The Institute of the Americas in Paris and the Center for Research and Documentation of the Americas as part of the Latin America and Caribbean Weeks organized a round table entitled "Cooperation between the Dominican Republic and the Republic of Haiti in the Caribbean regional dynamics and relations with Europe" invited for Haiti : sociologist Smith Augustin and former Haitian ambassador to the Dominican Republic (record of his duties https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-36085-haiti-news-zapping.html ) and Pierre Karly Jean Young Technical Secretary of the Haitian part of the Haitian Dominican Mixed Commission. For the Dominican Republic : Julio Orthega Tous ex-Ambassador and Executive Secretary of the National Commission for Trade Negotiations (CNNC) and Director of the Dominican-Haitian Joint Bilateral Commission and Yvan Ogando Ambassador of the DR to the European Union.

This round table was co-hosted and moderated by Carlos Quenan member of the Board of the Institute of the Americas and Stéphane Faucher President of Funglode France

During the presentation of the cooperation between the two Nations of the island, the former Ambassador Smith Augustin highlighted the weakness of the Haitian-Dominican diplomatic rich in bilateral agreements (70 documents divided into 22 treaties (2 unsigned), 18 joint declarations, 18 cooperation agreements, 2 additional protocols and 12 Memorandums of Understanding).

However, he pointed out that apart from the delimitation of the land border (1929-1936), the two countries have not found any lasting bilateral solution to the issues : migration, trafficking and smuggling of persons, bilateral trade and border, delimitation of the maritime border, the fight against corruption linked to smuggling, the management of shared water resources, among others.

For Augustine, the two States, distrusting each other, each seek on their own more to find unilateral answers to bilateral problems. In addition, political instability and weak institutions in Haiti often serve to justify Dominican unilateralism.

He agrees with the proposal of Jean Price-Mars and Leslie Manigat to provide the Santo Domingo mission with some of the brightest, most patriotic and most experienced Haitian diplomats, however, he emphasizes that this will not be sufficient "as long as the Haitian State does not clearly define a foreign policy with the means of applying it vis-à-vis the neighboring Republic."

He believes that to achieve this, it will first require a real dialogue between the elites and the Haitian people, in order to rebuild for the people and not against them, a strong State which is finally master of its destiny, protected from the wills of impose ready-made imported solutions.

PI/ HaitiLibre