NewsWhore
10-30-2009, 02:50 PM
While Listin Diario features an Army patrol destroying charcoal ovens in the hills near the border and other teams confiscating more than 1,200 bags of charcoal ready for shipment to Haiti, Hoy newspaper writes that there is little hope of bringing charcoal smuggling under any control as long as there is such strong demand for the product in Haiti.
On the one hand, the president of the Frontier Council spoke frankly about the authorities' complicity in charcoal production in the region, and on the other, Environment Minister Jaime David Fernandez Mirabal expressed pessimism, saying it was difficult to end this contraband in the face of what he called "an intense demand from Haiti". Nonetheless, the Minister tried to provide some consolation saying that forest rangers and reforestation initiatives were under way in the area.
Radhames Batista, the head of the National Frontier Council said that there was complicity between Dominican authorities and the Haitians who produce the charcoal in Dominican forests. He said that there was a military element in the complicity and this was matched with the reduced number of forest rangers in the area. He said that if there was not direct complicity through action, there was complicity by omission, since "a bag of charcoal cannot be placed in a wallet".
He complained that gangs of Haitians, with complicity of Dominicans, have stripped bare entire areas around Jimani and the Sierra of Bahoruco. He said that 86% of all charcoal used in Haiti comes from the Dominican Republic.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#5)
On the one hand, the president of the Frontier Council spoke frankly about the authorities' complicity in charcoal production in the region, and on the other, Environment Minister Jaime David Fernandez Mirabal expressed pessimism, saying it was difficult to end this contraband in the face of what he called "an intense demand from Haiti". Nonetheless, the Minister tried to provide some consolation saying that forest rangers and reforestation initiatives were under way in the area.
Radhames Batista, the head of the National Frontier Council said that there was complicity between Dominican authorities and the Haitians who produce the charcoal in Dominican forests. He said that there was a military element in the complicity and this was matched with the reduced number of forest rangers in the area. He said that if there was not direct complicity through action, there was complicity by omission, since "a bag of charcoal cannot be placed in a wallet".
He complained that gangs of Haitians, with complicity of Dominicans, have stripped bare entire areas around Jimani and the Sierra of Bahoruco. He said that 86% of all charcoal used in Haiti comes from the Dominican Republic.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#5)