Dozens of people ask the international community “to solve the problems of Haiti, in Haiti”
Wilson Gómez, president of the Duartian Institute, was in charge of the main speech. ( FRANCISCO ARIAS )
A crowd marched this Saturday from Columbus Park to the Altar of the Homeland in response to the call made by the Instituto Duartiano to demand that the international community act in response to the socio-political crisis and violence in Haiti.
Shouting in unison the slogan “Dominicans are brave” and holding signs reading “UN, solve your mess in Haiti” or “Dominican nationality is not given away,” the participants in the “DR Patriotic March” waved the tricolor flag during the march along El Conde Street, in the Colonial Zone.
According to Wilson Gómez Ramírez, president of the Instituto Duartiano, “this patriotic meeting today should be considered as the start of a great movement in defense of the Dominican Republic, of active, orderly, legitimate and legal resistance.”
“Haiti has painfully become a failed state, collapsed, disintegrated, and above all, most sadly and unfairly, evicted and abandoned by the international community, especially by international organizations: United Nations (UN), Organization of American States (OAS), as well as the United States, France, and Canada,” said Wilson in his keynote speech.
Gómez Ramírez appealed that the rescue and reconstruction of Haiti must be done “in Haiti” and recalled that, after the devastating earthquake of 2010, “the Dominican people demonstrated to have a noble, dignified, generous and compassionate heart.”
Some of the demands of the Instituto Duartiano include the speedy construction of the border wall initiated during the current administration; the rigorous application of the Labor Code, which establishes a minimum of 80% of Dominican labor in the economic activities of the country, as well as the compliance of the migratory regulations, the sustained repatriation of all foreigners in illegal or irregular migratory situations.
The demonstrators also requested the revision of the Civil Registry and the Foreigners’ Book and called on the people to defend sovereignty.
Among the figures who participated in the mobilization were Senator Antonio Marte and former Minister of the Armed Forces José Miguel Soto Jiménez.