Dominican Government Ends Deportations

February 28, 1997 -- Bowing to the threat of retaliation from Haiti and protests from domestic and international human rights organizations (including NCHR), the Dominican government announced late Monday, February 24, that it had decided to provisionally suspend the massive deportation of Haitian residents. The repatriation policy resulted in the deportation of 17,000 to 20,000 Haitian residents in an eight-week period.

After it became clear that a border meeting on February 3 between the Foreign Ministers of the two states had led to no change in the Dominican deportation program, fifteen Haitian legislators proposed that Haiti retaliate against the Dominican government by closing the border, freezing all trade and commercial activity, deporting all Dominicans residing illegally in the country, condemning the Dominican Republic internationally and seeking assistance from the United Nations and the Organization of American States. Shortly thereafter, the Haitian Foreign Minister, Fritz Longchamps, publicly condemned the Dominican government at the beginning of a three-day meeting of CARICOM (the Caribbean common market) in Antigua, branding the deportation policy as "racist." As Longchamps's remarks further stirred press and public outrage in Santo Domingo and Port-au-Prince, Haitian president René Préval and Dominican president Leonel Fernández met during the CARICOM conference and Fernández apparently agreed to suspend the repatriations.

The crisis still had a few days to run, though. Préval announced the agreement upon his return to Haiti on Saturday, February 22, but Fernández said nothing about the agreement for three days, dodging all queries from reporters who had picked up Préval's statement. Finally, the contradictory reports about whether an agreement had been reached or not were put to rest by Foreign Minister Latorre's hastily-called press conference on Monday evening. Latorre said that the repatriations were suspended because the "massive flow" of illegal immigrants from Haiti had ended, but would be resumed if the government determined that the flow of Haitians across the border were to increase again.

Confusion reigned throughout the week as roundups and deportations of Haitian residents seemed to dramatically slow down, although deportations were reported on a smaller scale.