SANTO DOMINGO (Reuters):

The Dominican government yesterday said it would not tolerate foreign interference in its affairs after a group of visiting United States lawmakers criticised the treatment of Haitians on Dominican sugar plantations.

Foreign Minister Carlos Morales Troncoso, who met on Saturday evening with the U.S. congressional delegation, said a visit the American politicians paid to cane fields and sugar factories in the east of the country was a "sham".

"I would like them to come for a few more days to see the reality in the Dominican Republic but not a sham like this," the Foreign Minister said.

"As I understand it, the mission was practically kidnapped inside the church of San Pedro de Macoris by a group of non-governmental organisations that defend Haitians and who told them their version of the truth," he said.

Grinding Poverty

Faced with grinding poverty, environmental devastation and widespread unemployment, up to a million Haitians are believed to have crossed illicitly into the neighbouring and far more prosperous Dominican Republic in search of work. The two countries share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola.

Many Haitian illegal immigrants are employed in sugar fields, factories or on cattle ranches in conditions that human rights groups say often are not far removed from slavery.

Relations between the two countries have long been strained by racism and mistrust, and scarred by the 1937 massacre of up to 30,000 Haitian migrants in a campaign ordered by then Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. Many were marched off cliffs at gunpoint to die in the sea.

Last year, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered the Dominican Republic to give birth certificates to Haitians born in its territory, even if their parents are illegal immigrants, provoking protests from Dominican officials.