Martelly calls for joint commission concerned possible treaty
The President of Haiti, Michel Martelly, answers a question from Deputy Victor Gomez Casanova, in an interview for the newspaper Listin Diario and the "Victor Live".
Santo Domingo
The President of Haiti, Michel Martelly, suggested that the bilateral joint commission discuss the proposal of President Danilo Medina of establishing a free trade agreement between his nation and the Dominican Republic.
In an exclusive interview with the newspaper Listin Diario and the "Victor Live", the deputy Victor Gomez Casanova, the Haitian president also denied having been stood reporters waiting for him at the airport upon arrival in the Americas country to participate in the inaugural acts of Danilo Medina.
Then the contents of the interview:
1. - Mr President, thank you very much for your time to allow this exclusive interview for the newspaper Listin Diario and Victor LIVE, especially among his many commitments and thank the Haitian ambassador in our country, Fritz Cineas and Dominican Ambassador assigned to Chancery, Claudio de los Santos for working with conducting this interview. How is the process of rebuilding Haiti after the tragic earthquake and where the government operates after the destruction of the presidential palace?
"Before the earthquake, and the National Palace had difficulty and needed reconstruction, and today we have so many things to do after the earthquake, we have been forced to play very precise points, and we have started a campaign that we call the four E: Education, Employment, Environment and rule of law. We said that if we landed concrete plans in these areas, then we will have fulfilled our mission. Because we know that before we talk about physical reconstruction of buildings, we have to rebuild the men and women of Haiti, and we encourage our people values, and that we have initiated through a program of universal free and compulsory education in the first year we were able to send more than a million children to school and ensuring two hundred and thirty buses transport students daily, and we ensure to provide daily meals in schools for students. We have built many schools and even the education problem is not solved definitively, because the main problem is the quality of education, but we have come a long way in this time of our governance, but we must have patience, because when you sow a tree to sit under that tree and receive shadows, should be expected to grow. Rebuilding a country is not a quick or easy task, but I am convinced that we are going in the right direction. I remember that when we assume the presidency of Haiti, over a million and a half people living under tents and today only about two hundred thousand people remain living under tents and that was not the overnight, we have followed a program well planned, very precise, well calculated, which allowed us to repair, reconstruction and construction of new homes, to go pulling people out of the tents and bring them to live in houses. We have built more than three thousand houses for our people and we have come to pay a year's rent to poor families and we will be delivering soon, about 500 homes remaining to deliver. "
2. - How is the economic cooperation of the international community and the delivery of resources and economic aid promised to Haiti?
"So far we have received only one-third of all the money promised. We roving ambassadors as Sean Penn used to perform actions and activities around the world to raise funds, but we are taking this opportunity to change the mentality of those who claim that Haiti live international collaboration. Today we want to empower and sensitize Haitian each of their own destiny. We have taken steps such as tax collection, we started charging 5 cents for each international call and one dollar and fifty cents for each shipment that arrives from the Haitian diaspora and only these two measures have helped to raise millions of dollars that we used for the benefit of our country and our people and every Haitian citizen feels proud to participate in such programs, because each call and each batch is done, is contributing to the development and reconstruction of our country and our people ".
3. - Mr President What do you expect and what you think of the new Government of the Dominican Republic headed by President Danilo Medina and especially the part of speech which touched on the subject of our relations with Haiti and the proposal to establish an Agreement Free Trade?
"I met with the President Medina the day before his inauguration, and my intention was only to have a protocol exchange greetings, I was determined not to speak anything about politics, just congratulate him and wish him luck in his new government and prepare for further coordinate policy actions between our governments and our peoples and strengthen our personal human relationships, because I said that when there is good human relations and personal things always turn out positive. But I realized that if I wanted to save the form, the President Medina has very ambitious policy for town and was surprised that he started in his first speech to refer to the issue of relations between our countries and that's a good attitude, sure for that reason he was elected by his people as the new President and not always be easy. ".
Continue in next posting
