Push for Border Control Worries Haitian Vendors In swirling dust and sweltering sun, hordes of Haitian merchants impatient for the official opening squeezed through the battered border gate and swarmed to the myriad rickety stalls and shipping containers where Dominican wholesalers bartered off crates of juice, pasta, cooking oil and other goods. After making their purchases, the shoppers headed back across the border into Haiti - an impoverished nation that produces little to meet the needs of its people. Haitian women carried boxes of pasta on their heads, men pushed wheelbarrows piled with bags of rice and cereal boxes and smoke-belching trucks roared down the road crammed with food and consumer goods. This may be the Western Hemisphere's most open border, and it's been that way for years along the little-policed line between the two nations that share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. But officials in both Haiti and the Dominican Republic want to control the chaotic flow of commerce and people, and their proposals are straining bilateral relations. Tensions flared in June when Haiti banned imports of Dominican poultry and eggs saying avian flu existed on the other side. The Dominican Republic along with the World Health Organization have vehemently denied any avian flu problem, while critics say Haiti was in fact trying to protect a local producer. Dominican merchants closed the border markets one day in June to protest the avian flu declaration, while the country's president, Danilo Medina, threatened retaliation, saying, "We might have to take drastic measures." Haiti's government now wants to cut the number of days that Dominican tax-free border markets operate from two a week to one so that it can better handle the flow of commerce. Haiti also wants to boost revenue by getting tougher on collecting import duties on goods from the markets, which the country still charges even on market days. Medina, for his part, wants to negotiate a free trade agreement that would eliminate tariffs and better regulate trade with Haiti. That would primarily benefit the Dominican Republic, which exports far more goods. Haiti's efforts to control the border worry both Haitians and Dominicans whose meager livelihoods depend on the border markets. Vendors fear any restrictions will only heap more hardship on some of the hemisphere's poorest people. So far, Haiti has increased inspections of cars and trucks passing near the border, looking for contraband. "If the street merchants don't come here we can't survive," said Enel Floristal, a 45-year-old Haitian merchant who sells Dominican eggs to vendors from his homeland. We can't sell anything to the buyers and so we can't feed our children. Merchants say Haiti's moves to collect more taxes will drive up prices for consumer goods, making it harder to sell to Haiti's overwhelmingly poor residents. Although such customs duties are low, they can still make up to 20 percent of an item's value. And some goods aren't supposed to be brought into Haiti at all, such as pornography, military equipment and narcotics, but still make it in. The northern Dominican town of Dajabon is home to the biggest border market, attracting some 30,000 visitors on market days, and its merchants worry that their families will suffer if the number of those days is reduced.