PRESS CONFERENCE BY PRESIDENT OF DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Press Briefing

PRESS CONFERENCE BY PRESIDENT OF DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Within days, the Presidents of Haiti and the Dominican Republic would hold a historic meeting to address the joint problem of changing traffic patterns in the routing of illicit drugs in the region, the President of the Dominican Republic, Leonel Fernandez Reyna, told reporters this afternoon during a Headquarters briefing. He was speaking in response to questions raised about views expressed in his morning statement to the twentieth special session of the General Assembly devoted to countering the world drug problem together.

The United States had expressed concern that the territory of the Dominican Republic was being used by drug cartels as a centre for their trade, making the Dominican Republic into another Mexico or Puerto Rico in terms of drug trade, Mr. Fernandez Reyna said. The crackdown by the United States on the Mexico connection between South American suppliers and North American consumers had made the cartels look for new routes. The Dominican Republic was neither a cultivator nor producer of narcotic drugs, and its consumption level did not exceed 2 per cent of the population. However, its geographical location in the centre of the Caribbean, and the fact that it shared the supplier Hispaniola Island with Haiti, made its being targeted as a centre for drug cartels a problem concerning everyone.

Recent cooperation between the United States and the Dominican Republic, along with a joint venture entitled Operation Frontierlands between the Dominican Republic and the United States Coast Guard, had resulted in more cocaine being confiscated in five months than in the entire previous year. That proved cooperative policies yielded excellent results, and it was hoped the forthcoming meeting between the Presidents of the Dominican Republic and Haiti would yield a cooperative agreement uniting the two countries in a war against illicit international drug trafficking in the area.

Asked how this view on drug trafficking would affect his country's relations with the United States, Mr. Fernandez Reyna said the political will on the part of both his country and that of the United States to eradicate the drug trade would strengthen ties between them. He agreed with other views expressed during the morning meeting that the holding of the special session itself was recognition of the drug problem's global nature, which the entire international community had to help control. There was no longer much distinction between supply and demand, there was only a matter of control, through such measures as cooperation, training and development.

The Dominican Republic had broken out of its isolation to promote investment in the country, Mr. Fernandez Reyna said. Thirty Japanese businessmen were meeting with the Dominican Office for Development, and representatives of the Dominican Republic planned to visit Taiwan Province of

China to promote investments in the country, encouraged by measures such as duty-free zones. Those investments were being sought not just in traditional manufacture of products such as shoes, but also in high-tech industries, an avenue for investment also pursued with potential investors in California's silicon valley.

Asked what hope there was for an agreement between Haiti and the Dominican Republic amounting to a war on drugs since there had been no normal diplomatic relations between the two countries in over a year, Mr. Fernandez Reyna said the lack of normalized relations had been due primarily to internal problems in Haiti. However, a bilateral commission between the two countries had been discussing issues such as trade and tourism for quite some time, in addition to the drug traffic problem, as part of preparations for a Caribbean leaders summit to be held in Santo Domingo in August. While no Dominican President had visited Port-au-Prince since 1936, Haiti was now also very interested in strengthening its diplomatic relations with the Dominican Republic.

In response to a question about how the current economic policy of seeking new markets was affecting Dominican relations with the United States, Mr. Fernandez Reyna said both Governments were demonstrating an ability to diversify into new markets. The diversification inherent in a globalizing market did not mean giving up established markets, and the United States remained an important, major market for the Dominican Republic.

Asked whether plans between the Dominican Republic and Haiti regarding joint tourism indicated solidarity, Mr. Fernandez Reyna said the issue of promoting multi-destination tourism was a favourable alternative discussed, but with no steps yet taken towards it. In response to a further question on why the Foreign Ministry was writing a treaty for signature by the two countries with regard to tourism, he further clarified that discussion of preliminary proposals had occurred, but nothing had been discussed formally.

A reporter asked what benefit the Dominican Republic would receive from signing an extradition treaty with the United States since such an action required a change in the Dominican constitution. "It is not a matter of changing the Constitution but only of adding a law to allow such extradition", Mr. Fernandez Reyna said. Crimes such as homicide, money-laundering and illicit drug trafficking were globalizing concerns. The benefit of signing an extradition treaty was the gain in globalizing the control over such crimes. Extradition played a major role in that control.

Asked to detail the major successes achieved during his two years in office, Mr. Fernandez Reyna said the foundation had been laid for what more needed to be done quickly. It was recognized there was a clean, honest and straightforward management in the Dominican Republic, and a 7.3 per cent growth in gross national product (GNP) had been achieved rather than the expected target of 6 per cent growth, making the achievement the second

Dominican Republic Press Conference - 3 - 8 June 1998

highest GNP gain in Latin America during the last year. The growth had occurred through job creation, through establishment of small and micro- businesses, and through the output of factories in duty-free areas. In short, during two years, the change and transformation of breaking out of isolation had become felt in the country.

Finally, asked whether the regional war on drugs would be waged against the supply or the demand side, Mr. Fernandez Reyna said the two could not be separated. Again, while at present the Dominican Republic was not a consumer society, the crackdown on consumption in the United States meant the cartels would be looking for new markets. Economic growth and greater purchasing power made people of developing countries prime targets as objects for such a search. Thus, for the Dominican Republic, the future was the major point of concern in terms of the supply and demand balance, and the country was taking all measures to ensure its youth did not fall into the trap of the cartels.

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