Those arrested were demanding improvements to the electric system, public works programs, and highway repairs. They were supported by teachers at area schools, who sent students home. As many as 90 percent of businesses closed their doors for the stoppage.

Fernando Peña, national coordinator of the Collective of People's Organizations, said that the protests are the "beginning of a plan of increasing struggles" which may culminate in a national strike later in March.

The actions in the north of the country follow ongoing protests and strikes by doctors and health workers, who charge that the government is seeking to privatize health care. A February 13 march by the Dominican Medical Association was violently attacked by the police when protesters began to march on the National Palace. The campus at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo was shut down when students protested the police attack. Teachers at the University also went on strike February 20 demanding a 60 percent wage increase.

After his election in May last year, Dominican president Mejía announced austerity measures, including a 25 percent increase in the price of gasoline and a hike in taxes of up to 12 percent. Critics of the govern-ment's measures charge that prices of some basic necessities have risen 20 to 25 percent since they were implemented.

In response to the strikes in the north, Mejía declared that "there won't be wage increases for anybody." He complained that some sections of the population are inclined "to protest for any old reason." While increasing taxes, attempting to remove subsidies for cooking gas and fuel, and sending the police to attack peaceful, legal demonstrations, the Dominican president officially designated 2001 as the "Year of Struggle Against Poverty."

Faced with widespread opposition to the austerity measures, Mejía cut the price of cooking gas in half in early February. It remains two pesos higher than when he took office, however.

Mejía, who was elected as the candidate of the social democratic Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), has sought to deflect criticism by demagogically accusing the government of his predecessor, Leonel Fernández of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), of corruption. PLD officials are accused by Mejía of using their positions to enrich themselves. Prosecutors have charged 17 former officials of the PLD with diversion of funds. Former president Fernández, leading a march to the National Palace to clear his name after Mejías's accusations, was teargassed by the cops.

The PRD leader has also faced irritation from members of his own party, who complain that he hasn't moved fast enough to dislodge PLD supporters from government positions and replace them with PRD backers. "There can't be jobs for everybody," Mejía stated. "There is no work for 1,400,000 people."

One indication of the depth of the crisis, the brutality of the regime, and the resistance to the austerity measures is the fact that close to 400 people died at the hands of the security apparatus in the year 2000. In the last two months of that year, 45 were killed. Mercedes Media, giving the main talk at the Fourth International Conference for Human Rights in the Caribbean in December, charged that 1,000 people had their rights violated by being held for 48 hours without charges.

The PRD government has also stepped up repressive measures against Haitian immigrants. The Dominican Republic and Haiti share the same island and a several-hundred-mile-long border. According to Noticias del Mundo, published in New York, 11,000 Haitians were detained and deported in February alone. The National Army of the Dominican Republic stated in a press release that in the last 6 months 45,000 undocumented Haitian workers were sent back.

While the Dominican government harasses Haitian immigrants, more than 1 million Dominicans have emigrated to the United States. Most live in the New York metropolitan area. Referring to the large number of Dominicans who flee the island every month hoping to make it to the United States, often via Puerto Rico, Mejía claimed that the real reason they were going to Puerto Rico is that Dominicans "like to travel."

Arrogant comments like these are not likely to smooth the road ahead for Mejía and the government he heads. The year 2001 could indeed become a year of struggle against poverty, but in ways that Mejía never intended.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home