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Read read then all and submit your own comments Tuesday Jan 09, 2007read this... ... Dominican independence was restored in 1865. Haitian leaders had concluded, first, that Haiti and the Dominican Republic constituted two different nations, and second, that an independent Dominican Republic was preferable to having a European power in Hispaniola. Now that peaceful coexistence seemed feasible, one problem remained, however: the demarcation of a fixed border between the two countries. ... The American military occupation of Haiti (1915-1934) and the Dominican Republic (1916-1924) precluded for a time new diplomatic initiatives. However, US military strategists realized that an undefined border was a potential war issue that could contribute to political instability in the strategic Caribbean region. As a result, on 21 January 1929, a border settlement was signed between the governments of Horacio V squez and Louis Borno (Price-Mars 1953, 3:209-213). In 1935 and 1936, Presidents Rafael L. Trujillo and Stenio Vincent signed additional clauses and amendments to the 1929 treaty, finally establishing a permanent and clearly delimited border, the same that still stands today. At that point, Haitian-Dominican relations enjoyed their best moment ever. Trujillo even visited Port-au-Prince and was warmly received by the people. The Dominican press showered president Vincent and the Haitian nation with praise. It seemed as if the struggles of the 19th century were a thing of the past; gone and forgotten. Trujillo, however, felt differently. With the definition of a clear border between the two nations, Trujillo sought to increase his control over the Dominican Republic. The border did not represent for him the limit to his authority, but rather the beginning of his domain. As a result, Trujillo made of the issue of a fixed border one of his top foreign policy priorities. The aftermath of the border treaty, however, infuriated Trujillo. He had mistakenly thought that a fixed border would have meant a sealed border. That was not the case. The border treaty was a diplomatic agreement; for the peoples living on both sides of the newly-established border, little had changed. For decades after the end of the Haitian-Dominican wars, the border region had been a place where the authority of the state had been very weak. This led to the development of a mixed population of arrayanos, Haitian-Dominicans who spoke Spanish and Creole, engaged in trade and contraband across the border, and did not owe allegiance to any state in particular (Baud 1993a, 1993b). An inspection trip along the border directed by Trujillo himself confirmed the weakness of the Dominican state in the sparsely-populated border region (Cornielle 1980). Trujillo's response was swift and brutal. In October, 1937, he ordered the military to kill all Haitians in the Dominican Republic. Thousands of Haitians were killed in a few days using machetes and clubs, so as to give the impression that it was the uncoordinated action of Dominican farmers who had decided to settle old scores. Estimates on the number of dead have ranged from several hundred to 26,000, and Haitians were killed as far away as Santiago and Saman (Vega 1988, 386-387). Only those working in American-owned sugar plantations were spared. The reasons behind Trujillo's decision to carry out the 1937 massacre were never clear (Vega 1988, chap. 10). read more here:
http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/miscto...
Sunday Jun 04, 2006I would like to know more about the illegal 1929 border treaty that Haiti sighed with the Dominican Republic. How much do you know about it? Please tell me more
Friday Jan 27, 2006These are not the only treaties Haiti signed, you are forgeting the illegal 1929 border treaty with the DR and some more.
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