SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (Reuters):
THE DOMINICAN Republic has demanded an apology from Haiti over violent protests that disrupted a visit to the neighbouring country earlier this week by Dominican President Leonel Fernandez.
Stone-throwing Haitians branded Fernandez a racist and criminal in a demonstration outside the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince on Monday, as they denounced what human rights groups describe as rampant abuses committed against Haitians living in the Dominican Republic.
Witnesses said several protesters were injured in clashes with riot police, including two by bullets. The Dominican president's bodyguards fired warning shots during the melee while his vehicle left the National Palace.
Fernandez himself acknowledged that Haitian immigrants have been victims of abuse on the part of people he called "extremists." He promised his government would do all it can to end the abuses.
But the Dominican Republic, which shares the Caribbean island of Hispaniola and a long history of mutual distrust with Haiti, demanded an apology nonetheless.
"The foreign ministry, in the name of the Dominican government, is expecting a formal apology from Haitian authorities for the acts of violence and vandalism in the neighbouring country directed against President Leonel Fernandez and the Dominican people," the ministry said in a statement late on Tuesday.
Human rights groups say Haitians who cross the border to the Dominican Republic -- many illegally as they look for jobs and refuge from their homeland's dire poverty -- have been attacked and killed by Dominican mobs. They allege that Dominican authorities condone the behaviour.
Adding to tensions between the two countries, officials from the United Nations and Organisation of American States said last month that about 30,000 Haitian children are smuggled into the Dominican Republic every year to work as child prostitutes or be forced into other degrading occupations.
The Dominican government in October rejected a ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordering it to provide Haitians born in the Dominican Republic with Dominican birth certificates.
