VZCZCXYZ0020
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHDG #3759/01 3521842
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 181842Z DEC 06
FM AMEMBASSY SANTO DOMINGO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 6975
INFO RUEHZA/WHA CENTRAL AMERICAN COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEFHLC/HQS DHS WASHDC PRIORITY

UNCLAS SANTO DOMINGO 003759 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV EAGR PHUM PREF PREL EWWT DR XL OREP ELAB
SUBJECT: CODEL ENGEL: HAITIAN ISSUES DOMINATE VISIT TO THE 
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 
 
REF: A. SANTO DOMINGO 2790 
     ¶B. SANTO DOMINGO 3250 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY:  The December 9-10 Congressional visit led 
by Rep. Eliot Engel touched some of the most sensitive points 
in the Dominican psyche.  The group had intended to learn 
about a range of issues, but their trip, truncated by a late 
departure from Washington, was defined in the Dominican media 
by their visit to two sugarcane worker communities 
("bateyes") housing residents of Haitian descent.  The 
delegation met with Foreign Minister Morales Troncoso and 
several legislators, who gave them an earful about the 
domestic problems Dominicans blame on Haiti's instability. 
Rep. Engel raised with the Foreign Minister complaints he had 
received from his Dominican-American constituents about 
exorbitant fees charged by the Dominican consulate in New 
York.  At the Port of Caucedo, managed by DP World and 
approved by DHS for the Container Security Initiative (CSI), 
visitors praised security but lamented that less than 100 
percent of containers bound for the United States were 
scanned.  END SUMMARY. 
 
 
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CONTROVERSY ARRIVES EARLY 
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¶2. (U) CODEL Engel was originally scheduled to visit the 
Dominican Republic during the weekend of December 8-10.  Rep. 
Eliot Engel, the incoming Chairman of the House Subcommittee 
on the Western Hemisphere, led the group, which included six 
Democratic members of the U.S. Congress.  Engel represents a 
district in New York with a large Dominican community.  Other 
members of the delegation included Donald Payne (D-NJ), 
Barbara Lee (D-CA), Kendrick Meek (D-FL), Maxine Waters 
(D-CA), and Lynn Woolsey (C-CA).  All of the Members, with 
the exception of Meek, currently serve on the House 
Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. 
 
¶3. (U) During the week prior to CODEL Engel's arrival, the 
popular local newspaper "Listin Diario" obtained a draft copy 
of the CODEL's schedule and headlined the visit as an 
"investigation" of working conditions on Dominican sugar 
plantations.  The suggested itinerary obtained and published 
by the newspaper included a visit to a sugar refinery owned 
by the Vicini Group, the second-largest sugar company in the 
country; a tour of a sugar cane worker community ("batey") 
owned by the Vicini Group, led by company officials; a 
meeting with human rights activists on a batey located on 
government property; briefings by groups on both sides of the 
DR-CAFTA debate; and a visit to Caucedo, the country's 
premier port, which is managed by Dubai Ports World ("DP 
World") and was approved this year for the Container Security 
Initiative (CSI) by DHS. 
 
¶4. (U) Despite the breadth of issues on the CODEL's draft 
schedule, the Dominican media focused exclusively on the 
group's visit to two bateyes.  Batey residents are mostly 
Haitians or persons of Haitian descent.  Dominican relations 
with the country's Haitian minority are extremely sensitive. 
A variety of international organizations and governments have 
complained about the mistreatment and isolation Haitians and 
their descendents experience in the Dominican Republic, but 
most Dominicans respond with open hostility to such foreign 
"interventions."  Before long, an enterprising journalist 
managed to uncover Rep. Engel's association with legislation 
condemning "slavery-like conditions" in Brazilian factories. 
From this point forward the dominant motif in Dominican media 
coverage was that the CODEL had arrived solely to investigate 
allegations of slavery of Haitian workers on Dominican sugar 
plantations. 
 
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LATE ARRIVAL, MISSED OPPORTUNITIES 
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¶5. (SBU) The late arrivel of the CODEL resulted in the 
cancellation of a meeting with President Fernandez and a 
dinner hosted at the Foreign Ministry.  It also forced the 
group to compress the remaining items on their agenda 
considerably.  The visits to bateyes and the sugar mill 
lasted longer than anticipated, and the group fell far behind 
schedule.  They arrived 90 minutes late to their meeting that 
evening with Foreign Minister Carlos Morales Troncoso, for 
example, and were two hours late to the reception in their 
honor. 
 
 
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A VISIT WITH THE VICINIS 
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¶6. (SBU) The CODEL's first stop was the Cristobal Colon sugar 
refinery, owned by the Vicini Group.  The Vicini Group is the 
second-largest producer of sugar in the Dominican Republic 
and has been mentioned in the Department's recent Human 
Rights Reports.  Refs A and B document many of the human 
rights concerns that the company's operations have triggered, 
and the role played by Father Christopher Hartley in focusing 
international attention on the company's practices. 
 
¶7. (SBU) Felipe Vicini, a major shareholder, and Campos de 
Moya, the facility manager, led the tour.  Journalists from 
CNN, AP, and EFE (the Spanish-language wire service) 
accompanied the delegation throughout their visit to the 
site.  The tour began with a walkthrough of the company's 
sugar refinery, and a discussion of trade and export issues. 
Visitors then proceeded to a batey that housed company 
employees on company property.  According to human rights 
organizations, the batey the group visited, which was located 
alongside the highway, was one of the company's better ones. 
It featured new, relatively clean housing for workers and 
their families.  Felipe Vicini explained that the company 
also provided a school for the children of their workers, and 
that they educated children without regard to their legal 
status in the country.  He scoffed at questions about whether 
workers faced any sort of economic disincentives dissuading 
them from leaving their jobs. 
 
 
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ACTIVISTS GIVE THEIR SIDE 
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¶8. (SBU) The group then proceeded to a batey located on 
government-owned land, where they met with representatives 
from CEDAIL, a human rights organization affiliated with the 
Catholic Church.  CEDAIL said they had selected this batey, 
where living conditions were much poorer than at the 
Vicini-owned community, because its conditions more 
accurately reflected those found at Vicini bateyes situated 
further from the highway.  The visiting congressional 
representatives began their visit with a spontaneous 
conversation with a group of young children, who described 
working in the fields. 
 
¶9. (SBU) After a tour of the community, the group proceeded 
to a local church, where they met privately with two Vicini 
laborers who were concerned about reprisal if the company 
learned of their actions.  Media were excluded.  The workers, 
who were dressed in cane-cutting garments and apparently had 
been pulled from the fields that day, said that the company 
did not provide employees with medical benefits or schooling. 
 They said the only available public facilities were located 
so far away as to be effectively inaccessible.  They also 
highlighted the fact that the company withheld a portion of 
their pay for social security and medical benefits - money, 
they say, they never see again.  Finally, they disputed the 
 
Vicini claim that the company has no disincentives to prevent 
employees from leaving their jobs.  Contradicting the Vicini 
briefing, workers stated that the company withheld a portion 
of their pay until the end of the harvest, in order to ensure 
that they did not leave their jobs. 
 
 
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ACCORDING TO THE FOREIGN MINISTER AND FRIENDS... 
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¶10. (U) The group then proceeded to the Foreign Ministry for 
a meeting with Foreign Minister Carlos Morales Troncoso.  The 
Foreign Minister had invited a multi-party group of Dominican 
legislators to attend.   Rep. Engel emphasized to the group 
that his delegation had not come to the Dominican Republic to 
"point fingers" at anyone.  Rather, they had come for the 
purpose of introducing themselves to the country and learning 
about a wide range of issues. 
 
¶11. (SBU) Rep. Engel specifically highlighted the high fees 
charged by the Dominican consulate in New York to many of his 
Dominican-American constituents.  In his response, Morales 
Troncoso acknowledged the problem and said that he would not 
permit such abuses to continue.  He assured the delegation 
that he personally would resolve the problem.  (On December 
14 the Ministry announced that it had instructed Dominican 
consulates to reduce passport fees by USD 30.) 
 
¶12. (SBU) Following this discussion, the Dominican 
 
legislators each gave long, at times disjointed speeches 
complaining about the problems their country suffers due to 
Haiti's instability, and asserting their country's right to 
set its own migratory policy.  They pointed fingers 
(literally) and demanded that the United States and others 
take stronger action to address Haiti's instability. 
 
¶13. (SBU) Morales Tronocoso had Dominican domestic politics 
in mind in his choice of participants.  Dip. Radhames Castro 
of Boca Chica had denounced the Codel visit the previous day, 
offering the press the lie that Fr. Hartley had guided the 
group incognito on Friday.  Castro told the press afterwards 
that the Democrats of the CODEL were gathering information to 
justify a reduction in the (generous) U.S. sugar quota.  Dip. 
Pellegrin Castillo from a splinter party allied with the PLD 
is notorious for the vehemence of his anti-Haiti views; later 
in the week he asserted that the aim of the United States was 
to unite Hispaniola as a single country. The PRSC's "Ito" 
Bisono is thoughtful and represents San Pedro de Macoris, in 
the heart of the sugar district.  Max Puig, the country's 
Secretary of the Environment, discussed the environmental 
 
SIPDIS 
degradation Haitians were creating in the border regions. 
And the Foreign Minister included Amb. Miguel Mejia, the 
President's representative to hard-line leftist regimes and 
Venezuela, probably because of Mejia's anti-U.S. credentials. 
 
¶14. (SBU) The delegation arrived late to a reception at the 
Ambassador's residence.   Many of the guests, especially 
high-level officials, had already left.  They nonetheless had 
opportunities for fruitful discussions with human rights 
activists, like the recipient of the 2006 Robert F. Kennedy 
Human Rights Award, and with executives at the local American 
Chamber of Commerce, who stressed the social benefits that 
implementation of DR-CAFTA would have for the country. 
 
 
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A VISIT TO A DP WORLD-OPERATED PORT 
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¶15. (U) The next morning, immediately prior to their mid-day 
departure to Haiti, the delegation visited the Port of 
Caucedo, which is the country's newest and most advanced sea 
port.  It was approved this year by DHS for the Container 
Security Initiative (CSI).  The port is managed by DP World. 
 
¶16. (SBU) The delegation toured the port's facilities, 
especially those related to CSI operations.   DHS staff gave 
a demonstration of an x-ray scan of a shipping container and 
explained that given the high volume of traffic, they were 
able to scan only a limited number of such containers. 
 
¶17. (U) Rep. Kendrick Meek, who serves on the House Committee 
on Homeland Security, said that he would make it a personal 
priority to seek increased staffing and funding levels so 
that "every container" destined for the United States could 
be inspected. 
 
 
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LOCAL PRESS REACTION 
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¶18. (U) Rep. Engel held an exit conference with members of 
the local press.  The delegation professed surprise at the 
hostile reaction to their visit to the bateyes.  They 
emphasized that they had come to the Dominican Republic to 
learn about a wide variety of issues.  They acknowledged that 
they were concerned by the living conditions workers 
encountered on the bateyes, however, they would be concerned 
at such conditions anywhere in the world, and they were not 
trying to point fingers at anyone.  The CODEL did its best to 
steer the conference toward their tour of the port and other 
less divisive topics. 
 
¶19. (U) Nonetheless, the media refused to deviate from its 
focus on the delegation's interest in "Haitian issues."  Over 
succeeding days, local newspapers barely mentioned the 
group's visit to the port, and they cherry-picked 
out-of-context quotes to give the impression that the group 
had come solely to investigate bateyes.  Foreign Minister 
Morales Troncoso told the press that his country would not 
accept any foreign interference, and he harrumphed that the 
delegation had been "sequestered in a church by NGO 
activists."  Since then the local media has been dwelling on 
the visit.  The subject of living conditions in the country's 
bateyes has received new life in public discussions. 
 
¶20. (U) Although most commentators criticize the delegation 
 
for poking its nose into affairs that are none of its 
business, some have defended the visit. They say that 
conditions in the bateyes are as bad as the delegation said, 
and in fact much worse.  Some said that the country will need 
to take a hard look at its treatment of Haitians and 
Dominican-Haitians in the years to come. 
 
¶21. (SBU) The Vicini Group has communicated to the Embassy 
that Embassy visitors are no longer welcome on its property. 
 
¶22. (U) Drafted by Alexander T. Bryan. 
 
¶23. (U) This report and extensive other material can be 
consulted on our SIPRNET site, 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/santodomingo/  
HERTELL