The blockade has proved anything but airtight. An estimated 10,000 Haitians cross the Dominican border each day to buy fuel, which they lug back in plastic jugs or pulley across ravines. At the Malpasse border crossing east of the capital, wooden fishing boats openly ply barrels of illegal gasoline and diesel from an open-air depot on the Dominican side of the island. The 7,000 uniformed soldiers and thousands of plainclothes thugs who serve as the Haitian military's henchmen are only too pleased by the publicity surrounding this jerry-can stampede. The U.S., Canada and Argentina have stationed warships offshore, but are unable to maneuver in shallow waters.
Businessmen can even get gas delivered to their door.
The handful of wealthy families who directly or indirectly support the junta maintain their near monopolies on items exempted from the blockade, such as cooking oil, rice and sugar - and are profiting handsomely. The Mevs family continues to add on to a fuel depot capable of holding 50 million gal. Their cement business is booming as black-market millionaires build new homes. The Madsens are doing big business in humanitarian food at their shipping terminal, and they own the country's main beer factory. Many of those small business owners put their lives on the line by denouncing the military-installed puppet government of President Emile Jonassaint.