26088: (news) Chamberlain: Dominican Rep. promises probe of Haitians' deaths (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Manuel Jimenez

     SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic, Aug 25 (Reuters) - The Dominican
Republic government on Thursday condemned the murders of three Haitian
immigrants set on fire and promised a full investigation after long-held
mistrust between the Caribbean island neighbors erupted again in violence.
     The three young Haitians died on Tuesday after a week in intensive
care in a Santo Domingo hospital. According to 20-year-old Haitian Bernius
Pierre, who said he escaped the torching, one of the attackers wore a
police uniform and had a handgun.
     "We reject and deplore this situation," said Rafael Nunez, a spokesman
for President Leonel Fernandez, whose country shares the island of
Hispaniola with Haiti.
     Activists defending the rights of up to 1 million Haitian illegal
immigrants in the Dominican Republic say at least six have been murdered
since May when four Haitians were accused of killing shopkeeper Maritza
Nunez in the border town of Hatillo Palma, 166 miles (270 km) northwest of
Santo Domingo.
     Hundreds of Haitians, some believed to have proper immigration
documents, were rounded up by troops after the Nunez murder and deported
under the orders of Fernandez until international protests persuaded the
authorities to halt the expulsions.
     The deportations were a reminder of the tensions between impoverished
and turbulent Haiti and the more developed Dominican Republic.
     Their relationship was deeply scarred by the 1937 massacre of up to
30,000 Haitian migrants in a campaign ordered by Dominican dictator Rafael
Trujillo.
     A Mass was celebrated on Thursday at a church in south Santo Domingo
near the area where the three Haitians were set on fire last week.
     Pierre, speaking to a local newspaper through a translator, former
Haitian Consul Edwin Paraison, said the attackers demanded money. They then
tied them up, beat them, poured gasoline over them and set their victims on
fire.
     "I was saved by a miracle because they also had me tied up. But I
managed to get free while they were trying to tie up another of the boys,"
he told El Nacional daily.
     The interim government of Haiti, struggling to recover from an armed
revolt last year that toppled former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, has
demanded a full investigation.