Image taken from Telesur

By Guillermo Alvarado

In a world that is increasingly interconnected by new technologies that seem to erase distances and borders, the tendency to build walls to separate peoples with arguments based on ancestral fears, hatreds and selfishness is increasing.

This was demonstrated in recent days when, with a pomp worthy of a better cause, the government of the Dominican Republic, accompanied by political parties of different tendencies, announced the beginning of the construction of a modern fence on the border with Haiti.

In its first stage, this fence will have a length of 160 kilometers, almost half of the demarcation line and its objective will be, according to Dominican President Luis Abinader, to avoid uncontrolled migration, smuggling and drug trafficking.

He said that his country cannot take charge of the social, political and human crisis that exists in Haiti, the most impoverished people of our continent, and called on the United Nations and the Western powers, including the United States, to take care of the matter.

Nothing more similar to when, according to tradition, the Roman Pontius Pilate washed his hands before sending Jesus Christ to execution on the cross.

But the subject does not stop there, because the Chancellor of the Dominican Republic, Roberto Alvarez, informed that the design of this new wall was entrusted to none other than the Israeli company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, or Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, in Spanish.

This is a state-owned consortium created in 1948, the same year of the birth of the State of Israel, dedicated to the manufacture of sophisticated weaponry, such as the Shafrir, Spike and Popeye missiles and the Iron Dom and Trophy interception systems, in addition to other technologies.

Thus, the wall to prevent people from the most abandoned country in the Western hemisphere from passing to another, which is only slightly less poor, will be equipped with motion sensors, facial recognition cameras, radars and infrared ray systems.

This obstacle is added to others no less despicable, such as the one erected by Morocco against the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, the one erected by Israel in the West Bank and the one left halfway by Donald Trump on the border of Mexico.

Humanitarian organizations warned Santo Domingo that the wall will only serve to fuel xenophobia and resentment between two peoples who share the same territory, the Island of Hispaniola.

In the midst of so many needs, I think there are nobler causes to which to dedicate efforts and resources.