Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

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mile Dominican-Haitian border. The new Dominican interagency
border patrol unit, which was formed in January 2000,
will also act against illegal Haitian immigration and shipments
of contraband weapons. In December 1999, the Dominican
and Haitian police agreed to cooperate to fight drug trafficking,
car theft, money laundering, and illegal immigration along
their common border. To these ends, the Dominican Republic
is setting up computerized police posts along the frontier. The
chief of the United States Coast Guard visited the Dominican
Republic in late March 2000 to coordinate implementation of
the anti-drug efforts with the Dominican navy and the Secretariat
of State for the Armed Forces. To date the various efforts
are reportedly proving ineffective against corruption and the
increased assault by traffickers on the vulnerable borders and
institutions of Hispaniola. With regard to immigration control,
in March 1999, the Dominican president and the governor of
Puerto Rico met to strengthen measures against illegal Dominican
immigration to Puerto Rico and thence to the United
States mainland (Dominicans are the largest immigrant group
in New York City)
Political instability and corruption have plagued both Haiti
and the Dominican Republic. The problem has been particularly
severe in Haiti since the end of the Duvalier regime. Following
Jean-Claude Duvalier's ouster in 1986, a group of
generals, for years Duvalier loyalists, played a major role in the
interim government. During elections in November 1987,
Duvalierist supporters killed numerous Haitians waiting to
vote, causing all the candidates to condemn the interim government.
Several fraudulent elections or seizures of power by
military figures followed, prior to the election of a Roman
Catholic priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in December 1990.
Identified with the poor, Aristide represented a threat to the
country's establishment and was overthrown by a military coup
after being in office less than a year. Following a United
Nations-sanctioned, multilateral military intervention, Aristide
was restored to office in October 1994. When Aristide's term
expired in 1996, he was succeeded by Rene Preval. A bitter
power struggle between Preval and the parliament, however,
paralyzed Haiti's government and resulted in total governmental
gridlock in 1997 and 1998. In consequence, Haiti again
began to experience popular unrest, opposition-incited incidents,
and a stagnating economy. In December 1998, Preval's
candidate for prime minister, Jacques Edouard Alexis, was conxxiv