Wooowww!!! January 18, 2015 This open letter is a response to an article instigating the merger of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. I want to make it very clear that the purpose of this letter is to defend my country’s sovereignty and independence. Dear Mr. Rodriguez, I recently read your article ‘Haiti should merge with the Dominican Republic’ * on the Fox News webpage. Meanwhile I agree that Haiti is a country that needs guidance and help from the International community, I firmly believe that merging my nation, the Dominican Republic, with Haiti will never be a solution to the issue. It worries me that a lot of people will start supporting your beliefs just because they read it on Fox News. I saw the article on Facebook and I’m telling you Dominicans are outraged. First of all, I would like to tell you that the Dominican Republic has its own struggles. Since you claim in your article that you’ve visited several Caribbean countries, I’m lead to believe you haven’t visited the DR. Your article acknowledges the misery Haiti lives in but ignores the fact that DR looks at misery in the eye as well. We’ve been lucky over the years, many even say we’ve been blessed. But it would be deceiving to hide the hardship our nation faces. We like to say that we have it all here in the Dominican Republic, but that’s not true. We have beautiful scenery and magnificent touristic destinations, yes, but we are just scrapping by. Many Dominicans live in suicide homes because their incomes can’t afford them a proper place of residence. A simple drizzle one day sometimes means the inundation of many rural and unsafe communities. I don’t recommend being sick in this country if you don’t have insurance. Public Hospitals are packed to their maximum every single day and usually they can’t treat their patients given their lack of resources. If you want a good education the only way to get it is via private – and very expensive- institutions. We have a population of over 10 million habitants. The unemployment rate is alarming: people don’t have formal jobs, more than 50% of our population doesn’t pursue higher education (university), while others don’t even make it to the eighth grade. Those lucky enough to attend university and graduate, enter a job market that has no place for them. So professionals find the need to emigrate or resort to taking jobs they’re over qualified for and badly paid. Do you really believe our country could take the weight of another 10 million people on its shoulders? I don’t think so. Also, you mildly took into consideration the great differences that separate Dominicans from Haitians. We are not compatible, we are not East and West Germany: our cultures are complete opposites. It’s not just the language barrier, professor. If you had taken the time to study Dominican History, you would have known that our nation has had a long standing feud with the Republic of Haiti. We gained our independence from the Haitians in 1844, after 22 years of domination. So believe me, losing our sovereignty to them again would be a huge blow to our national pride. If you think we are overreacting I invite you to take a look at our Constitution -its latest modification was in 2010, so you should look for articles: 1 and 3. Read the preamble too, you’ll see we take the principle of no intervention of our sovereignty very seriously. You can find the aforementioned principle in every single Dominican Constitution from 1844 to date. Also I would like to pinpoint the fact that as an independent and sovereign nation, we’re entitled to feel outrage and dismiss your suggestion of a merger with Haiti. Now I have a question for you: Why doesn’t your almighty United States of America merge with Haiti? The US, being a first world country, is far better suited to take on such a challenge. Why do we, a poor and struggling nation, have to assume that kind of responsibility? The big powers of the world -like Canada and the USA- want to stop the illegal immigration of Haitians to their territory and we’ve always been the best route of escape. Now that we’ve decided to re-enforce our immigration policies and stop the entrance of illegal immigrants, they are doing everything they can to stop our efforts. If the US deports an alarming number of illegal immigrants and enforce their migration laws with an iron fist every single day, why shouldn’t the Dominican Republic be entitled to do the same? I’m a middle class law student living in DR, which means I’m far better off than many 19 year olds in my country. I haven’t experimented poverty, hunger nor desperation in my life. I’m not sure you have either. Maybe you have, who knows? I don’t know you. I don’t have any right to judge you. Maybe you and I both have seen extreme poverty at first hand, we’ve seen barrios struggling to survive in every corner of Santo Domingo, we’ve seen mothers and children begging for money in Dominican avenues under the unforgiving Caribbean sun, children cleaning shoes from dawn to dusk, we’ve seen neglect roaming the streets in the form of cripples and people with other disabilities. And done nothing to make a positive change. From what you let me know, you spent a couple of years visiting and studying Latin American countries. Now you probably live in your comfortable New York City brownstone, and feel entitled to tell the world that the only solution to what you call the ‘Haiti problem’ is merging said nation with the Dominican Republic. You may know a lot about business and finances. You may think you know and understand Haiti’s reality. You may think you know what it’s like to live in a Latin American country where opportunities are scarce, corruption is eating us away, and social inequality seems to be the norm because you’ve studied statistics on us. I have news for you: You don’t know what is really like to live in Latin America. Even if you lived in a Latin country for 20 years, you wouldn’t know. Not only because Americans in Latin countries live a complete different version of reality than we do. You want to know why? You don’t know what is like to feel so proud of your little country with all of its faults. You have no sense of national identity. If you did, you wouldn’t be suggesting such a thing. I wonder how Americans would feel if they were to unify their nation with Mexico and change their name to United Mexican States of America? How’s that? (The Dominican Haiti Republic, seriously?!) As Dominicans we wouldn’t let such a thing happen to us. No matter how much we struggle, how awful our government officials are, how sick we are of corruption, how our education system may suck, how hard things may get, we still love our country. I know that we complain about it every day but our affection for our dear Patria is tangible. We believe in the amazing potential that we have and there’s many people in our country working to make it what we already say it is: the best country in the world. Dominican Republic is standing strong and we won’t give up on our nation. International pressure is hard to fight back, but we will defend our right to be a free, independent, sovereign and democratic republic till the end. So Mr. Rodriguez, I ask you to look for solutions to Haiti’s hardship elsewhere. To everyone else who’s read this article, please keep in mind that there’s two sides to every story. Things are never black and white, they are usually gray. Haiti does needs our help to overcome their current situation, but Dominican Republic shouldn’t have to sacrifice its independence in order to make it happen. Countries are not companies. A merger will never be a solution and Dominicans won’t let such a thing occur. Sincerely, Rita M.
Posted on: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 18:22:58 +0000
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