2013 Dominican Republic–Haiti diplomatic crisis

The diplomatic crisis between the Dominican Republic and Haiti is a series of incidents that have weakened the diplomatic relations between both countries. In the beginning of June, the Haitian government imposed a ban on the importation of chickens and eggs from the Dominican Republic based on information that indicated that there was a bird flu breakout, which came about one month after the veto on the importation of Dominican plastic. Tensions reached an international scale when the Dominican Republic Constitutional Court passed a judgment that states that children born after 1929 to foreigners, including those born on Dominican territory, have never had Dominican citizenship. This action has directly affected 458,233 Haitian workers living in the Dominican Republic and it can leave more than 200,000 people stateless. On October 1, Haiti withdrew their designated ambassador from the Dominican Republic. The Dominican government’s decision has been harshly criticized by NGO human rights offices, by 15 countries in the Caribbean Community (Caricom) and by the United Nations.

Timeline of events

History

On June 6, 2013, Haiti prohibited the importation of chickens and eggs from the Dominican Republic based on information that indicated that there was a bird and swine flu outbreak in the country. On June 10, the Pan American Health Organization stated that there was neither bird nor swine flu in the Dominican Republic. The Dominican poultry farmer associations calculated 2 million dollars in losses due to the ban declared by Haiti. On June 12, the president of the Dominican Republic, Danilo Medina, sent a committee led by the secretary of Industry and Commerce, José Del Castillo Saviñón, to Port-au-Prince, to resolve the ban imposed upon the country for the importation of chickens and eggs. Two days later, Haiti’s minister of Health, Florence Guillaume, stated that “talking about bird flu in the Dominican Republic was a bad interpretation.” On July 29, the Haitian government prohibited the importation of plastics from the Dominican Republic, arguing that they were not of good quality and that the country was seeking to reduce pollution caused by plastic.

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