6837: news items on DR/HT relations 16-25 Jan 2001 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Yacine Khelladi <yacine@yacine.net>

> ********************************************************************
> DR1 Daily News -- Thursday, 25 January 2001
> 2. The business of begging
> The Department of Migration announced it would be picking up women and
> children beggars at city corners. But Hoy newspaper reported that
> there were none to be found on the "job" yesterday. The Minister of
> Foreign Relations had denounced that all appeared that the beggars
> were being dropped off at city corners to work by an organized human
> contraband network. Usually the work is carried out by women with
> small children who beg from cars stopped at traffic light
> intersections of main city avenues.
> The Director of the Department, Cuevas Moreta said that the Haitian
> children are exploited on the job by others. Many are not children of
> the woman who heads the group at a corner. Usually, the parents of the
> children receive pay for their children's efforts. The Department says
> there are different modalities of the beggar's racket that exploits
> human misery. He said in one of the versions, they have ascertained
> that the Haitian women rent the children to go begging.
> 
> 
> 9. President Mejia to attend Aristide inaugural
> Dominican Ambassador to Haiti, Alberto Despradel confirmed President
> Mejia would attend the 7 February inaugural of President-elect Jean
> Bertrand Aristide. Opposition forces in Haiti and international
> sectors question the legitimacy of that election. President Mejia
> recently attended the inaugurals of the Governor of Puerto Rico and
> the President of Mexico.

> DR1 Daily News -- Wednesday, 24 January 2001
> ********************************************************************
> DR1 Daily News - http://dr1.com

> 4. Case of Haitian beggars reddressed
> Minister of Foreign Relations Hugo Tolentino Dipp urged the assistance
> of Dominican authorities to regularize the situation of the many
> children and Haitian women that beg at corners of leading Dominican
> avenue intersections. The press has expressed concern for the safety
> of the Haitian children and mothers with children in arms that many
> times aggressively throw themselves on vehicles seeking a few pesos.
> The Minister says he has received reports that the Haitians are
> positioned at the corners and later picked up by organized groups and
> requested a definite solution to the problem by the corresponding
> Dominican authorities.
> The Minister spoke during the signing of a document with the Red de
> Encuentro Dominico-Haitiano Jacques Viau (Redh) agreeing to analyze
> and discuss proposals for a new migration bill between both countries.
> Olaya Dotel, secretary of the organization, denounced the Dominican
> military posted at the frontier accepts deals with human contraband
> groups. She rejected though that her organization help Dominican
> authorities in the case of the increasing number of illegal Haitians
> that are arriving to beg at street corners in the city of Santo
> Domingo.
> During the signing of the agreement at the Ministry of Foreign
> Relations, Dominican authorities confirmed the government would comply
> with the Interamerican Human Rights Court regarding seven Haitian or
> Dominican-Haitians whose whereabouts are unknown.
> Also proposed was the carrying out of a survey to objectively quantify
> the number of foreigners in the DR.
> 
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> DR1 Daily News -- Friday, 19 January 2001
> ********************************************************************
> 
 9. Focus on the misery of sugar cane cutter communities
> The bateyes, or sugar cane cutter communities located adjacent to
> sugar mills, have traditionally been the poorest in the DR. After
> privatization, things have only gotten worse. Many sugar mills have
> been abandoned by foreign investors and the already depressed
> communities, made up in large part by immigrant Haitian families, have
> been left to become what the newspaper describes as places where
> people are buried alive.
> El Caribe newspaper reports that several groups that work in the sugar
> mills met with the State Sugar Council to study alternatives to start
> to improve conditions. The Comisión de Apoyo al Desarrollo Barrial and
> the Plan Presidencial de Lucha contra la Pobreza have been involved.
> Talks focused on the possibility of planting short cycle crops,
> granting of land to farmers and the judicial status of the workers.
> The newspaper reports that President Mejia has plans to visit a
> sampling of these communities to ascertain for himself the condition
> of the residents and enact programs to improve their livelihood.
> 

> DR1 Daily News -- Thursday, 18 January 2001
> ********************************************************************
> 
> 7. Haiti and the DR advance on debt project
> Haiti businessmen and government officers were open to work together
> with the Dominican Republic on a project that seeks to foster
> development in Haiti. The DR will benefit from a reduction in
> migration and an increase in purchasing power in Haiti for Dominican
> produce. Haiti will benefit from increased investment in
> infrastructure and services, and job creation in Haiti.
> Luis Heredia Bonetti, of Russin, Vecchi & Heredia Bonetti law firm,
> head the Dominican delegation to Haiti to discuss the support of the
> Haitian community to the plan. The proposal is to lobby before the US
> government so that the latter may authorize that the Dominican
> Republic create the Hispaniola Fund. The fund would be made up by
> payments toward the Dominican foreign debt now being made to the US,
> about US$100 million a year and would allow the money to instead be
> invested in projects in Haiti and along the frontier with Haiti.
> The Minister of Commerce and Industry Gerald Germain said that the
> Haitian private sector agreed to express its support to the project to
> the new authorities starting 7 February. The total debt conversion
> program would be for US$780.9 million.
> Present at the meeting were Haitian businessmen Felipe Amaro,
> president of the Dominican Haitian Foundation, businessmen Max
> Antoine, Maurice La Fortune and Patrice Baker of the Haitian Chamber
> of Commerce. For the DR, Luis Heredia Bonetti, Miguel Núñez, of the
> Dominican embassy in Haiti, Ramon Martinez Aponte, Ellis Perez,
> Frederic Emam Zade and Hugo Ramirez. They also met with the vice
> president of the Haiti Chamber of Commerce Maurice La Fortune and
> president of the Association of Tourism of Haiti, Dominique Carvonis.

***********************************************************
DR1 Daily News -- Tuesday, 16 January 2001
********************************************************************


8. San Jose de las Matas is fearful of deforestation at the hands of
illegal Haitian immigrants 
Today?s edition of Hoy calls attention to the concern of locals over
the presence of multitudes of Haitians in regions of San Jose de las
Matas. The Haitians came to work the coffee harvest and have remained
in the wooded regions of the Cordillera Central range. The mayors of
42 towns that comprise the San Jose de las Matas region will convene a
meeting in February with governmental and private sector groups,
including officials of the Ministry of Foreign Relations and Migration
Department, to address the problem.