The Caribbean Island of Hispaniola, shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic, has been divided for centuries, sometimes bitterly, by language, race, history and culture. As Haiti descends further into chaos and collapse, the divides are becoming concrete—literally. The Dominican Republic is speeding up work on a wall along the 250-mile border cutting across the interior of the island.
Dominican President Luis Abinader is aiming to block human smugglers or criminals from crossing the border.
He has long warned the United Nations and other international forums about what would happen if Haiti collapsed. In the past few weeks, the Haitian government has spiraled into anarchy, its prime minister has been unable to return from a trip abroad and large tracts of Port-au-Prince are under the control of warlords and gang leaders such as Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, who is pushing to uproot the entire political system.
“We were the first to warn that Haiti was turning into another Somalia,” Abinader said in an interview at the ornate presidential palace in the Dominican capital, Santo Domingo.
Abinader signed off on construction plans for the wall three years ago, modeling it on the fortifications Israel built in the Golan Heights to separate it from Syria. It is one of the latest efforts to build walls or other obstacles to illegal migration around the world, including on the U.S. southern border. Poland began building frontier barriers in recent years when Russia and Belarus flew in migrants from Syria and Afghanistan and set them loose to make their own way into Europe.
As in the U.S. and much of Europe, control of the border has become a driving force in the Dominican Republic’s coming election.
Read full story at The Wall Street Journal.
