What is Behind "the Canal Conflict" Between the Dominican Republic and Haiti?
SEPTEMBER 21, 2023
BY DANNY SHAW
Last week, headlines across the Dominican Republic accused Haiti of “illegally building a canal” that will divert waters from The Massacre River.[1] Dominican president Luis Abinader and his administration took swift actions, supposedly in retaliation for the ongoing construction, closing the border and denying all visas to Haitians. On Friday, the largest transportation union in Santo Domingo announced no Haitian is allowed to travel on buses, taxis or any public transportation. The statement, translated in its entirety below, reads like something straight out of the Bull Connor playbook, warning that “Haitians are a security risk…and in most cases carry knives & work tools.” Due to concerns about international pushback, the Dominican government was forced to walk back their position and a separate employee on each bus is now checking every Haitians’, or anyone perceived as Haitian, legal documents.
This is the first time the Dominican government closed the border since November 2021 when Port-au-Prince was engulfed in gang warfare and paramilitary gang violence against civilian communities. There are three border crossings, all of which are multiple hours away from the violent hellscape that is Port-au-Prince. The proxy gang war has intensified, and 2.5 million Haitians are trapped in the capital city as warring, marauding paramilitary factions burn down stable, working-class communities, raping, pillaging and massacring neighborhoods with rich traditions of resistance. The images are too ghastly to show, but a generation comes of age seeing horrific violence to a point where they have been desensitized and demoralizing. The revolutionary movement MOLEGHAF teaches its young militants: “Comrades you will not share Black Death Pornography on WhatsApp. We build our people’s self-esteem, not destroy it.”[2]
This manufactured “canal crisis” has nothing to do with a river and everything to do with opportunistic politicians, nationalism and the pending U.S.-sponsored foreign invasion and occupation of Haiti. Luis Abinader has traveled to the United Nations this week to further advocate for a Core Group invasion of Haiti. Closing the border and deporting thousands of Haitians adds more gasoline to the already existing conflagration and takes away an important economic escape valve and source of remittances. With the effective indoctrination campaign emanating from the mainstream Dominican and U.S. media, it is important to provide a counter-hegemonic narrative that contextualizes this fabricated showdown that pits two oppressed people against one another.
A Battle over Narratives
The dominant narrative the Dominican media is spinning is that the Haitian government and rich Haitian businessmen are diverting the water of El Rio Masacre to develop their own agricultural project. On the Haitian side of the border, masses of dispossessed farmers and everyday people have mobilized in hopes of distributing the water through a tributary that will irrigate their farms. From the Haitian popular perspective, this is a kombit, or collective work, to build something beneficial for the most marginalized.[3] Masses of people have come from around the northeast of Haiti to support the engineers and technological experts who are finishing the construction. For a nation bracing to endure the fourth U.S.-led, foreign invasion and occupation, the tributary has emerged as something to believe in.
More:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/09/21/what-is-behind-the-canal-conflict-between-the-dominican-republic-and-haiti/