The Dominican Republic played a major role in the early history of NACLA, and it is therefore
fitting that the country be re-examined in one of NACLA’s thirtieth anniversary issues. It was
largely in response to the 1965 U.S. invasion and occupation of the island that a group of aca-
demics, clergy and radical activists organized a 1966 conference called the North American
Congress on Latin America. The “congress” stayed together beyond the conference, and in February,
1967, began publishing the NACLA Newsletter, which evolved into today’s NACLA Report on the
Americas. Over the years, the magazine has
devoted considerable space to the Dominican
Republic, including country reports in 1970, 1974,
1975 and 1982. To mark the tenth anniversary of
the invasion, NACLA sponsored a conference at
New York University which, although temporarily
delayed by a bomb threat, drew a capacity crowd.
The present issue is published as the Republic
finds itself at a crossroads. The individuals who
have dominated the political scene since 1963-
Joaquin Balaguer, Juan Bosch and Jos6 Francisco
Pefia G6mez-have been eclipsed by a much
younger figure, Leonel Femrnndez Reyna, who
assumed the presidency last August. Ferndndez took
Palace of dictator Leonidas Trujillo, now occupied by 92 squatter office in the wake of three decades of profound eco- families in Santo Domingo. nomic, social and political changes.
For much of the last century, the Dominican Republic relied on the export of sugar, coffee, cacao and
tobacco. Since the mid-1970s, however, in a move to protect domestic sugar producers, the United States
has drastically reduced the Dominican sugar quota. At the same time, corn syrup began to replace cane
sugar as a sweetener, and an increasingly health-conscious population in the developed countries reduced
its consumption of sugar, coffee, and cacao. Consequently, in the late 1970s exports plummeted and agri-
culture entered into a crisis which continues today. This crisis forced thousands of farmers out of busi-
ness and led many to migrate to the cities or abroad.
In the meantime, a 1983 currency devaluation resulting from negotiations with the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) lowered the cost of doing business on the island for firms earning other curren-
cies, and therefore attracted foreign investors who wished to take advantage of low wages. This led to
a rapid expansion of zonasfrancas, or free-trade zones (FTZs)-areas in which foreign, export-oriented
firms were granted tax and tariff breaks. The devaluations were part of a policy package which substi-
tuted a model of export manufacturing for the old economic model of import-substitution industrializa-
tion (ISI). The package was complemented by the Reagan administration’s Caribbean Basin Initiative
(CBI) which stimulated the production of apparel for export by allowing designated countries, includ-
ing the Dominican Republic, to export certain goods to the United States under favorable circumstances.
Today, FTZs employ over 180,000 people, and are responsible for a growing percentage of the coun-
try’s exports. Helen Safa shows how these developments have worsened the lot of women, and reports
that many women have turned to more individualistic solutions, forsaking collective actions. This is
ironic given the fact that recent legislation and a push from U.S. labor has led to the first meaningful
union organizing in the zones.
Emelio Betances teaches sociology and coordinates the Latin American Studies program at Gettysburg College. Hobart Spalding teaches Latin American and Caribbean history at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center Both are
on the NACLA Editorial Board, and NACLA thanks them for their collaboration on this Report.
NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 16REPORT ON THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
-After the Caudillos
The 1983 devaluation, by lowering dollar-denominated prices on the island, also benefited the tourist
sector. The Balaguer government had introduced legislation to promote tourism in the 1970s, and over
the last ten years the government has dedicated significant state revenues to create needed infrastruc-
ture. Within a decade of the devaluation, tourism’s contribution to the economy had nearly tripled.
While the Dominican economy underwent these transformations in the 1970s and 1980s, employment
opportunities plummeted. The ISI model didn’t create the jobs promised because it never got beyond the
production of light consumer non-durables and assembly operations, and for the average Dominican,
things worsened. As rural migrants poured into the cities they faced underemployment, unemployment
or abject poverty. Increasingly, workers, peasants and even middle-income people began to emigrate to
the United States or Puerto Rico. The 1990 U.S. census lists a half million Dominicans in the United
States, but because of the large number of undocumented immigrants, this figure clearly underestimates
the true population. Many Dominicans have made the United States-particularly New York City-their
new home, and remittances by New York Dominicans alone have been estimated at nearly $1 billion a
year. This amount compares favorably to the contribution made by tourism and the FTZs.
Remittances from the United States, free-trade zones and tourism have all helped to buoy the econ-
omy. But they cannot resolve the social problems resulting from the process of economic restructuring.
When the country relied on export agriculture, the state controlled a large sector of the economy through
its ownership of state enterprises in the sugar sector, which generated over 50% of foreign exchange in
1970. The free-trade zones, on the other hand, only contribute in the form of very low wages paid to
workers, while tourism is largely controlled by foreign tour operators and large international hotel
A POLITICAL CHRONOLOGY
May, 1961: Dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, who had ruled since 1930, is assassinated.
December, 1962: Populist Juan Bosch is elected president as the candidate of the Dominican
Revolutionary Party (PRD). He takes office in February, 1963.
September, 1963: A military coup ousts Bosch.
April, 1965: A “constitutionalist” uprising seeks to restore Bosch to the presidency. The uprising sparks a
U.S. invasion and occupation of the country. U.S. forces reorganize the shattered military.
May, 1966: Joaquin Balaguer, the U.S.-backed candidate and a one-time vice president under Trujillo, is elected President.
May, 1970 and May, 1974: Balaguer and his Reformist Social Christian Party (PRSC) are returned to office in elections generally considered fraudulent.
August, 1978: PRD candidate Silvestre Antonio Guzman, a conservative landowner, is elected. He is allowed to take office only after lengthy negotiations with Balaguer and the military, which had inter- vened to stop the ballot counting when Guzmbn appeared to be winning.
August, 1982: PRD candidate Salvador Jorge Blanco is elected. His administration ends amid wide- spread charges of corruption.
August, 1986: Balaguer is elected on the PRSC ticket amid charges of fraud.
May, 1990: Balaguer narrowly defeats Juan Bosch, now of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), amid charges of fraud.
May, 1994: Balaguer narrowly defeats PRD candidate Jose Francisco Pehia G6mez. This time the fraud is so potentially destabilizing that local and international pressure forces him to agree to new elections in two years, in which he will not be a candidate.
June, 1996: PLD candidate Leonel Ferndndez Reyna, with the support of both Bosch and Balaguer, defeats PRD candidate Jos4 Francisco Perfa G6mez in a runoff election.
VOL XXX, NO 5 MARCH/APRIL 1997 17REPORT ON THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
chains. The state has little direct control over these sec-
tors. Consequently its economic power-and its ability
to ameliorate social distress-has diminished.
Developments in the economic sphere will heav-
ily influence events in the Dominican Republic.
The ability of the country to attract foreign
investment, the flow of loans from international and pri-
vate institutions, levels of remittances from the commu-
nity abroad, the continued growth-or stagnation-of
the FTZs, the ability of the country to export, and a res-
olution to questions of
regional-Caribbean as
well as North American–
Elections under integration all loom large.
But political questions
Balaguer were matter too. Economic
neither free, growth as measured by
the standard GDP indices
nor fair nor have, in the past, done lit-
tle to produce conditions
competitive. for democratic develop-
He aimed
to
ment, and they will not do
so as long as Dominican
demobilize the political culture remains
unchanged. Any process
opposition, and of change must alter the
failing
that, to
way the Dominican
politi-
cal game is both per-
repress it. ceived and played.
Joaqufn Balaguer and his
Reformist Social Christian
Party (PRSC), with the
support of the political and economic elites, put an
authoritarian political system in place after the 1965
U.S. invasion. From 1966 to 1978, Balaguer ruled with
an iron fist, inhibiting the development of democratic
institutions and popular participation. Elections in this
period were neither free, nor fair nor competitive. As an
authoritarian figure, Balaguer aimed to demobilize the
opposition, and failing that, to repress it. Without the
U.S. political and economic support he enjoyed
throughout his reign, he would not have been able to
preside over a system in which informal-frequently
brutal-mechanisms of control proved just as important
as the formal ones. U.S. immigration laws also helped
him by allowing the mass exodus, which deflated social
and political tensions.
Balaguer gave jobs and contracts to his followers and
used government monies to fund his own particular pro-
jects. Dominicans have been socialized into seeing the
state as the source of a patrimony to which they feel
entitled. The national political parties have cultivated
the same expectations. If one cannot find a job or make
a living in the informal sector, then joining a political
party becomes a real opportunity which can perhaps
provide a solution. This is key to understanding the pre-
sent dilemma that the government faces. Members of
Leonel Ferndndez’s Dominican Liberation Party (PLD)
demanded jobs after the party’s victory, which they saw
as a political right. So far Fernmndez seems to be giving
in to their demands, despite PLD rhetoric of serving the
people. This highlights the extent to which large seg-
ments of the traditional opposition to Balaguer’s PRSC,
organized both in the Dominican Revolutionary Party
(PRD) and the PLD, have been accomodated into what
we term a “neo-patrimonial” political system. This pat-
tern, so prevalent in Latin America, bodes ill for the
development of democracy.
The elites recognized the need for change in the
1970s and 1980s, but they made sure that these occurred
within rigid social and political structures that did not
permit popular participation in decision making. When
opposition groups tried to make their political presence
felt, they were either crushed or else blocked from mak-
ing any meaningful changes. In a promising, though
limited, challenge to this authoritarian structure, Lilian
Bobea examines the results of an energetic decentral-
ization effort in the north-central province of Salcedo.
She concludes that, to this point, the results are at best
mixed, but that local efforts may hold some hope for the
future of genuine popular participation.
although Balaguer lost the 1978 presidential
election to the PRD’s Silvestre Antonio
Guzmdn, he continued to exert considerable
political influence during this period. Internal political
divisions and the scandals that occurred during the sub-
sequent PRD administration of Salvador Jorge Blanco
opened the way for Balaguer’s return in 1986. While in
office, Jorge Blanco had agreed to unalterable arrange-
ments with the IMF, which limited Balaguer’s room to
maneuver. Nonetheless, the old caudillo reaped great
benefit from the splits that occurred between and
within the two opposition parties.
In the early 1970s, for example, Juan Bosch, the
founder of the PRD, left the party to found the PLD.
This generated a fierce rivalry between Bosch and his
successor as head of the PRD, Jos6 Francisco Peiia
G6mez. Political, ideological and personal differences
all explain this rivalry. Enmity between the two pre-
vented them from joining together against Balaguer and
the PRSC, and in 1996, as Roberto Cassd details, the
PLD actually allied with Balaguer against Pefia G6mez
to prevent his likely presidential victory. While the
Bosch-Pefia G6mez rivalry alone does not explain the
PLD-Balaguer alliance in 1996, it helps to shed light on
the fact that forces claiming to be democratic have
18NMTA
REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
18REPORT ON THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
proved incapable of ending the Balaguer authoritarian
legacy-a structure which, in turn, was inherited from
dictator Rafael Trujillo, who ruled from 1930 to 1961-
and to work for real democracy.
The failure of the PRD and PLD to end caudillismo
and lead the struggle against this authoritarian legacy is
largely due to the underdevelopment of Dominican soci-
ety. Democratic development can only occur on an his-
torical continuum. And society must produce the politi-
cal forces which will organize its political dimension,
the state. The economic transformation that has taken
place over the past three decades has not consolidated
the social forces which could demand a more democra-
tic society, but has polarized society and driven out
many of those who might push for equity.
Middle-income groups, in particular, have seen their
aspirations of upward mobility evaporate and have left
the country in large numbers. A pervasive emigration
mentality has developed among all those sectors of soci-
ety which have not been direct beneficiaries in the past
decade. Many, in fact, have transferred their political
energies elsewhere, and Howard Jordan looks at the
growing political involvement of the Dominican com-
munity in New York. He predicts that the political
engagement of New York Dominicans will increase due
to steadily rising numbers, heightened political con-
sciousness as well as a growing estrangement from their
homeland.
wo institutions, the Catholic Church and the mil-
itary, will have a powerful voice in the Dominican
Republic’s immediate future. Recently, the
Church has sought to mediate solutions to social con-
flict, labor disputes, government-business tensions and
electoral impasses. In 1986, for example, Cardinal Jos6
de Jestis L6pez Rodriguez led a group of influential cit-
izens-called los Notables–to supervise elections
when conflicts between the presidential candidates led
to an impasse. Subsequently, Church leaders called for
discussion among labor leaders, business associations
and the government which helped defuse tense situa-
tions. During the 1994 electoral crisis, Church leaders
brokered the “Pact for Democracy,” [see “Negotiated
Elections,” p. 20] which resolved the crisis and led to
the special 1996 elections.
In part, the Church assumed this new role out of con-
cern over the recurrence of social violence in the coun-
try. Steady cuts in already deficient social services have
left much of the population without access to sewage or potable water, and about half the population lives at or
below the poverty line. In addition, evangelical churches
have increasingly moved into geographical and social
spaces where neither the government nor the Church has
provided moral or material support for the population.
The Church’s mediating role thus serves to boost its
credibility as an institution.
The Dominican military is also a force to be watched.
After the civil war and intervention of 1965, the United
States set about reorganizing the armed forces, and rela-
tions between the U.S. and Dominican militaries have
been close ever since. During Balaguer’s first two terms
(1966-78), the military profited enormously from the
patrimonial political system. In order to control the mil-
itary, Balaguer allowed them to become landowners, merchants and industrialists. This explains why they did
not want to hand over power to the PRD in 1978 and
were willing to pull off a coup-they wanted not only to
protect Balaguer, but to preserve their access to govern-
ment largesse. With U.S. support, Antonio Guzmdn of
the PRD retired some 40 pro-Balaguer generals and ini-
A campaign poster invites voters to choose “the new road” of PLD candidate Leonel Fernandez.
tiated a process of military professionalization, but this
experiment ended when Balaguer resumed power in
1986. He reintegrated the retired generals into the armed
forces and, once again, allowed top officers to enrich
themselves under government protection.
President Fernandez made recent moves to reprofes-
sionalize the military last October when he retired 24 of
70 generals. This measure won him general approval, but he had to confront significant opposition from the
pro-Balaguer factions within the officer corps, where he
seems to lack a personal following. There is, however,
a more liberal group of officers which ostensibly backs
Pefia G6mez, and their actions will be key. The way this
tension unfolds will tell a great deal about the transition
from the authoritarian Trujillo-Balaguer legacy to a more democratic state.
Developments in the economic, political and mili-
tary spheres are all to be watched as the country, under
a president whose intentions have yet to be revealed, forges what may be a new stage in its not-always-happy
history. But as that president takes center stage, forces beyond his control may be waiting in the wings.
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