The border at Elias Pina-Belladere

Daniel O’Neil

Transporting goods across the Dominican-Haitian border is a mess. Large trucks are queued from the border far down the road into the Dominican Republic. There is no clear process to the inspections. Haitian market women stream through the border with goods on their heads. Little documentation is provided to anyone.

Whereas Dominican airports quickly and efficiently process large numbers of people, the border is a mess. This mess and confusion is also a significant source of conflicts. Both Haitian and Dominican exporters complain of arbitrary fees, excessive delays, and expropriation of merchandise. Haitian market women complain of their treatment by Dominican authorities and Dominican exporters complain of their treatment by Haitian ones. The arbitrariness of the treatment stems from the lack of clear rules governing cross-border trade. Although both countries have clear rules for imports, these rules were written for the ports in the main cities and require inspections and approvals that are not available in the border–this is the result in the odd process through which the border went from being a wall to being porous. Without clear policy guidance and in violation of their own laws, each country has developed procedures to allow for goods to flow through their border. These procedures are neither documented nor fixed. This lack of transparency and consistency creates confusion for importers and makes it easy for officials to solicit bribes.

Last year, we convinced the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to give us a grant to study this mess. We told them that we wanted to find out the rules that govern imports and exports on both sides so that we can publish them in Creole and Spanish. We figured if everyone knew what the rules were; it would be easier to insist on fair treatment. USAID agreed and we conducted the study. Rather than finding a clear set of rules that we could publish, we found a complicated set of requirements which could not be fulfilled by the officials in the border region.

On the Dominican side, we found that most of the goods that Haitians are importing are prohibitied by different rule:

• Animals: Can only be imported through the airport and seaport in Santo Domingo as per law 43-55.
• Fruits: Can only be imported through either Santo Domingo or Puerto Plata as per resolution 84-96 from the Secretary of State for Agriculture (SEA).
• Vegetables: Prohibited except with specific authorization from the SEA which is no available in the border.
• Beans and chickpeas: Prohibited except with specific authorization from the SEA which is no available in the border.
• Used textiles (re-exported from the United States): Prohibited as per law 458-73.
• Rice (re-exported from the United States and elsewhere): Prohibited except with specific authorization from the SEA, which is not available in the border.

The Dominican government also prohibits the re-export of fuel. The full report can be downloaded by clicking here (PDF document in Spanish).

The Haitian government does not have specific laws that ban certain products. Instead, the process for clearing customs is very complicated and requires many approvals that are not available in the border. They also require that payment be made only at the Banque de la République d’Haiti which does not have any offices in the borderlands.

We went back to our donor and said that we had a problem. We couldn’t publish a simple guide to importing and exporting across the Haitian-Dominican border because too much of the commerce is illegal. Rather than helping to facilitate cross-border trade, our study would provide ammunition for officials seeking bribes.

As we discussed our findings with our donor, the Trade Office of the Organization of American States, and representatives from both governments; we came to realize that the path towards transparent trade will be a complicated one. Both countries will need to revise their own laws and regulations to create a workable structure that could be implemented at the border. However, before they can revise their laws, both countries need to understand the current flow of goods across the border and to decide how they wish to manage it.

Improving management of commerce is a win-win situation for both countries. The governments’ should be able to recover more customs duties from a larger flow of legitimate goods. Exporters should be able to export more efficiently. Consumers in both countries would be better protected by a better phytosanitary controls. Finally, by reducing the amount of legitimate goods that are smuggled  across the border, the officials in both countries will be better able to focus on the smuggling that threatens national security—that of drugs and weapons.

In my next series of posts, I will explore how the border currently works, what goods are imported and exported, and finally the steps that both countries would need to take to establish fair and transparent rules for managing cross-border commerce.

We are helping the Haitian government to build a new complex at the Belladere-Elias Pina border that will allow Haitian officials to properly supervise this border crossing

CESFRONT soldier on the Pednernales-Anse a Pitres border on market day. Photos by Karl Grobl

In previous posts, we looked at how the the “Spanish Island” became divided between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, how the current border was formed, and the fifty year period when the border became a wall. Today we look at how the border went from being a wall to the sieve that it is today.

There has been a spate of news stories in both the Dominican press and later in the US press about the growing Haitian presence in the Dominican borderlands. Former President Carter invigorated this debate when he called the illegal flow of Haitians into the Dominican Republic “unstoppable.” Cross-border trade has become a significant issue for both countries and there are a growing number of Dominican investments in Haiti. Unfortunately, this growth in cross-border exchanges have happened in a policy vacuum. The rules that govern the border are still those that were developed when the border was largely closed. Therefore, most of the cross-border exchanges violate Haitian and Dominican law. Today we look at how this mess developed.

As we concluded in the previous post, the reopening of the border in 1987 was to have promoted a new era of cross-border cooperation. The Haitian dictator, Jean-Claude Duvalier (“Baby Doc”) had fled Haiti and the country was developing a new constitution to put Haiti firmly on the path of democracy. Unfortunately, that path to democracy was far trickier than anyone had anticipated. Haiti was not able to hold fair elections until 1991. These elections brought Aristide to power and he was overthrown after only seven months in office leading to a OAS-imposed embargo against the military junta that ran the government. Aristide was restored to office in 1994, but the Haitian government seemed to face a continual string of crisis that prevented it from focusing on broader policy issues. (A report by the IMF cites this lack of progress on policy reform as the fundamental reason that Haiti is so much poorer than the Dominican Republic.)

On the Dominican side, President Balaguer came back to power in 1986 where he remained until he finally stepped aside in 1996. After the OAS had imposed its embargo against Haiti in 1991, the Haitian-Dominican border became the weak link in the cordon around Haiti when it openly allowed for goods to be sold across the border. When the embargo was lifted in 1994, the Dominican government allowed the trade to continue. Neither country ever developed any new policies or regulations to control the flow across the border.  As a result, a series of Dominican laws and regulations ban most exports from Haiti:

• Law 4030-55 stipulates that animals can only be imported in the Dominican Republic through Santo Domingo.
• Law 4990-58 stipulates that fruits or vegetables can only be imported if accompanied by a fitosanitary certificate from the country of origin (not available on the Haitian side of the border) accompanied by a certified non-objection from the Dominican Ministry of Agriculture (not available on the Dominican side of the border).
• Law 458-73 prohibits the importation of used clothing.
• Decree 505-99 stipulates that rice can only be imported by licensed importers with a specific permit and based on national need. No permit has ever been issued for the importation of rice across the Haitian border.

During the late 1990’s during the first terms of Presidents Fernandez and Preval, the two governments relaunched the Bilateral Mixed Commission. Through a series of meetings held between 1996 and 2000, they developed various memorandums of understanding on migration, repatriation, and tourism, but none related to trade. These efforts ended with the collapse of the Aristide government in 2004. There has been talk of relaunching the commission, but it has yet to happen.

Despite the lack of progress on policy or regulations, there have been significant changes in how the border functions.

On the Haitian side, two events coalesced to focus the government’s attention on the border. The first was the creation of the bicameral parliamentary commission for the development of the border. PADF is proud to have played a key role in bringing together the parliamentarians and helping them to understand the importance of the border region. At the same time, there was a strike by the Haitian and Dominican transporters against the higher customs tariff’s being charged at the Malpasse border crossing. In early 2006, the entire staff of the customs office in Malpasse was replaced. In the first month, the new management was able to double the customs receipts. The second month, he doubled them again. The transporters complained that these tariffs were unfair and went on strike. Initially the strike was pacific, but by August, they began burning tires and throwing rocks at any passing vehicles and thereby closed the main road between Santo Domingo and Port-au-Prince. The Parliamentarians investigated the problems and reported back to President Preval that the new director was doing his job properly. Finally, in September, the MINUSTAH sent their forces to reopen the road. The Haitian government went on to replace all of the customs directors along the border and at the sea ports. As a result, the Haitian government has succeeded in dramatically increasing all of its customs revenues. The interest of the parliamentarians in the border region coupled with the increased customs revenues gave the Haitian government the incentive to begin investing in its borderlands.

On the Dominican side, the biggest change came from the creation of a new military force for the border. Based on his interest in professionalizing the control of the border and the recommendations made by the US Southern Command, President Fernandez created the Cuerpo Especializado Fronterizo (the Specialized Corps for the Border or CESFRONT) in August 2006 with the mandate of enforcing the government’s policy towards the border. When they took control of the border on September 27, 2007, they attempted to do just that. They prevented any foreigner without a proper passport and visa from crossing the border and closed the border markets. Naturally, this caused quite an uproar on both sides of the border, especially in Dajabón. Eventually, the CESFRONT sat down with the mayor of Dajabón and members of the local civil society to negotiate new rules to manage the market. These included the restriction that Haitians vendors could not arrive the night before the market as had been the practice and that the market had to be closed before the border closed.

This conflict highlights the main problem that faces the border today. Cross-border trade has become very important for both countries, yet it operates in a policy vacuum. Without clear rules, the local authorities and the military are forced to make them up as they go along–a situation ripe for corruption and abuse. Both countries have an economic and security interest in properly managing their border. In an upcoming post, we’ll look at what the two countries need to do to improve the management of their 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

Haitian Woman in Ouanaminthe

One of the fascinating aspects of our activities along the border is the chance to work in both Haiti and the Dominican Republic. This island of Hispaniola (or Quesqueya as the Haitians prefer) is less than half the size of Florida and yet is divided between two very different worlds. Although neither country is well-off by US or European standards, the Dominican Republic is doing dramatically better than its neighbor. Whereas the Dominican Republic’s economy is based on exports and tourism, most Haitians work in subsistence agriculture. Over much of the last forty years, the Dominican Republic has had one of the fastest growing economies in the hemisphere while Haiti has had one of the slowest. In real estate, brokers say that the value of a property is based on three factors: location, location, and location. Yet somehow, Haiti’s location has not helped its value.

The International Monetary Fund took on this challenging question  in a working paper entitled,  Growth in the Dominican Republic and Haiti: Why has the Grass Been Greener on One Side of Hispaniola?. This working paper, prepared by Laura Jaramillo and Cemile Sancak and distributed in March 2007 tries to answer the question using the IMF’s standard toolkit. As befits IMF economist, they quickly discounted the factors that Jared Diamond had raised in his excellent book, Collapse, to explain the difference such as the relative amounts of rainfall and population density. They also largely discount the impacts of each country’s different history stating that prior to the US occupation of the island in the early 20th century; both countries had equally weak institutions. They admit that by 1960, there was already a divergence in income between the two countries, but a far smaller one than exists today.

The paper then focuses on the specific economic variables for both countries to try and determine their impact on growth for each country between 1960 and 2005. They focused on two factors: institutional and macroeconomic stability. It is noteworthy that institutional stability is far more important than institutional legitimacy—the relative institutional stability of the coup years in Haiti (1993-1996) counted for more than the relatively chaotic years surrounding the return of President Aristide and the first election of President Preval. On the Dominican side, the authors consider the Dominican institutions to have slowly strengthened throughout the period. For macroeconomic stability, the authors found that both Haiti and the Dominican Republic were quite similar did better than the rest of Latin America in both the 1970s and 1980s. The marked difference came in the 1990s when the Dominican Republic and the rest of Latin America tamed their economies and Haiti did not.

The authors then looked at a variety of other factors that could contribute to economic growth: secondary school enrollment, availability of credit, monetary policy, and trade openness. In all of these areas, the Dominican Republic made great progress and Haiti did little. Again the differences were most noted during the 1990s.

The authors conclude:

The panel regression and case study approach allow us to conclude that policy decisions since 1960 have played a central role in the growth divergence between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. In general, structural policies have been the key determinant of growth in both the Dominican Republic and Haiti, followed by political stability and stabilization policies. In particular, we find that the Dominican Republic has consistently outperformed Haiti and LAC in terms of implementation of structural measures, stabilization policies, as well as political stability. Meanwhile, Haiti has lagged the region in implementing structural policies, while being subject to numerous political shocks that have severely affected its growth performance. (p23)

I found this paper to be fascinating in that the authors look at the situation in the two countries from a very distinct perspective. I disagree with their conclusion that structural policies were more important than political stability—unstable institutions or those with questionable legitimacy have great difficulty in implementing structural policies. I would argue that Haiti’s instability have blocked its institutions from implementing structural reforms.

In an upcoming entry, I will look at the history of the two countries and how that has led to the distinctive cultural and economic differences.

Ryan Alexander

Now that my 3 month summer internship has come to an end, I look back at my experiences on the border in amazement, and cherish all that I have accomplished and experienced. The cross-border lifestyle and the southern coastal hospitality are a perfect blend of characteristics that are sure to generate experiences never to be forgotten.

An event that makes me smile to this very day is an incident that occurred late one night. The culprit was a cow: Cows roam the streets of Pedernales every night (to avoid people and the hot sun) in search of food. On one particular night I had left the fence door open; a huge mistake. A cow had entered the premises of my home that evening and took huge chomps out of my 2 foot high, newly planted banana trees, trees that I had been caring for since the very beginning of my internship. Surely enough, due to constant watering, good soil, and the resilient nature of banana trees, the trees grew back their leaves and will live to bear bananas (if the fence door remains shut).Since the banana plants were too small to bear fruit, I would do my shopping for bananas and other fruits and vegetables at the ‘bi-national’ market.

The ‘bi-national market’ operates every Monday and Friday mornings. It is a market that was strategically set up so that Haitians from Anse a Pitre and Dominicans from Pedernales could sell their goods biweekly and collaborate amongst one another. There, I would buy many pounds of fruits and vegetables, and spend the morning walking around the section of the market where used clothing was sold. The clothing industry is an important and one of the more lucrative industries in Pedernales and Anse a Pitre. Clothing of all sizes, colors and styles from the USA are found at the market. It was entertaining to search for t-shirts that displayed names of universities, high schools, concerts and other American events that I recognized or had attended; every now and then I would find clothing that displayed familiar writing.

It is events and occurrences like those mentioned above, no matter how small and simple they may be, that made me appreciate the simplicity of life in Pedernales. However, experiences, like the clothing at the bi-

At the local Hospital in Anse a Pitres (Haiti)

national market, come in all shapes and sizes:

I was invited to spend the day at the medical clinic in Anse a Pitre, a government owned clinic run by two Haitian doctors. I crossed the border into Anse a Pitre to find a group of about 15 people carrying a bed with a woman on it. She was being carried from her home to the clinic and had just given birth to a child; the umbilical chord was still attached to the placenta. Regardless of the gathering of people outside the medical center, I entered the clinic. I was asked by the doctor who had invited me if I wanted to observe the delivery of a baby: to everyone’s surprise the lady was giving birth to twins, and one had yet to come out. Without hesitation I agreed to observe: it was a sight I will never forget.

The conditions of the clinic were humbling and the tools and technology basic. So basic that it was my job to head into town to replace a burnt light bulb of a desk lamp so that the twins could stay warm.

From waking up to find my banana trees eaten by a cow, to witnessing the birth of twins, I feel I have lived my three months on the border to the fullest. Working with PADF and living on the border for three months have been one of the most rewarding summers of my life. I will return home with a positive outlook on life and development work and will forever remember my work, the social endeavors, and the humbling experiences on the border.

Spring watering in Haiti

Ryan Alexander – Volunteer, Pedernales.

As a volunteer with PADF on the border I have had the good fortune of being able to travel within the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The following story recaps a trip that I took into Port au Prince that most certainty impacted my life positively.

On Sunday July 5th, I spent the afternoon at a natural spring/watering hole 20 minutes outside of Port au Prince, Haiti. As we entered the premises, everyone looked at us mostly because this was a Haitian hangout spot, and we weren’t Haitian. We were approached by many but understood no one, nor could they understand us. All of the Haitians soaking up the sun and swimming in the natural spring spoke Creole and not French. This created a language barrier between us and them, and at the same time may have triggered some feelings of discomfort due to their uncertainty for the reason of our presence.

Their skepticism of our presence slowly turned into acceptance and tranquility as they observed that we were only there to enjoy ourselves. But the language barrier still stood tall and strong.

I noticed a group of young men standing in a circle juggling a soccer ball. Since I’m a lover of all sports, without hesitation I approached the young men with a smile and a mesmerizing gaze at the soccer ball…surely enough the circle opened up to me. Unable to engage the local crowd in any other way, I had done it through the international language of sport.
Now that I was part of ‘the circle’, they trusted me, the ball was passed to me, and channels of communication opened: One of the boys attempted to communicate with me in a mixture of Creole and English. He asked me if I knew Justin Timberlake or Eminem: My answer was “Oui, je les connais”, and as if the ‘tri-voweled French affirmation’ were a magical word, the language barrier came tumbling down. We were now communicating, laughing, and giving each other high-fives all while passing the soccer ball around. We soon figured out that my French could be understood by them, and if spoken slowly (with the help of some hand gestures) I could understand some Creole.

After 30 minutes of fantastic skill displayed by the young men and fascinating conversations with ‘the soccer guys’, ranging from talking about the Obama administration to girl friends, it was time for me to get back to the group I had arrived with and head back to Port au Prince. My parting from ‘the soccer guys’ was sad. I had created a bond, a friendship, and a team, and now I was leaving them.

But I left with great memories and thought provoking feelings…

Sports are, no doubt, a fundamental tool to team building. Through sports, any kind of barrier can be broken. I think that the young men went home that night and shared with their families how great it was to be able to kick a soccer ball around with “Messieur Blanch” (Mr. White – as they called me). I hope they shared with their families a similar story about how great the ‘cultural exchange’ was and how they were impacted by the experience – After all, It’s not often that ‘the soccer guys’ play with Messiuer Blanch. They can now say they that they played on a team, like none before.

This cultural exchange impacted me immensely: If I could break the language and culture barrier through immersing myself through sport, surely I could do so through other means. This gave me a positive outlook on development work and most specifically the cross border work .This is one of the many great experiences I have had on the Island of Hispaniola… experiences I will never forget.