Friday in Jimaní, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Cuba, signed the "Sportive declaration of Jimaní", which aims at the development of sports in the binational border region, with technical support from the Cuban government.

Jean Roosevelt René, the Haitian Minister of Youth, Sports and Civic Action and his Dominican counterpart, Dr. Jaime David Fernandez Mirabal, signed the agreement in the presence of Dominican ambassador in Haiti, Ruben Silié and the Ambassador of Haiti to Santo Domingo Fritz Cinéas. The Cuban Ambassador to Santo Domingo, Alexis Vega and the Cuban ambassador in Port-au-Prince Ricardo Garcia Ivandrich formalized this agreement.

The sports ministers of the two countries, supported respectively by the Presidents of their National Olympic Committee: Jean Edouard Baker (Haiti) and Luis Mejia Oviedo (Dominican Republic), are committed to undertake policies of sports cooperation in the following areas :

• The promotion and development of sport as a means of integration in the border areas of the two nations ;

• The design and implementation of development programs and sports exchanges at school and university ;

• The support to the organization of binational games with the aim of promoting mass sport in the border areas and the Olympic spirit of solidarity ;

• The mutual contribution to the structural strengthening of sports.

This agreement that found the technical support from Cuba, also expresse the solidarity and brotherhood among the 3 brother countries for the development of sport. The Agreement of Jimaní concerns 6 sports including, athletics, football, basketball, volleyball, the Tae Kwon Do and wrestling.

The Cuban Ambassador accredited to Santo Domingo, declared that his country will provide every effort to help Haitian and Dominican technicians and hope that in the future, this aid will manifest in competitions binational between the two countries.

HL/ HaitiLibre