: Art. 7. — Se declara de supremo y permanente interés nacional el desarrollo económico y social del territorio de la República a lo largo de la línea fronteriza, así como la difusión de la cultura y la tradición religiosa del pueblo dominicano. El aprovechamiento agrícola e industrial de los ríos fronterizos se continuará regulando por los principios consagrados en el artículo 6º del Protocolo de Revisión de 1936 del Tratado de Fronteras de 1929, y en el artículo 10 del Tratado de Paz, Amistad y Arbitraje de 1929.

[2] We were unable to locate this agreement, but did talk with a member of the commission to verify its existence.