The island of Hispaniola (La Isla Espa�ola) was the first New World
colony settled by Spain. As such, it served as the logistical base for
the conquest of most of the Western Hemisphere. Christopher Columbus
first sighted the island in 1492 toward the end of his first voyage to
"the Indies." Columbus and his crew found the island inhabited
by a large population of friendly Taino Indians (Arawaks), who made the
explorers welcome. The land was fertile, but of greater importance to
the Spaniards was the discovery that gold could be obtained either by
barter with the natives, who adorned themselves with golden jewelry, or
by extraction from alluvial deposits on the island.
After several attempts to plant colonies along the north coast of
Hispaniola, Spain's first permanent settlement in the New World was
established on the southern coast at the present site of Santo Domingo.
Under Spanish sovereignty, the entire island bore the name Santo
Domingo. Indications of the presence of gold--the life's blood of the
nascent mercantilist system--and a population of tractable natives who
could be used as laborers combined to attract many Spanish newcomers
during the early years. Most were adventurers who, at least initially,
were more interested in acquiring sudden wealth than they were in
settling the land. Their relations with the Taino Indians, whom they
ruthlessly maltreated, deteriorated from the beginning. Aroused by
continued seizures of their food supplies, other exactions, and abuse of
their women, the formerly peaceful Indians rebelled- -only to be crushed
decisively in 1495.
Columbus, who ruled the colony as royal governor until 1499,
attempted to put an end to the more serious abuses to which the Indians
were subjected by prohibiting foraging expeditions against them and by
regulating the informal taxation imposed by the settlers. Being limited
to this milder form of exploitation engendered active opposition among
the settlers. To meet their demands, Columbus devised the repartimiento
system of land settlement and native labor under which a settler,
without assuming any obligation to the authorities, could be granted in
perpetuity a large tract of land together with the services of the
Indians living on it.
The repartimiento system did nothing to improve the lot of
the Indians, and the Spanish crown changed it by instituting the system
of encomienda in 1503. Under the encomienda system,
all land became in theory the property of the crown, and the Indians
thus were considered tenants on royal land. The crown's right to service
from the tenants could be transferred in trust to individual Spanish
settlers (encomenderos) by formal grant and the regular payment
of tribute. The encomenderos were entitled to certain days of
labor from the Indians, who became their charges. Encomenderos
thus assumed the responsibility of providing for the physical well-being
of the Indians and for their instruction in Christianity. An encomienda
theoretically did not involve ownership of land; in practice, however,
possession was gained through other means.
The hard work demanded of the Indians and the privations that they
suffered demonstrated the unrealistic nature of the encomienda
system, which effectively operated on a honor system as a result of the
absence of enforcement efforts by Spanish authorities. The Indian
population died off rapidly from exhaustion, starvation, disease, and
other causes. By 1548 the Taino population, estimated at 1 million in
1492, had been reduced to approximately 500. The consequences were
profound. The need for a new labor force to meet the growing demands of
sugarcane cultivation prompted the importation of African slaves
beginning in 1503. By 1520, black African labor was used almost
exclusively.
The early grants of land without obligation under the repartimiento
system resulted in a rapid decentralization of power. Each landowner
possessed virtually sovereign authority. Power was diffused because of
the tendency of the capital city, Santo Domingo (which also served as
the seat of government for the entire Spanish Indies), to orient itself
toward the continental Americas, which provided gold for the crown, and
toward Spain, which provided administrators, supplies, and immigrants
for the colonies. Local government was doomed to ineffectiveness because
there was little contact between the capital and the hinterland; for
practical purposes, the countryside fell under the sway of the large
landowners. Throughout Dominican history, this sociopolitical order was
a major factor in the development of some of the distinctive
characteristics of the nation's political culture such as paternalism,
personalism, and the tendency toward strong, even authoritarian,
leadership.
As early as the 1490s, the landowners demonstrated their power by
successfully conspiring against Columbus. His successor, Francisco de
Bobadilla, was appointed chief justice and royal commissioner by the
Spanish crown in 1499. Bobadilla sent Columbus back to Spain in irons,
but Queen Isabella soon ordered him released. Bobadilla proved an inept
administrator, and he was replaced in 1503 by the more efficient Nicol�s
de Ovando, who assumed the titles of governor and supreme justice.
Because of his success in initiating reforms desired by the crown--the encomienda
system among them--de Ovando received the title of Founder of Spain's
Empire in the Indies.
In 1509 Columbus's son, Diego Columbus, was appointed governor of the
colony of Santo Domingo. Diego's ambition and the splendid surroundings
he provided for himself aroused the suspicions of the crown. As a
resulted, in 1511 of the crown established the audiencia, a new
political institution intended to check the power of the governor. The
first audiencia was simply a tribunal composed of three judges
whose jurisdiction extended over all the West Indies. In this region, it
formed the highest court of appeal. Employment of the audiencia
eventually spread throughout Spanish America.
The tribunal's influence grew, and in 1524 it was designated the
Royal Audiencia of Santo Domingo, with jurisdiction in the Caribbean,
the Atlantic coast of Central America and Mexico, and the northern coast
of South America, including all of what is now Venezuela and part of
present-day Colombia. As a court representing the crown, the audiencia
was given expanded powers that encompassed administrative, legislative,
and consultative functions; the number of judges increased
correspondingly. In criminal cases the audiencia's decisions
were final, but important civil suits could be appealed to the Royal and
Supreme Council of the Indies (Real y Supremo Consejo de las Indias) in
Spain.
The Council of the Indies, created by Charles V in 1524, was the
Spanish crown's main agency for directing colonial affairs. During most
of its existence, the council exercised almost absolute power in making
laws, administering justice, controlling finance and trade, supervising
the church, and directing armies.
The arm of the Council of the Indies that dealt with all matters
concerning commerce between Spain and its colonies in the Americas was
the House of Trade (Casa de Contrataci�n), organized in 1503. Control
of commerce in general, and of tax collection in particular, was
facilitated by the designation of monopoly seaports on either side of
the Atlantic Ocean. During most of the colonial period, overseas trade
consisted largely of annual convoys between monopoly ports. Trade
between the colonies and countries other than Spain was prohibited. The
crown also restricted trade among the colonies. These restrictions
hampered economic activity in the New World and encouraged contraband
traffic.
The Roman Catholic Church became the primary agent in spreading
Spanish culture in the Americas. The ecclesiastical organization
developed for Santo Domingo and later extended throughout Spanish
America reflected a union of church and state actually closer than that
prevailing in Spain itself. The Royal Patronage of the Indies (Real
Patronato de las Indias, or, as it was called later, the Patronato Real)
served as the organizational agent of this affiliation of the church and
the Spanish crown.
Santo Domingo's prestige began to decline in the first part of the
sixteenth century with the conquest of Mexico by Hern�n Cort�s in 1521
and the discovery there, and later in Peru, of great wealth in gold and
silver. These events coincided with the exhaustion of the alluvial
deposits of gold and the dying off of the Indian labor force in Santo
Domingo. Large numbers of colonists left for Mexico and Peru; new
immigrants from Spain largely bypassed Santo Domingo for the greater
wealth to be found in lands to the west. The population of Santo Domingo
dwindled, agriculture languished, and Spain soon became preoccupied with
its richer and vaster mainland colonies.
The stagnation that prevailed in Santo Domingo for the next 250 years
was interrupted on several occasions by armed engagements, as the French
and the English attempted to weaken Spain's economic and political
dominance in the New World. In 1586 the English admiral, Sir Francis
Drake, captured the city of Santo Domingo and collected a ransom for its
return to Spanish control. In 1655 Oliver Cromwell dispatched an English
fleet, commanded by Sir William Penn, to take Santo Domingo. After
meeting heavy resistance, the English sailed farther west and took
Jamaica instead.
The withdrawal of the colonial government from the northern coastal
region opened the way for French buccaneers, who had a base on Tortuga
Island (Ile de la Tortue), off the northwest coast of present-day Haiti,
to settle on Hispaniola in the mid- seventeenth century. Although the
Spanish destroyed the buccaneers' settlements several times, the
determined French would not be deterred or expelled. The creation of the
French West India Company in 1664 signalled France's intention to
colonize western Hispaniola. Intermittent warfare went on between French
and Spanish settlers over the next three decades; however, Spain,
hard-pressed by warfare in Europe, could not maintain a garrison in
Santo Domingo sufficient to secure the entire island against
encroachment. In 1697, under the Treaty of Ryswick, Spain ceded the
western third of the island to France. The exact boundary of this
territory (Saint-Domingue--now Haiti) was not established at the time of
cession and remained in question until 1929.
During the first years of the eighteenth century, landowners in the
Spanish colony did little with their huge holdings, and the sugar
plantations along the southern coast were abandoned because of
harassment by pirates. Foreign trade all but ceased, and almost all
domestic commerce took place in the capital city.
The Bourbon dynasty replaced the Habsburgs in Spain in 1700. The new
regime introduced innovations--especially economic reforms--that
gradually began to revive trade in Santo Domingo. The crown
progressively relaxed the rigid controls and restrictions on commerce
between the mother country and the colonies and among the colonies. The
last convoys sailed in 1737; the monopoly port system was abolished
shortly thereafter. By the middle of the century, both immigration and
the importation of slaves had increased.
In 1765 the Caribbean islands received authorization for almost
unlimited trade with Spanish ports; permission for the Spanish colonies
in the Americas to trade among themselves followed in 1774. Duties on
many commodities were greatly reduced or were removed altogether. By
1790 traders from any port in Spain could buy and sell anywhere in
Spanish America, and by 1800 Spain had opened colonial trade to all
neutral vessels.
As a result of the stimulus provided by the trade reforms, the
population of the colony of Santo Domingo increased from about 6,000 in
1737 to approximately 125,000 in 1790. Of this number, about 40,000 were
white landowners, about 25,000 were black or mulatto freedmen, and some
60,000 were slaves. The composition of Santo Domingo's population
contrasted sharply with that of the neighboring French colony of
Saint-Domingue, where some 30,000 whites and 27,000 freedmen extracted
labor from at least 500,000 black slaves. To the Spanish colonists,
Saint- Domingue represented a powder keg, the eventual explosion of
which would echo throughout the island.
Dominican Republic - HAITI AND SANTO DOMINGO
Although they shared the island of Hispaniola, the colonies of
Saint-Domingue and Santo Domingo followed disparate paths. Cultural
differences explained the contrast to some extent, but the primary
divergence was economic. Saint-Domingue was the most productive
agricultural colony in the Western Hemisphere, and its output
contributed heavily to the economy of France. By contrast, Santo Domingo
was a small colony with little impact on the economy of Spain.
Prosperous French plantation owners sought to maximize their gain
through increased production for a growing world market. Thus, they
imported great numbers of slaves from Africa and drove this captive work
force ruthlessly.
Although by the end of the eighteenth century economic conditions
were improving, landowners in Santo Domingo did not enjoy the same level
of wealth attained by their French counterparts in Saint-Domingue. The
absence of market-driven pressure to increase production enabled the
domestic labor force to practice subsistence agriculture and to export
at low levels. For this reason, Santo Domingo imported far fewer slaves
than did Saint-Domingue. Spanish law also allowed a slave to purchase
his freedom and that of his family for a relatively small sum. This
contributed to the higher proportion of freedmen in the Spanish colony;
by the turn of the century, freedmen actually constituted the majority
of the population. Also in contrast to conditions in the French colony,
this population profile contributed to a somewhat more egalitarian
society, plagued much less by the schisms of race.
Stimulated to some degree by a revolution against the monarchy that
was well underway in France, the inevitable explosion took place in
Saint-Domingue in August 1791. The initial reaction of many Spanish
colonists to news of the slaughter of Frenchmen by armies of rebellious
black slaves was to flee Hispaniola entirely. Spain, however, saw in the
unrest an opportunity to seize all, or part, of the western third of the
island through an alliance of convenience with the British. These
intentions, however, did not survive encounters in the field with forces
led by the former slave, Fran�ois-Dominique Toussaint Louverture. In
recognition of his leadership against the Spanish (under whose banner he
had begun his military career), the British, and rebellious royalists
and mulattoes, Toussaint was named governor general of Saint-Domingue by
the French Republic in 1796. By the next year, Spain had surrendered the
entire island to his rule. This action reflected not only Spain's
growing disengagement from its colony, but also its setbacks in Europe
and its relative decline as a world power.
Although France nominally enjoyed sovereignty over the entire island
of Hispaniola, it was prevented from establishing an effective presence
or administration in the east by continuing conflict between the
indigenous forces led by Toussaint--and later by Jean-Jacques
Dessalines--and an expeditionary force dispatched to Hispaniola by Napol�on
Bonaparte in 1802 in an effort to bring the island more firmly under
French control. Upon defeating the French, Dessalines and his followers
established the independent nation of Haiti in January 1804. A small
French presence, however, remained in the former Spanish colony.
Dessalines attempted to take the city of Santo Domingo in March 1805,
but he turned back after receiving reports of the approach of a French
naval squadron.
By 1808 a number of �migr� Spanish landowners had returned to Santo
Domingo. These royalists had no intention of living under French rule,
however, and they sought foreign assistance for a rebellion that would
restore Spanish sovereignty. Help came from the Haitians, who provided
arms, and from the British, who occupied Saman� and blockaded the port
of Santo Domingo. The remaining French representatives fled the island
in July 1809.
The 1809 restoration of Spanish rule ushered in an era referred to by
some historians as Espa�a Boba (Foolish Spain). Under the despotic rule
of Ferdinand VII, the colony's economy deteriorated severely. Some
Dominicans began to wonder if their interests would not best be served
by the sort of independence movement that was sweeping the South
American colonies. In keeping with this sentiment, Spanish lieutenant
governor Jos� N��ez de C�ceres announced the colony's independence
as the state of Spanish Haiti on November 30, 1821. C�ceres requested
admission to the Republic of Gran Colombia (consisting of what later
became Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela), recently proclaimed
established by Sim�n Bol�var and his followers. While the request was
in transit, however, the president of Haiti, Jean-Pierre Boyer, decided
to invade Santo Domingo and to reunite the island under the Haitian
flag.
The twenty-two years of Haitian occupation witnessed a steady
economic decline and a growing resentment of Haiti among Dominicans. The
agricultural pattern in the former Spanish colony came to resemble the
one prevailing in all of Haiti at the time-- that is, mainly subsistence
cultivation with little or no production of export crops. Boyer
attempted to enforce in the new territory the Rural Code (Code Rural) he
had decreed in an effort to improve productivity among the Haitian
yeomanry, but the Dominicans proved no more willing to adhere to its
provisions than the Haitians had been. Increasing numbers of Dominican
landowners chose to flee the island rather than to live under Haitian
rule; in many cases, Haitian administrators encouraged such emigration,
confiscated the holdings of the �migr�s, and redistributed them to
Haitian officials. Aside from such bureaucratic machinations, most of
the Dominicans' resentment of Haitian rule developed because Boyer, the
ruler of an impoverished country, did not (or could not) provision his
army. The occupying Haitian forces lived off the land in Santo Domingo,
commandeering or confiscating what they needed to perform their duties
or to fill their stomachs. Dominicans saw this as tribute demanded by
petty conquerors, or as simple theft. Racial animosities also affected
attitudes on both sides; black Haitian troops reacted with reflexive
resentment against lighter-skinned Dominicans, while Dominicans came to
associate the Haitians' dark skin with the oppression and the abuses of
occupation.
Religious and cultural life also suffered under the Haitian
occupation. The Haitians, who associated the Roman Catholic Church with
the French colonists who had so cruelly exploited and abused them before
independence, confiscated all church property in the east, deported all
foreign clergy, and severed the ties of the remaining clergy to the
Vatican. For Dominicans, who were much more strongly Roman Catholic and
less oriented toward folk religion than the Haitians, such actions
seemed insulting and nihilistic. In addition, upper-class Haitians
considered French culture superior to Spanish culture, while Haitian
soldiers and others from the lower class simply disregarded Hispanic
mores and customs.
The emigration of upper-class Dominicans served to forestall
rebellion and to prolong the period of Haitian occupation because most
Dominicans reflexively looked to the upper class for leadership.
Scattered unrest and isolated confrontations between Haitians and
Dominicans undoubtedly occurred; it was not until 1838, however, that
any significant organized movement against Haitian domination began.
Crucial to these stirrings was a twenty-year-old Dominican, of a
prominent Santo Domingo family, who had returned home five years earlier
after seven years of study in Europe. The young student's name was Juan
Pablo Duarte.
Dominican history can in many ways be encompassed by a series of
biographies. The personality and attributes of Duarte, however, ran
counter to those of most of the country's caudillos. Duarte was an
idealist, an ascetic, a genuine nationalist, a man of principle, and a
romantic in a romantic age. Although he played no significant part in
its rule, he is considered the father of his country. He certainly
provided the inspiration and impetus for the achievement of independence
from Haiti. Shocked, when he returned from Europe, by the deteriorated
condition of Santo Domingo, the young student resolved to establish a
resistance movement that would eventually throw off the Haitian yoke. He
dubbed his movement La Trinitaria (The Trinity) because its original
nine members had organized themselves into cells of three; the cells
went on to recruit as separate organizations, maintaining strict
secrecy, with little or no direct contact among themselves in order to
minimize the possibility of detection or betrayal to the Haitian
authorities. Young recruits flocked to Duarte's banner (almost
literally, for it was Duarte who designed the modern Dominican flag) as
a result of the pent- up resentment under Haitian rule. Despite its
elaborate codes and clandestine procedures, La Trinitaria was eventually
betrayed to the Haitians. It survived largely intact, however, emerging
under the new designation, La Filantr�pica, to continue its work of
anti-Haitian agitation.
Despite their numbers and their base of popular support, the
Trinitarios (as the rebels still referred to themselves) required a
political disruption in Haiti proper to boost their movement toward its
ultimate success. The overthrow of Boyer in the Revolution of 1843
provided a catalyst for the Dominican rebels. Charles Rivi�re-H�rard
replaced Boyer as president of Haiti. Like most Haitian leaders, he
required a transition period in which to deal with competitors and to
solidify his rule. Rivi�re-Herard apparently identified one disaffected
Haitian faction in the administration of the eastern territory; his
crackdown on this group extended to the Trinitarios as well, because
apparently there had been some fruitless contacts between the Dominicans
and some liberal Haitians. The increased pressure induced Duarte to
leave the country temporarily in search of support in other Latin
American states, mainly Colombia and Venezuela. In December 1843, a
group of Duarte's followers urged him to return to Santo Domingo. They
feared that their plans for an insurrection might be betrayed to the
Haitians and had therefore resolved to carry them through quickly.
Duarte sailed as far north from Caracas as the island of Cura�ao, where
he fell victim to a violent illness. When he had not arrived home by
February 1844, the rebels, under the leadership of Francisco del Rosario
S�nchez and Ram�n Mella, agreed to launch their uprising without him.
On February 27, 1844--thereafter celebrated as Dominican Independence
Day--the rebels seized the Ozama fortress in the capital. The Haitian
garrison, taken by surprise and apparently betrayed by at least one of
its sentries, retired in disarray. Within two days, all Haitian
officials had left Santo Domingo. Mella headed the provisional governing
junta of the new Dominican Republic. Duarte, finally recovered, returned
to his country on March 14. The following day he entered the capital
amidst great adulation and celebration. As is so often the case in such
circumstances, the optimism generated by revolutionary triumph would
eventually give way to the disillusion caused by the struggle for power.
Dominican Republic - SANTANA AND BAEZ
Two leaders dominated the period between 1844 and 1864: General Pedro
Santana Familias and Buenaventura B�ez M�ndez. Dissimilar in
appearance and temperament, the two alternated in power by means of
force, factionalism, and repeated efforts to secure their country's
protection or annexation by a foreign power. Their unprincipled,
self-serving dominance did much to entrench the tradition of caudillo
rule in the Dominican Republic.
The Infant Republic
Santana's power base lay in the military forces mustered to defend
the infant republic against Haitian retaliation. Duarte, briefly a
member of the governing junta, for a time commanded an armed force as
well. He was temperamentally unsuited to generalship, however, and the
junta eventually replaced him with General Jos� Mar�a Imbert. Duarte
assumed the post of governor of the Cibao, the northern farming region
administered from the city of Santiago de los Caballeros, commonly known
as Santiago. In July 1844, Mella and a throng of other Duarte supporters
in Santiago urged him to take the title of president of the republic.
Duarte agreed to do so, but only if free elections could be arranged.
Santana, who felt that only the protection of a great power could assure
Dominican safety against the Haitian threat, did not share Duarte's
enthusiasm for the electoral process. His forces took Santo Domingo on
July 12, 1844, and they proclaimed Santana ruler of the Dominican
Republic. Mella, who attempted to mediate a compromise government
including both Duarte and Santana, found himself imprisoned by the new
dictator. Duarte and S�nchez followed Mella into prison and
subsequently into exile.
Although in 1844 a constituent assembly drafted a constitution, based
on the Haitian and the United States models, which established
separation of powers and legislative checks on the executive, Santana
proceeded to emasculate the document that same year by demanding the
inclusion of Article 210, which granted him untrammeled power
"during the current war" against Haiti.
As it turned out, the Dominicans repelled the Haitian forces, on both
land and sea, by December 1845. Santana's dictatorial powers, however,
continued throughout his first term (1844-48). He consolidated his power
by executing anti-Santana conspirators, by rewarding his close
associates with lucrative positions in government, and by printing paper
money to cover the expenses of a large standing army, a policy that
severely devalued the new nation's currency. Throughout his term,
Santana also continued to explore the possibility of an association with
a foreign power. The governments of the United States, France, and Spain
all declined the offer.
Santana responded to general discontent, prompted mainly by the
deteriorating currency and economy, by resigning from the presidency in
February 1848 and retiring to his ranch in the province of El Seibo. The
Council of Secretaries of State, made up of former cabinet members,
selected minister of war Manuel Jim�nez to replace Santana in August
1848. Jim�nez displayed little enthusiasm and no aptitude as a ruler.
His tenure, which would probably have been brief in any case, ended in
May 1849. The violent sequence of events that culminated in Jim�nez's
departure began with a new invasion from Haiti, this time led by
self-styled emperor Faustin Soulouque. Santana returned to prominence at
the head of the army that checked the Haitian advance at Las Carreras in
April 1849. As the Haitians retired, Santana pressed his advantage
against Jim�nez. After some brief skirmishes between his forces and
those loyal to the president, Santana took control of Santo Domingo and
the government on May 30, 1849.
Although Santana once again held the reins of power, he declined to
formalize the situation by standing for office. Instead, he renounced
the temporary mandate granted him by the legislature and called for an
election--carried out under an electoral college system with limited
suffrage--to select a new president. Santana favored Santiago Espaillat,
who won a ballot in the Congress on July 5, 1849; Espaillat declined to
accept the presidency, however, knowing that he would have to serve as a
puppet so long as Santana controlled the army. This cleared the way for
B�ez, president of the legislature, to win a second ballot, which was
held on August 18, 1849.
B�ez made even more vigorous overtures to foreign powers to
establish a Dominican protectorate. Both France (B�ez's personal
preference) and the United States, although still unwilling to annex the
entire country, expressed interest in acquiring the bay and peninsula of
Saman� as a naval or commercial port. Consequently, in order to
preserve its lucrative trade with the island nation and to deny a
strategic asset to its rivals, Britain became more actively involved in
Dominican affairs. In 1850 the British signed a commercial and maritime
treaty with the Dominicans. The following year, Britain mediated a peace
treaty between the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
B�ez's first term established the personal rivalry with Santana that
dominated Dominican politics until the latter's death in 1864. President
B�ez purged Santana's followers (santanistas) from the
government and installed his own sycophants (baecistas) in
their place, pardoned a number of Santana's political opponents,
reorganized the military in an effort to dilute Santana's power base,
and apparently conceived a plan to create a militia that would serve as
a counterforce to the army.
Seeing his influence clearly threatened, Santana returned to the
political arena in February 1853, when he was elected to succeed B�ez.
The general moved quickly to deal with B�ez, who had once been a
colonel under his command. In a public address on July 3, 1853, Santana
denounced B�ez as a collaborator under the Haitian occupation (which
was true) and a paid agent of influence for the Haitians after
independence (which may have been true, although not to the extent that
Santana declared). Publicly characterizing B�ez's presence in the
nation a threat to security, Santana exercised his authority under
Article 210 of the constitution and expelled the former president from
the Dominican Republic.
Although he enjoyed considerable popularity, Santana confronted
several crises during his second term. In February 1854, a constituent
assembly promulgated a new, liberal constitution that eliminated the
dictatorial powers granted by Article 210. With his control over the
army restored, however, Santana readily forced the adoption of a new
constitution restoring most of the excised prerogatives of the
executive. On the international front, renewed annexation talks between
the Dominican and the United States governments aroused the concern of
Haitian emperor Soulouque. Motivated, at least in part, by a desire to
prevent the acquisition of any portion of Hispaniola by the slaveholding
United States, Soulouque launched a new invasion in November 1855.
However, Dominican forces decisively defeated the Haitians in a number
of engagements and forced them back across the border by January 1856.
The final crisis of Santana's second term also originated in the
foreign policy sphere. Shortly after the Haitian campaign, the Dominican
and the United States governments signed a commercial treaty that
provided for the lease of a small tract in Saman� for use as a coaling
station. Although Santana delayed implementation of the lease, its
negotiation provided his opponents--including baecistas and the
government of Spain--with an opportunity to decry Yankee imperialism and
to demand the president's ouster. Pressure built to such an extent that
Santana felt compelled to resign on May 26, 1856, in favor of his vice
president, Manuel de la Regla Mota.
Regla Mota's rule lasted almost five months. An empty treasury forced
the new president to discharge most of the army. Thus deprived of the
Dominican rulers' traditional source of power, his government all but
invited the return of B�ez. With the support of the Spanish, B�ez was
named vice president by Regla Mota, who then resigned in B�ez's favor.
Not a forgiving man by nature, B�ez lost little time before denouncing
ex- president Santana and expelling him from the country. Once again, B�ez
purged santanistas from the government and replaced them with
his own men.
B�ez had little time in which to savor his triumph over his rival,
however. Reverting to the policies of his first term, the government
flooded the country with what rapidly became all but worthless paper
money. Farmers in the Cibao, who objected strongly to the purchase of
their crops with this devalued currency, rose against B�ez in what came
to be known as the Revolution of 1857. Their standard-bearer, not
surprisingly, was Santana.
Pardoned by a provisional government established at Santiago de los
Caballeros, Santana returned in August 1857 to join the revolution. He
raised his own personal army and soon dominated the movement. A year of
bloody conflict between the governments of Santiago and Santo Domingo
took a heavy toll in lives and money. Under the terms of a June 1857
armistice, B�ez once again fled to Cura�ao with all the government
funds that he could carry. Santana proceeded to betray the aspirations
of some of his liberal revolutionary followers by restoring the
dictatorial constitution of 1854. Santanismo again replaced baecismo;
only a small group of loyalists realized any benefit from the exchange,
however. Politically, the country continued to walk a treadmill.
Economically, conditions had become almost unbearable for many
Dominicans. The general climate of despair ensured the inevitable
success of Santana's renewed efforts to secure a protector for his
country.
Dominican Republic - Annexation by Spain, 1861-65
On March 17, 1861, Santana announced the annexation of the Dominican
Republic by Spain. A number of conditions had combined to bring about
this reversion to colonialism. The Civil War in the United States had
lessened the Spanish fear of retaliation from the north. In Spain
itself, the ruling Liberal Union of General Leopoldo O'Donnell had been
advocating renewed imperial expansion. And in the Dominican Republic,
both the ruler and a portion of the ruled were sufficiently concerned
about the possibility either of a renewed attack from Haiti or of
domestic economic collapse to find the prospect of annexation
attractive.
Support for annexation did not run as deep as Santana and his clique
had represented to the Spanish, however. The first rebellion against
Spanish rule broke out in May 1861, but it was quashed in short order. A
better organized revolt, under the leadership of the baecista,
General S�nchez, sprang up only a month later. Santana, now bearing the
title of captain general of the Province of Santo Domingo, was forced to
take to the field against his own countrymen as the representative of a
foreign power. The wily Santana lured S�nchez into an ambush, where he
was captured and executed. Despite this service, Santana found his
personal power and his ability to dole out patronage to his followers
greatly restricted under Spanish rule. In a fit of pique, he resigned
the captaincy general in January 1862.
Resentment and rebellion continued, fed by racial tension, excessive
taxation, the failure to stabilize the currency, the uncompensated
requisition of supplies by the Spanish army, heavyhanded reform of local
religious customs by an inflexible Spanish archbishop, and the
restriction of trade to the benefit of the Spanish empire. The Spaniards
quelled more uprisings in 1863, but guerrilla actions continued. In
response to the continuing unrest, a state of siege was declared in
February 1863.
Rebellious Dominicans set up a provisional government in Santiago,
headed by General Jos� Antonio Salcedo Ram�rez, on September 14, 1863.
Their proclamation of an Act of Independence launched what is known as
the War of Restoration. For their part, the Spanish once again turned to
Santana, who received command of a force made up largely of mercenaries;
however, this campaign was the last for the old caudillo. By this time,
his popularity had all but disappeared. Indeed, the provisional
government had denounced Santana and had condemned him to death for his
actions against his countrymen. On June 14, 1864, a broken and
despondent Santana saved the rebels the trouble of carrying out their
sentence. The timing of his death lent credence to speculation that he
had committed suicide, although this belief was never proven.
Meanwhile, the guerrilla war against the Spanish ground on. The
rebels further formalized their provisional rule by replacing Salcedo
(who had advocated the return of B�ez to rule a restored republic) and
by then holding a national convention on February 27, 1865, which
enacted a new constitution and elected Pedro Antonio Pimentel Chamorro
president.
Circumstances began to favor a Spanish withdrawal. The conclusion of
its Civil War promised that the United States would make new efforts to
enforce the Monroe Doctrine, which barred European powers from the
Western Hemisphere. Spanish military forces, unable to contain the
spread of the insurrection, lost even greater numbers of troops to
disease than they did to the guerrillas. The O'Donnell government had
fallen, taking with it any dreams of a renewed Spanish empire. On March
3, 1865, the Queen of Spain approved a decree repealing the annexation
of Santo Domingo.
The Spanish left political chaos in their wake. A power struggle
began between the conservative, cacique-dominated south and the more
liberal Cibao, where the prevalence of medium-sized landholdings
contributed to a more egalitarian social structure. The two camps
eventually coalesced under the banners of separate political parties.
The Cibae�os (residents of the Cibao) adhered to the National Liberal
Party (Partido Nacional Liberal), which became known as the Blue Party
(Partido Azul). The southerners rallied to the Red Party (Partido Rojo).
The conservative Reds effectively employed their numerical
superiority in the capital to force the restoration of B�ez, who
returned triumphantly from exile and assumed the presidency on December
8, 1865. Never again, however, would he exercise the sort of dictatorial
control over the republic that he and Santana had once alternately
enjoyed. The country's institutions had changed. Regional forces
mustered during the War of Restoration had replaced the national army
that previously had done battle with the Haitians. Political power had
likewise been diffused, particularly between the opposing poles of the
Cibao and the south. Under these conditions, it was difficult, if not
impossible, for one man to dominate the entire nation.
Dominican Republic - The Contest for Power, 1865-82
Ulises Heureaux, Luper�n's lieutenant, stood out among his fellow
Dominicans both physically and temperamentally. The illegitimate son of
a Haitian father and a mother who was originally from the island of St.
Thomas, he was distinguished by his blackness from most other contenders
for power, with the exception of Luper�n. As events were to
demonstrate, he also possessed a singular thirst for power and a
willingness to take any measures necessary to attain and to hold it.
During the four years between B�ez's final withdrawal and Heureaux's
ascension to the presidency, seven individuals held or claimed national,
regional, or interim leadership. Among them were Ignacio Mar�a Gonz�lez
Santin, who held the presidency from June to September 1878; Luper�n,
who governed from Puerto Plata as provisional president from October
1879 to August 1880; and Meri�o, who assumed office in September 1880
after apparently fraudulent general elections. Heureaux served as
interior minister under Meri�o; his behind-the-scenes influence on the
rest of the cabinet apparently exceeded that of the president. Although
Meri�o briefly suspended constitutional procedures in response to
unrest fomented by some remaining baecistas, he abided by the
two-year term established under Luper�n and turned the reins of
government over to Heureaux on September 1, 1882.
Heureaux's first term as president was not particularly noteworthy.
The administrations of Luper�n and Meri�o had achieved some financial
stability for the country; political conditions had settled down to the
point that Heureaux needed to suppress only one major uprising during
his two-year tenure. By 1884, however, no single potential successor,
among the various caciques who constituted the republic's ruling group,
enjoyed widespread support. Luper�n, still the leader of the ruling
Blue Party, supported General Segundo Imbert for the post, while
Heureaux backed the candidacy of General Francisco Gregorio Billini. A
consummate dissembler, Heureaux assured Luper�n that he would support
Imbert should he win the election, but Heureaux also had ballot boxes in
critical precincts stuffed in order to assure Billini's election.
Inaugurated president on September 1, 1884, Billini resisted
Heureaux's efforts to manipulate him. Thus denied de facto rule,
Heureaux undermined Billini by spreading rumors to the effect that the
president had decreed a political amnesty so that he could conspire with
ex-president Cesareo Guillermo Bastardo (February 27-December 6, 1879)
against Luper�n's leadership of the Blues. This precipitated a
governmental crisis that resulted in Billini's resignation on May 16,
1885. Vice President Alejandro Woss y Gil succeeded Billini. Heureaux
assumed a more prominent role under the new government; a number of his
adherents were included in the cabinet, and the general himself assumed
command of the national army in order to stem a rebellion led by
Guillermo, whose suicide when he was faced with capture, removed another
potential rival for power and further endeared Heureaux to Luper�n, a
longtime enemy of Guillermo.
Luper�n accordingly supported Heureaux in the 1886 presidential
elections. Opposed by Casimiro de Moya, Heureaux relied on his
considerable popularity and his demonstrated skill at electoral
manipulation to carry the balloting. The blatancy of the fraud in some
areas, particularly the capital, inspired Moya's followers to launch an
armed rebellion. Heureaux again benefited from Luper�n's support in
this struggle; it delayed his inauguration by four months, but it
further narrowed the field of political contenders. Having again
achieved power, Heureaux maintained his grip on it for the rest of his
life.
Several moves served to lay the groundwork for Heureaux's
dictatorship. Constitutional amendments requested by the president and
effected by the Congress extended the presidential term from two to four
years and eliminated direct elections in favor of the formerly employed
electoral college system. To expand his informal power base, Heureaux
(who became popularly known as General Lil�s, thanks to a common
mispronunciation of his first name) incorporated both Reds and Blues
into his government. The president also established an extensive network
of secret police and informants in order to avert incipient rebellions.
The press, previously unhampered, came under new restrictions.
In the face of impending dictatorship, concerned Dominican liberals
turned to the only remaining figure of stature, Luper�n. The elections
of 1888 therefore pitted Heureaux against his political mentor. If the
dictator felt any respect for his former commander, he did not
demonstrate it during the campaign. Heureaux's agents attacked Luper�n's
campaigners and supporters, arresting and incarcerating considerable
numbers of them. Recognizing the impossibility of a free election under
such circumstances, Luper�n withdrew his candidacy, declined the
entreaties of those of his followers who urged armed rebellion, and fled
into exile in Puerto Rico.
Although plots, intrigue, and abortive insurrections continued under
his rule, Heureaux faced no serious challenges until his assassination
in 1899. He continued to govern in mockconstitutional fashion, achieving
reelection through institutionalized fraud. Despite his relatively
secure position, his repression of dissent became more severe, and the
number of political prisoners expanded along with the dictator's
paranoia. Like Santana and B�ez before him, Heureaux sought the
protection of a foreign power, principally the United States. Although
annexation was no longer an option, the dictator did offer to lease the
Saman� Peninsula to the United States. The deal was never consummated,
however, because of opposition from the liberal wing of the Blue Party
and a number of concerned European powers. In 1891 Washington and Santo
Domingo did conclude a reciprocity treaty that allowed twenty-six United
States products free entry into the Dominican market in exchange for
similar duty-free access for certain Dominican goods. The governments of
Germany, Britain, and France all filed official protests over the
treaty, which they saw as detrimental to their most-favored- nation
trading status.
Under Heureaux, the Dominican government considerably expanded its
external debt. Although some improvements to infrastructure resulted,
much of the money went to support the dictator's personal extravagances
and the financial requirements of his police state. The failure to apply
the funds productively exacerbated both domestic budget deficits and
shortfalls in the external balance of payments. In an effort to head off
complete bankruptcy, the government turned to the familiar expedient of
printing paper money. The huge issuance of 1897, however, debased the
currency to such an extent that even Dominicans refused to accept it.
Despite the dictator's comprehensive efforts to repress
opposition--his network of spies and agents extended even to foreign
countries--a revolutionary organization eventually emerged. Established
in Puerto Rico by Horacio V�squez Lajara, a young adherent of Luper�n,
the group called itself the Young Revolutionary Junta (Junta
Revolucionaria de J�venes). Other prominent members of the group
included Federico Vel�squez and Ram�n C�ceres V�squez. The three
returned to their plantations in the Cibao and began to lay the
groundwork for a coordinated rebellion against the widely detested
Heureaux. The impetuous C�ceres, however, opted for a revolution at a
single stroke when the dictator passed through the town of Moca on July
26, 1899. He shot Heureaux several times and left the longtime ruler
fatally wounded amid a startled crowd. C�ceres escaped unharmed.
Dominican Republic - RENEWED CONFLICT, 1899-1916
After a brief period of armed conflict, the revolutionaries
prevailed. V�squez headed a provisional government established in
September 1899. Free, direct elections brought to the presidency Juan
Isidro Jim�nez Pereyra on November 15. The Jim�nez administration
faced a fiscal crisis when European creditors, led by the French, began
to call in loans that had been contracted by Heureaux. Customs fees
represented the only significant source of government revenue at that
time. When the Jim�nez government pledged 40 percent of its customs
revenue to repay its foreign debt, it provoked the ire of the San
Domingo Improvement Company. A United States-based firm, the Improvement
Company had lent large sums to the Heureaux regime. As a result, it had
not only received a considerable percentage of customs revenue, but also
had been granted the right to administer Dominican customs in order to
ensure regular repayment. Stung by the Jim�nez government's resumption
of control over its customs receipts, the directors of the Improvement
Company protested to the United States Department of State. The review
of the case prompted a renewed interest in Washington in Dominican
affairs.
The death of Heureaux, however, had by no means ushered in an era of
political tranquility. Jim�nez's various financial negotiations with
foreign powers had aroused opposition among nationalists, particularly
in the Cibao, who suspected the president of bargaining away Dominican
sovereignty in return for financial settlements. Government forces led
by V�squez put down some early uprisings. Eventually, however, personal
and political competition between Jim�nez and V�squez brought them
into more serious conflict. V�squez's forces proclaimed a revolution on
April 26, 1902; with no real base of support, Jim�nez fled his office
and his country a few days later. Although highly principled, V�squez
was not a strong leader. Squabbles among his followers and opposition to
his government from local caciques grew into general unrest that
culminated in the seizure of power by ex-president Woss y Gil in April
1903.
Dominican politics had once again polarized into two largely
nonideological camps. Where once the Blues and the Reds had contended
for power, now the jimenistas (supporters of Jim�nez; sing., jimenista)
and the horacistas (supporters of V�squez and C�ceres; sing.,
horacista) vied for control. Woss y Gil, a jimenista,
made the mistake of seeking supporters among the horacista camp
and he was overthrown by the jimenista general, Carlos F.
Morales Languasco, in December 1903. Rather than restore the country's
leadership to Jim�nez, however, Morales set up a provisional government
and announced his own candidacy for the presidency-- with C�ceres as
his running mate. The renewed fraternization with the horacistas
incited another jimenista rebellion. This uprising proved
unsuccessful, and Morales and C�ceres were inaugurated on June 19,
1904.
Conflict within the Morales administration between supporters of the
president and those of the vice president debilitated the government. By
late 1905, it became clear that Morales had lost effective control to C�ceres
and the cabinet. Morales resolved to lead a coup against his own
government; his plan was discovered by the horacistas, however,
and he was captured and dispatched into exile. C�ceres assumed the
presidency on December 29, 1905.
The influence of the United States had increased considerably during
the first few years of the twentieth century. United States military
forces had intervened in a minor way to ensure the safety of United
States citizens and to prevent the deployment of warships by European
governments seeking immediate repayment of debt. By 1904 Washington had
begun to take a greater interest in the stability of Caribbean nations,
particularly those--like the Dominican Republic--situated along the
approaches to the forthcoming Panama Canal. The administration of
Theodore Roosevelt took a particular interest in resolving the
republic's economic situation. It negotiated an agreement in June 1904
whereby the Dominican government bought out the holdings of the San
Domingo Improvement Company. The Morales government also agreed to
accept the appointment by the United States government of a financial
agent to oversee the repayment of the outstanding debt to the
Improvement Company from customs duties. This agreement was subsequently
superseded by a financial accord signed between the two governments on
February 7, 1905; under the provisions of this accord, the United States
government assumed responsibility for all Dominican debt as well as for
the collection of customs duties and the allocation of those revenues to
the Dominican government and to the repayment of its domestic and
foreign debt. Although parts of this agreement were rejected by the
United States Senate, it formed the basis for the establishment in April
1905 of the General Customs Receivership, the office through which the
United States government administered the finances of the Dominican
Republic.
The C�ceres government became the financial beneficiary of this
arrangement. Freed from the burden of dealing with creditors, C�ceres
attempted to reform the political system. Constitutional reforms placed
local ayuntamientos (town councils) under the power of the
central government, extended the presidential term to six years, and
eliminated the office of vice president. C�ceres also nationalized
public utilities and established a bureau of public works to administer
them. All of these actions engendered both opposition and support. The
curtailment of local authority particularly irked those caciques who
preferred to rule through compliant ayuntamientos. The
continued financial sovereignty of the Yankees also outweighed the
economic benefits of the receivership in the minds of many nationalistic
Dominicans. Intrigues fomented in exile by Morales, Jim�nez, and others
beset C�ceres. On November 19, 1911, a small group headed by Luis
Tejera assassinated C�ceres as he took his evening drive through the
streets of Santo Domingo.
Dominican Republic - OCCUPATION BY THE UNITED STATES, 1916-24
The assassination of C�ceres turned out to be but the first act of a
frenzied drama that culminated in the republic's occupation by the
United States. The fiscal stability that had resulted from the 1905
receivership eroded under C�ceres's successor, Eladio Victoria y
Victoria; most of the increased outlays went to support military
campaigns against rebellious partisans, mainly in the Cibao. The
continued violence and instability prompted the administration of
President William H. Taft to dispatch a commission to Santo Domingo on
September 24, 1912, to mediate among the warring factions. The presence
of a 750-member force of United States Marines apparently convinced the
Dominicans of the seriousness of Washington's threats to intervene
directly in the conflict; Victoria agreed to step down in favor of a
neutral figure, Roman Catholic archbishop Adolfo Alejandro Nouel
Bobadilla. The archbishop assumed office as provisional president on
November 30.
Nouel proved unequal to the burden of national leadership. Unable to
mediate successfully between the ambitions of rival horacistas
and jimenistas, he stepped down on March 31, 1913. His
successor, Jos� Bordas Vald�s, was equally unable to restrain the
renewed outbreak of hostilities. Once again, Washington took a direct
hand and mediated a resolution. The rebellious horacistas
agreed to a cease-fire based on a pledge of United States oversight of
elections for members of local ayuntamientos and a constituent
assembly that would draft the procedures for presidential balloting. The
process, however, was flagrantly manipulated and resulted in Bordas's
reelection on June 15, 1914. Both horacistas and jimenistas
took offense at this blatant maneuver and rose up against Bordas.
The United States government, this time under President Woodrow
Wilson, again intervened. Where Taft had cajoled the combatants with a
clear intimation of military action, Wilson delivered an ultimatum:
elect a president or the United States will impose one. The Dominicans
accordingly selected Ram�n B�ez Machado as provisional president on
August 27, 1914. Comparatively fair presidential elections held on
October 25 returned Jim�nez to the presidency. Despite his victory,
however, Jim�nez felt impelled to appoint leaders and prominent members
of the various political factions to positions in his government in an
effort to broaden its support. The internecine conflicts that resulted
had quite the opposite effect, weakening the government and the
president and emboldening Secretary of War Desiderio Arias to take
control of both the armed forces and the Congress, which he compelled to
impeach Jim�nez for violation of the constitution and the laws.
Although the United States ambassador offered military support to his
government, Jim�nez opted to step down on May 7, 1916.
Arias never formally assumed the presidency. The United States
government had apparently tired of its recurring role as mediator and
had decided to take more direct action. United States forces had already
occupied Haiti by this time. The initial military
administrator of Haiti, Rear Admiral William Caperton, had actually
forced Arias to retreat from Santo Domingo by threatening the city with
naval bombardment on May 13. The first Marines landed three days later.
Although they established effective control of the country within two
months, the United States forces did not proclaim a military government
until November. Most Dominican laws and institutions remained intact
under military rule, although the shortage of Dominicans willing to
serve in the cabinet forced the military governor, Rear Admiral Harry S.
Knapp, to fill a number of portfolios with United States naval officers.
The press and radio were censored for most of the occupation, and public
speech was limited.
The surface effects of the occupation were largely positive. The
Marines restored order throughout most of the republic (with the
exception of the eastern region); the country's budget was balanced, its
debt was diminished, and economic growth resumed; infrastructure
projects produced new roads that linked all the country's regions for
the first time in its history; a professional military organization, the
Dominican Constabulary Guard, replaced the partisan forces that had
waged a seemingly endless struggle for power. Most Dominicans,
however, greatly resented the loss of their sovereignty to foreigners,
few of whom spoke Spanish or displayed much real concern for the welfare
of the republic.
The most intense opposition to the occupation arose in the eastern
provinces of El Seibo and San Pedro de Macor�s. From 1917 to 1921, the
United States forces battled a guerrilla movement in that area known as
the gavilleros. The guerrillas enjoyed considerable support
among the population, and they benefited from a superior knowledge of
the terrain. The movement survived the capture and the execution of its
leader, Vicente Evangelista, and some initially fierce encounters with
the Marines. However, the gavilleros eventually yielded to the
occupying forces' superior firepower, air power (a squadron of six
Curtis Jennies), and determined (often brutal) counterinsurgent methods.
After World War I, public opinion in the United States began to run
against the occupation. Warren G. Harding, who succeeded Wilson in March
1921, had campaigned against the occupations of both Haiti and the
Dominican Republic. In June 1921, United States representatives
presented a withdrawal proposal, known as the Harding Plan, which called
for Dominican ratification of all acts of the military government,
approval of a loan of US$2.5 million for public works and other
expenses, the acceptance of United States officers for the
constabulary--now known as the National Guard (Guardia Nacional)--and
the holding of elections under United States supervision. Popular
reaction to the plan was overwhelmingly negative. Moderate Dominican
leaders, however, used the plan as the basis for further negotiations
that resulted in an agreement allowing for the selection of a
provisional president to rule until elections could be organized. Under
the supervision of High Commissioner Sumner Welles, Juan Bautista Vicini
Burgos assumed the provisional presidency on October 21, 1922. In the
presidential election of March 15, 1924, Horacio V�squez Lajara handily
defeated Francisco J. Peynado. V�squez's Alliance Party (Partido
Alianza) also won a comfortable majority in both houses of Congress.
With his inauguration on July 13, control of the republic returned to
Dominican hands.
Dominican Republic - THE ERA OF TRUJILLO
The V�squez administration shines in Dominican history like a star
amid a gathering storm. After the country's eight years of subjugation,
V�squez took care to respect the political and civil rights of the
population. An upswing in the price of export commodities, combined with
increased government borrowing, buoyed the economy. Public works
projects proliferated. Santo Domingo expanded and modernized. This brief
period of progress, however, ended in the resurgent maelstrom of
Dominican political instability. The man who would come to occupy the
eye of this political cyclone was Rafael Trujillo.
Although a principled man by Dominican standards, V�squez was also a
product of long years of political infighting. In an effort to undercut
his primary rival, Federico Vel�squez, and to preserve power for his
own followers, the president agreed in 1927 to a prolongation of his
term from four to six years. There was some debatable legal basis for
the move, which was approved by the Congress, but its enactment
effectively invalidated the constitution of 1924 that V�squez had
previously sworn to uphold. Once the president had demonstrated his
willingness to disregard constitutional procedures in the pursuit of
power, some ambitious opponents decided that those procedures were no
longer binding. Dominican politics returned to their pre-occupation
status; the struggle among competing caudillos resumed.
Trujillo occupied a strong position in this contest. The commander of
the National Army (Ej�rcito Nacional, the new designation of the armed
force created under the occupation), Trujillo came from a humble
background. He had enlisted in the National Police in 1918, a time when
the upper-class Dominicans, who had formerly filled the officer corps,
largely refused to collaborate with the occupying forces. Trujillo
harbored no such scruples. He rose quickly in the officer corps, while
at the same time he built a network of allies and supporters. Unlike the
more idealistic North American sponsors of the constabulary, Trujillo
saw the armed force not for what it should have been--an apolitical
domestic security force--but for what it was: the main source of
concentrated power in the republic.
Having established his power base behind the scenes, Trujillo was
ready by 1930 to assume control of the country. Although elections were
scheduled for May, V�squez's extension in office cast doubt on their
potential fairness. (V�squez had also eliminated from the constitution
the prohibition against presidential reelection.) This uncertainty
prompted Rafael Estrella Ure�a, a political leader from Santiago, to
proclaim a revolution in February. Having already struck a deal with
Trujillo, Estrella marched on the capital; army forces remained in their
barracks as Trujillo declared his "neutrality" in the
situation. The ailing V�squez, a victim of duplicity and betrayal, fled
the capital. Estrella assumed the provisional presidency.
Part of the arrangement between Estrella and Trujillo apparently
involved the army commander's candidacy for president in the May
elections. As events unfolded, it became clear that Trujillo would be
the only candidate that the army would permit to participate; army
personnel harassed and intimidated electoral officials and eliminated
potential opponents. A dazed nation stood by as the new dictator
announced his election with 95 percent of the vote. After his
inauguration in August, and at his express request, the Congress issued
an official proclamation announcing the commencement of "the Era of
Trujillo."
The dictator proceeded to rule the country like a feudal lord for
thirty-one years. He held the office of president from 1930 to 1938 and
from 1942 to 1952. During the interim periods, he exercised absolute
power, while leaving the ceremonial affairs of state to puppet
presidents such as his brother, H�ctor Bienvenido Trujillo Molina, who
occupied the National Palace from 1952 to 1960, and Joaqu�n Balaguer
Ricardo, an intellectual and scholar who served from 1960 to 1961.
Although cast in the mold of old- time caudillos such as Santana and
Heureaux, Trujillo surpassed them in efficiency, rapacity, and utter
ruthlessness. Like Heureaux, he maintained a highly effective secret
police force that monitored (and eliminated, in some instances)
opponents both at home and abroad. Like Santana, he relied on the
military as his primary support. Armed forces personnel received
generous pay and perquisites under his rule, and their ranks and
equipment inventories expanded. Trujillo maintained control over the
officer corps through fear, patronage, and the frequent rotation of
assignments, which inhibited the development of strong personal
followings. The other leading
beneficiaries of the dictatorship--aside from Trujillo himself and his
family--were those who associated themselves with the regime both
politically and economically. The establishment of state monopolies over
all major enterprises in the country brought riches to the Trujillos and
their cronies through the manipulation of prices and inventories as well
as the outright embezzlement of funds.
Generally speaking, the quality of life improved for the average
Dominican under Trujillo. Poverty persisted, but the economy expanded,
the foreign debt disappeared, the currency remained stable, and the
middle class expanded. Public works projects enhanced the road system
and improved port facilities; airports and public buildings were
constructed, the public education system grew, and illiteracy declined.
These advances might well have been achieved in even greater measure
under a responsive democratic government, but to Dominicans, who had no
experience with such a government, the results under Trujillo were
impressive. Although he never tested his personal popularity in a free
election, some observers feel that Trujillo could have won a majority of
the popular vote up until the final years of his dictatorship.
Ideologically, Trujillo leaned toward fascism. The trappings of his
personality cult (Santo Domingo was renamed Ciudad Trujillo under his
rule), the size and architectural mediocrity of his building projects,
and the level of repressive control exercised by the state all invited
comparison with the style of his contemporaries, Hitler in Germany and
Mussolini in Italy. Basically, however, Trujillo was not an ideologue,
but a Dominican caudillo expanded to monstrous proportions by his
absolute control of the nation's resources. His attitude toward
communism tended toward peaceful coexistence until 1947, when the Cold
War winds from Washington persuaded him to crack down and to outlaw the
Dominican Communist Party (Partido Comunista Dominicano--PCD). As
always, self-interest and the need to maintain his personal power guided
Trujillo's actions.
Although conspiracies--both real and imagined--against his rule
preoccupied Trujillo throughout his reign, it was his adventurous
foreign policy that drew the ire of other governments and led directly
to his downfall. Paradoxically, his most heinous action in this arena
cost him the least in terms of influence and support. In October 1937,
Trujillo ordered the massacre of Haitians living in the Dominican
Republic in retaliation for the discovery and execution by the Haitian
government of his most valued covert agents in that country. The
Dominican army slaughtered as many as 20,000 largely unarmed men, women,
and children, mostly in border areas, but also in the western Cibao.
News of the atrocity filtered out of the country slowly; when it reached
the previously supportive administration of President Franklin D.
Roosevelt in the United States, Secretary of State Cordell Hull demanded
internationally mediated negotiations for a settlement and indemnity.
Trujillo finally agreed. The negotiations, however, fixed a ludicrously
low indemnity of US$750,000, which was later reduced to US$525,000 by
agreement between the two governments. Although the affair damaged
Trujillo's international image, it did not result in any direct efforts
by the United States or by other countries to force him from power.
In later years, the Trujillo regime became increasingly isolated from
the governments of other nations. This isolation compounded the
dictator's paranoia, prompting him to increase his foreign
interventionism. To be sure, Trujillo did have cause to resent the
leaders of certain foreign nations, such as Cuba's Fidel Castro Ruz, who
aided a small, abortive invasion attempt by dissident Dominicans in
1959. Trujillo, however, expressed greater concern over Venezuela's
President R�mulo Betancourt (1959-64). An established and outspoken
opponent of Trujillo, Betancourt had been associated with some
individual Dominicans who had plotted against the dictator. Trujillo
developed an obsessive personal hatred of Betancourt and supported
numerous plots of Venezuelan exiles to overthrow him. This pattern of
intervention led the Venezuelan government to take its case against
Trujillo to the Organization of American States (OAS). This development
infuriated Trujillo, who ordered his foreign agents to assassinate
Betancourt. The attempt, on June 24, 1960, injured, but did not kill,
the Venezuelan president. The incident inflamed world opinion against
Trujillo. The members of the OAS, expressing this outrage, voted
unanimously to sever diplomatic relations and to impose economic
sanctions on the Dominican Republic.
The firestorm surrounding the Betancourt incident provoked a review
of United States policy toward the Dominican Republic by the
administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The United States had
long tolerated Trujillo as a bulwark of stability in the Caribbean; some
in Washington still saw him as a desirable counterforce to the Castro
regime. Others, however, saw in Trujillo another Fulgencio Batista--the
dictator Castro deposed in 1959--ripe for overthrow by radical,
potentially communist, forces. Public opinion in the United States also
began to run strongly against the Dominican dictatorship. In August
1960, the United States embassy in Santo Domingo was downgraded to
consular level. According to journalist Bernard Diederich, Eisenhower
also asked the National Security Council's Special Group (the
organization responsible for approving covert operations) to consider
the initiation of operations aimed at Trujillo's ouster. On May 30,
1961, Trujillo was assassinated. According to Diederich, the United
States Central Intelligence Agency supplied the weapons used by the
assassins.
Dominican Republic - THE POST-TRUJILLO ERA
Transition to Elected Government
At the time of his assassination, Trujillo was seventy years old. He
had left no designated successor. It soon became clear that the
conspirators had planned his assassination more thoroughly than the
subsequent seizure of government, which never took place. Puppet
President Balaguer remained in office, allowing the late dictator's son,
Rafael Trujillo Lovat�n (also called Rafael, Jr., or Ramfis), to return
from Paris and assume de facto control. Ramfis lacked the dynamism of
his father, however, and he eventually fell into a dispute with his two
uncles over potential liberalization of the regime. The "wicked
uncles"--H�ctor and Jos� Arismendi Trujillo Molina--returned to
the republic from exile in November 1961. Ramfis, having little
enthusiasm for a power struggle, fled the country.
Opposition from Washington, made very plain by the deployment of
United States warships off the Dominican coast, blunted the ambitions of
the uncles and forced them to resume their exile only days later.
Balaguer retained the presidency. As a prot�g� of the fallen dictator,
however, he had neither a power base nor a popular following. Popular
unrest, punctuated by a general strike, forced Balaguer to share power
with a seven-member Council of State, established on January 1, 1962.
The council included Balaguer and the two surviving assassins of
Trujillo, Antonio Imbert Barrera and Luis Amiama T�o (the others having
been slain by Trujillo's security service). The council lasted only
sixteen days, however, before air force general Pedro Rodr�guez
Echavarr�a overthrew it in a coup d'�tat. Rodr�guez's attempt at rule
also foundered on the rocks of popular protest and opposition from the
United States. Less senior officers seized the general, deported him,
and restored the council minus Balaguer, who had also been exiled.
The restored Council of State guided the country until elections
could be organized. The leading candidates were Juan Bosch Gavi�o, a
scholar and poet, who had organized the opposition Dominican
Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Dominicano--PRD) in exile,
and Viriato Fiallo of the National Civic Union (Uni�n C�vica
Nacional--UCN). In the balloting of December 20, 1963, the conservative
image of the UCN and its association with the country's economic elite
benefited Bosch, whose support came mainly from the urban lower class.
Bosch won the election with 64 percent of the vote; the PRD also
captured two-thirds majorities in both houses of the legislature.
The Bosch administration was very much an oddity in Dominican history
up to that point: a freely elected, liberal, democratic government that
expressed concern for the welfare of all Dominicans, particularly those
of modest circumstances, those whose voices had never really been heard
before in the National Palace. The 1963 constitution separated church
and state, guaranteed civil and individual rights, and endorsed civilian
control of the military. These and other changes, such as land reform,
struck conservative landholders and military officers as radical and
threatening, particularly when juxtaposed against three decades of
somnolent authoritarianism under Trujillo. The hierarchy of the Roman
Catholic Church also resented the secular nature of the new
constitution, in particular its provision for legalized divorce. The
hierarchy, along with the military leadership and the economic elite,
also feared communist influence in the republic, and they warned of the
potential for "another Cuba." The result of this concern and
opposition was a military coup on September 25, 1963.
Dominican Republic - Civil War and United States Intervention, 1965
A fractious campaign ensued between the country's two leading
political figures: Bosch and Balaguer. Bosch's appeal was tempered by
fear; many Dominicans felt that his reelection would rekindle the
violence of April 1965. This trepidation aided Balaguer, who also
appealed to conservative voting sectors such as peasants, women
(considered to be more religious than men), and businesspeople. Balaguer
thus won handily, garnering 57 percent of the vote in balloting held
July 1, 1966. His Reformist Party (Partido Reformista--PR) also captured
majorities in the Congress.
Balaguer went on to serve as president for twelve years. A relative
nonentity under Trujillo, he demonstrated, once in power, the astuteness
with which he had studied the techniques of the late dictator. Even
though as a conservative he theoretically was more secure against
military machinations, he actively sought to head off opposition from
the armed forces by rewarding officers loyal to him, purging those he
suspected, and rotating everyone's assignments on a regular and frequent
basis. He curtailed nonmilitary opposition through selective (compared
to the Trujillo years) repression by the National Police. His reelection
in 1970 and in 1974 was accomplished largely through intimidation. The
PRD, the only viable, broad-based opposition party, boycotted both
elections to safeguard the well-being of those who would have been their
candidates.
The Dominican economy expanded at a record rate under Balaguer.
Favorable international prices for sugar provided the basis for this
so-called Dominican miracle. Foreign investment, foreign borrowing,
foreign aid, the growth of tourism, and extensive public works programs
also contributed to high levels of growth. By the late 1970s, however,
the expansion had slowed considerably as sugar prices dipped and oil
prices rose. Rising inflation and unemployment diminished support for
the government, particularly among the middle class.
The PRD, feeling the mood of the population and sensing support from
the administration of United States president Jimmy Carter, nominated
Silvestre Antonio Guzm�n Fern�ndez to oppose Balaguer in the elections
of May 16, 1978. A relatively heavy 70 percent turnout seemed to favor
the PRD; early returns confirmed this as Guzm�n built a sizable lead.
Early in the morning of May 17, however, military units occupied the
Central Electoral Board and impounded the ballots. Clearly, Balaguer was
attempting to nullify the balloting or to falsify the results in his
favor. Only forceful remonstrances by the Carter administration, backed
up by a naval deployment, moved Balaguer to allow the resumption of the
vote count. Two weeks later, Guzm�n's victory was officially announced.
Dominican Republic - Antonio Guzm�n, 1978-82
Guzm�n's assumption of office on August 16, 1978, presented many
political challenges to both him and the republic. Mindful of the fate
of Juan Bosch sixteen years before, Guzm�n determined to move slowly in
the area of social and economic reforms and to deal as directly as
possible with the threat of political pressure from the armed forces. He
attacked the latter problem first with a program of military
depoliticization that included the removal or the reassignment of
general officers of questionable loyalty or professionalism, the
promotion of younger and more apolitical officers than those who had
held sway under Balaguer, and the institution of a formal training
course for officers and enlisted personnel that stressed the
nonpolitical role of the armed forces in a democratic society. This
campaign was largely successful, and it constituted the major legacy
left by Guzm�n to his successor, Salvador Jorge Blanco.
Politically, Guzm�n was restrained to some extent by the unusual
outcome of the 1978 elections. Although the Central Electoral Board
acknowledged the PRD's victories in the races for the presidency and the
Chamber of Deputies (the lower house of Congress), it managed through
some creative counting--apparently taking the number of ballots not used
in some provinces and dividing them among the top two vote-getters--to
give Balaguer's PR a sixteen to eleven majority in the Senate. This
essentially granted the PR a legislative veto over any initiatives Guzm�n
might wish to launch, and it also became a factor in the president's
cautious approach to reform.
Some observers felt that Guzm�n's economic and social background--he
was a wealthy cattle rancher from the Santiago area--influenced his
economic policies as well. Despite his nationalization of public
transportation and an increase in the minimum wage, more reform-minded
politicians, even within his own party, criticized the president for his
inadequate response to continued economic decline. Jorge was one of Guzm�n's
leading critics in this area; ironically, he too, would be confronted
with the stark realities of the economy and the lack of acceptable
options available to the president after his own election in 1982. Faced with the continually rising
oil prices and declining sugar prices, Guzm�n opted for politically
unpopular austerity policies, including a steep increase in the retail
price of gasoline. Compounding to the general woes of a slowed economy
was the extensive damage wreaked on the country by Hurricane David in
August 1979.
In retrospect, the Guzm�n administration represented a bridge
between lingering post-Trujillo authoritarianism and a more liberal,
democratic style of politics and government. Guzm�n's
professionalization of the military was a significant contribution to
this process. Although the Dominican economic situation plagued him,
Guzm�n handled matters with sufficient competence to allow for the
election of Jorge on the PRD ticket on May 16, 1982. (Guzm�n had
pledged not to seek reelection.) Jorge's leading opponents had been PR
candidate Balaguer and Bosch, who had split from the PRD and had formed
his own party, the Dominican Liberation Party (Partido de la Liberaci�n
Dominicana--PLD). For reasons never fully explained, Guzm�n committed
suicide in July 1982; he was said to have been depressed by allegations
of corruption and nepotism in his administration. His vice president,
Jacobo Majluta Azar, served out the remainder of the term. Guzm�n's
suicide prevented what would have been a historic event--the peaceful
transfer of power from one freely and fairly elected president to
another. Jorge's administration also fell victim to corruption and the
effects of economic austerity. With the election and peaceful return to
power of Balaguer in 1986, a tradition of fair electoral competition
appeared to be developing; democracy seemed to be taking root in the
Dominican Republic.
Dominican Republic - The Society and Environment
The Dominican Republic is located on the island of Hispaniola (La
Isla Espa�ola), which it shares with Haiti to the west. The
388-kilometer border between the two was established in a series of
treaties, the most recent of which was the 1936 Protocol of Revision of
the Frontier Treaty (Tratado Fronterizo) of 1929. The country is shaped
in the form of an irregular triangle. The short side of the triangle is
388 kilometers long, while the two long sides form 1,575 kilometers of
coastline along the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, and the Mona
Passage. The total area of the country is approximately 48,442 square
kilometers. Although it boasts the highest elevations in the Antilles,
it also has a saltwater lake below sea level.
Natural Regions
The mountains and valleys of the Dominican Republic divide the
country into the northern, the central, and the southwestern regions.
The northern region, bordering the Atlantic Ocean, consists of the
Atlantic coastal plain, the Cordillera Septentrional (or Northern
Mountain Range), the Valle del Cibao (Cibao Valley), and the Saman�
Peninsula. The Atlantic coastal plain is a narrow strip that extends
from the northwestern coast at Monte Cristi to Nagua, northwest of the
Saman� Peninsula. The Cordillera Septentrional is south of, and runs
parallel to, the coastal plain. Its highest peaks rise to an elevation
of over 1,000 meters. The Valle del Cibao lies south of the Cordillera
Septentrional. It extends 240 kilometers from the northwest coast to the
Bah�a de Saman� in the east and ranges in width from 15 to 45
kilometers. To the west of the ridge lies the Valle de Santiago and to
the east is the Valle de la Vega Real. The Saman� Peninsula is an
eastward extension of the northern region, separated from the Cordillera
Septentrional by an area of swampy lowlands. The peninsula is
mountainous; its highest elevations reach 600 meters.
The central region is dominated by the Cordillera Central (Central
Range); it runs eastward from the Haitian border and turns southward at
the Valle de Constanza (or Constanza Valley) to end in the Caribbean
Sea. This southward branch is known as the Sierra de Ocoa. The
Cordillera Central is 2,000 meters high near the Haitian border and
reaches a height of 3,087 meters at Pico Duarte, the highest point in
the country. An eastern branch of the Cordillera Central extends through
the Sierra de Yamas� to the Cordillera Oriental (Eastern Range). The
main peaks of these two mountain groups are not higher than 880 meters.
The Cordillera Oriental is also known as the Sierra de Seibo.
Another significant feature of the central region is the Caribbean
coastal plain, which lies south of the foothills of the Sierra de Yamas�
and the Cordillera Oriental. It extends 240 kilometers from the mouth of
the Ocoa River to the extreme eastern end of the island. The Caribbean
coastal plain is 10 to 40 kilometers wide and consists of a series of
limestone terraces that gradually rise to a height of 100 to 120 meters
at the northern edge of the coastal plains at the foothills of the
Cordillera Oriental. Finally, the central region includes the Valle de
San Juan in the western part of the country; the valley extends 100
kilometers from the Haitian border to the Bah�a de Ocoa.
The southwestern region lies south of the Valle de San Juan. It
encompasses the Sierra de Neiba, which extends 100 kilometers from the
Haitian border to the Yaque del Sur River. The main peaks are roughly
2,000 meters high, while other peaks range from 1,000 to 1,500 meters.
On the eastern side of the Yaque del Sur lies the Sierra de Mart�n Garc�a,
which extends twenty-five kilometers from the river to the Llanura de
Azua (Plain of Azua).
The Hoya de Enriquillo, a structural basin that lies south of the
Sierra de Neiba, is also within the southwestern region. The basin
extends ninety-five kilometers from the Haitian border to the Bah�a de
Neiba and twenty kilometers from the Sierra de Neiba to the Sierra de
Baoruco. The Sierra de Baoruco extends seventy kilometers from the
Haitian border to the Caribbean Sea. Its three major peaks surpass 2,000
meters in height. TheProcurrente de Barahona (Cape of Barahona) extends
southward from the Sierra de Baoruco and consists of a series of
terraces.
<>Rivers
It has been estimated that the country's total population in mid-1990
will total slightly more than 7 million. Growth had been high since official census taking began in 1920.
The rate peaked during the 1950s at 3.6 percent per year. During the
1960s and the 1970s, the population grew at 2.9 percent annually; by the
mid-1980s, the rate was thought to be roughly 2.5 percent.
The total fertility rate, although still relatively high, declined
substantially in the 1970s. Official estimates indicated that half of
all married women used contraceptives. Both the Dominican Republic's
continued high population growth rates and field studies belied this
figure, however.
The government began supporting family planning in 1967, but clinics
were concentrated in the cities and larger towns. Both the Secretariat
of State for Public Health and Social Welfare (Secretaria de Estado de
Salud P�blica y Asistencia Social-- SESPAS) and the National Population
and Family Council (Consejo Nacional de Poblaci�n y Familia--CNPF)
offered family planning services. By the 1980s, both organizations were
trying to make their programs more responsive to the needs of rural
families.
Birth control encountered strong resistance from both sexes,
especially in the countryside and the smaller cities. Although women did
use a variety of substances believed to be contraceptives or
abortifacients, there was considerable misinformation about family
planning. Many men believed birth control threatened their masculinity;
some women refused to use contraception because some methods produced
nausea and other side effects. International migrants were more aware of
the available options, and some women migrants did use modern
contraceptives.
The traditional (non-administrative) subregions of the country
included Valdesia and Yuma in the southeast, Enriquillo and Del Valle in
the southwest, and the Central Cibao, the Eastern Cibao, and the Western
Cibao in the north. The subregion of densest settlement was Valdesia on
the southern coast, which contained the nation's capital and more than
40 percent of the population. Roughly one-third of all Dominicans lived
in the National District. The other major area of settlement was the
Central Cibao, which accounted for more than 20 percent of total
population.
Administrations had attempted to control both population growth and
its distribution since the 1950s. The Trujillo regime fostered
agricultural colonies scattered throughout the countryside and strung
along the western frontier with Haiti. Some were coupled with irrigation
projects.
Beginning in the late 1970s, the government also set up industrial
free zones around the country. Although the desire to increase
employment was the government's primary motivation, the establishment of
free zones had as a secondary goal the dispersal of industrialization,
and thus migration, away from Santo Domingo. Intercensal growth rates on
the subregional and the provincial levels reflected these trends. Puerto
Plata grew at more than twice the rate of the nation as a whole in the
1970s. The southeast, especially the National District, expanded much
faster than most of the country, as did La Romana.
<>Migration
The Dominican Republic was a country of migrants in the late 1980s;
according to the 1981 census, nearly one-quarter of the population was
living in a province other than that in which they had been born.
Surveys in the mid-1970s found that nearly twothirds of city dwellers
and half of those in the countryside had migrated at least once. Rural
areas in general, especially in the Central Cibao, have experienced
significant levels of outmigration . The movement of peasants and the
landless into the republic's growing cities accounted for the lion's
share of migration. Indeed, Dominicans had even coined a new word, campuno,
to describe the rural-urban campesino migrant. The principal
destinations for migrants were the National District followed by the
provinces of La Romana, Independencia, and San Pedro de Macor�s. In the National District, 46 percent of the inhabitants were
migrants. The industrial free zones were the other major destinations
for migrants in the 1970s.
Women predominated in both rural-urban and urban-rural migration.
Men, however, were more likely than women to move from city to city or
from one rural area to another. In general, migrants earned more than
non-migrants, and they suffered lower rates of unemployment, although
underemployment was pervasive. Urban-rural migrants had the highest
incomes. This category, however, consisted of a select group of educated
and skilled workers, mostly government officials, teachers, and the
like, who moved from cities to assume specific jobs in rural areas. They
received higher wages as a recompense for the lack of urban amenities in
villages.
Migrants spoke of the migration chain (cadena) that tied
them to other migrants and to their home communities. Kin served as the
links in the chain. They cared for family, lands, and businesses left
behind, or, if they had migrated earlier, assisted the new arrivals with
employment and housing.The actual degree of support families could, or
were willing to, give a migrant varied widely.
The process of rural-urban migration typically involved a series of
steps. The migrant gradually abandoned agriculture and sought more
non-agricultural sources of income. Migrants rarely arrived in the
largest, fastest growing cities "green" from the countryside.
They acquired training and experience in intermediate-sized cities and
in temporary nonfarm jobs en route.
International migration played a significant role in the livelihood
of many Dominicans. Anywhere from 8 to 15 percent of the total
population resided abroad. Estimates of those living and working in the
United States in the mid-1980s ranged from 300,000 to as high as
800,000. Roughly 200,000 more were in San Juan, Puerto Rico, many of
them presumably waiting to get into the United States. Most migrants
went to New York; but by the mid-1980s, their destinations also included
other cities of the eastern seaboard.
A sizable minority (about one-third) emigrated because they were
unemployed, but most did so to attain higher income, to continue their
educations, or to join other family members. In the early 1980s, most
emigrants were relatively better educated and more skilled than the
Dominican populace as a whole. Most came from cities, but the middling
to large farms of the overpopulated Cibao also sent large numbers.
Working in the United States has become almost an expected part of the
lives of Dominicans from families of moderate means.
Cash remittances from Dominicans living abroad have become an
integral part of the national economy. Migrants' remittances constituted
a significant percentage of the country's foreign exchange earnings. Remittances were used to finance businesses,
to purchase land, and to bolster the family's standard of living. Most
migrants saw sending money as an obligation. Although some refused to
provide assistance, they came under severe criticism from both fellow
migrants and those who remained behind. The extent to which a migrant's
earnings were committed to family and kin was sometimes striking.
Anthropologist Patricia Pessar has described a Dominican man in New York
who earned less than US$500 per month. He sent US$150 of this to his
wife and children and another US$100 to his parents and unmarried
siblings.
Money from abroad had a multiplier effect; it spawned a veritable
construction boom in migrants' hometowns and neighborhoods in the
mid-1970s. Migrants also contributed significant sums for the church
back home. Many parish priests made annual fund-raising trips to New
York to seek donations for local parish needs.
The impact of out-migration was widely felt; in one Cibao village,
for example, 85 percent of the households had at least one member living
in New York in the mid-1970s. Where migration was common, it altered a
community's age pyramid: eighteen to forty-five-year olds (especially
males) were essentially missing. Emigration also eliminated many of the
natural choices for leadership roles in the home community.
the Dominican Republic.
For most of its history, the Dominican Republic was overwhelmingly
rural; in 1920 over 80 percent of its populace lived in the countryside,
and by 1950 more than 75 percent still did. Substantial urban expansion
began in the 1950s, and it gained tremendous momentum in the 1960s and
the 1970s. Urban growth rates far outdistanced those of the country as a
whole. The urban population expanded at 6.1 percent annually during the
1950s, 5.7 percent annually during the 1960s-70s, and 4.7 percent
annually through the mid-1980s.
In the early decades of the twentieth century, the country was not
only largely rural, but the urban scene itself was dominated by smaller
cities and provincial capitals. In 1920 nearly 80 percent of all city
dwellers lived in cities with fewer than 20,000 inhabitants. Santo
Domingo, with barely more than 30,000 residents, accounted for only 20
percent of those in cities. By contrast, in 1981 Santo Domingo alone
accounted for nearly half of all city dwellers; it had more than double
the total population of all cities of more than 20,000 inhabitants.
Cities with fewer than 20,000 inhabitants--nearly 80 percent of the
urban population in 1920--constituted less than 20 percent by 1981.
Santo Domingo approximately doubled its population every decade
between 1920 and 1970. Its massive physical expansion, however, dated
from the 1950s. The growth in industry and urban construction, coupled
with Trujillo's expropriations of rural land, fueled rural-urban
migration and the city's growth. The republic's second and third largest
cities, Santiago de los Caballeros (Santiago) and La Romana, also
experienced significant expansion in the 1960s and the 1970s. Santiago,
the center of traditional Hispanic culture, drew migrants from the
heavily populated Cibao. La Romana, in the southeast, grew as a center
of employment in the sugar industry as well as a center of tourism and
the site of the country's first industrial free zone.
Population growth and rural-urban migration strained cities' capacity
to provide housing and amenities. Nevertheless, in 1981 nearly 80
percent of city dwellings had access to potable water; 90 percent had
some type of sewage disposal; and roughly 90 percent had electricity.
The proportion of homes with piped, or easy access to, potable water,
however, actually declined by nearly ten percentage points in the 1970s.
By the mid-1980s, there was an estimated housing deficit of some 400,000
units. The need was greatest in the National District. Squatter
settlements grew in response to the scarcity of low-cost urban housing.
In Santo Domingo these settlements were concentrated along the Ozama
River and on the city's periphery.
Public housing initiatives dated from the late 1950s, when Trujillo
built some housing for government employees of moderate means. Through
the mid-1980s, a number of different government agencies played a role.
The Technical Secretariat of the Presidency (Secretaria T�cnica de la
Presidencia) designed a variety of projects in Santo Domingo. The Aid
and Housing Institute and the National Housing Institute bore primary
responsibility for the financing and the construction of housing. In
general, public efforts had been hampered by extreme decentralization in
planning, coupled with equally extreme concentration in decision making.
The primary beneficiaries of public projects were usually from lower
income groups, although they were not the poorest urban dwellers.
Projects targeted those making at least the minimum wage, i.e., the
lower middle sector or the more stable segments of the working class.
the Dominican Republic.
Although almost all migrants were assimilated into Dominican society
(often with surprising speed and thoroughness), immigration had a
pervasive influence on the ethnic and the racial configurations of the
country. Within a generation or two, most immigrants were considered
Dominican even though the family might well continue to maintain contact
with relatives in the country of origin. Both the elite and the middle
segments of society recruited new members with each economic expansion.
The main impetus to immigration was the rise of sugar production in the
late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Nonetheless, some
groups had earlier antecedents, while others arrived as late as the
1970s.
Nineteenth-century immigrants came from a number of places. Roughly
5,000 to 10,000 North American freedmen, principally Methodists, came in
response to an offer of free land made during the period of Haitian
domination (1822-44). Most, however, were city dwellers, and they
quickly returned to the United States. A few small settlements remained
around Santiago, Puerto Plata, and Saman�. They eventually were
assimilated, although English was still widely used in the region of
Saman�. Sephardic Jews arrived from Cura�ao in the late eighteenth
century and, in greater numbers, following independence from Haiti in
1844. They were assimilated rapidly; both their economic assets and
their white ancestry made them desirable additions from the point of
view of the Dominican criollos. Canary Islanders arrived during the late
colonial period as well, in response to the improved economic conditions
of the 1880s. Spaniards settled during the period of renewed Spanish
occupation (1861-65); many Spanish soldiers stayed after the War of
Restoration. Germans established
themselves--principally in Puerto Plata--primarily in the tobacco trade.
The expansion of the sugar industry in the late nineteenth century
drew migrants from every social stratum. Cubans and Puerto Ricans, who
began arriving in the 1870s, aided in the evolution of the sugar
industry as well as in the country's intellectual development. In
addition, significant numbers of laborers came from the British, the
Dutch, and the Danish islands of the Caribbean. They also worked in
railroad construction and on the docks. Initial reaction to their
presence was negative, but their educational background (which was
superior to that of most of the rural populace), their ability to speak
English (which gave them an advantage in dealing with North American
plantation owners), and their industriousness eventually won them a
measure of acceptance. They founded Protestant churches, Masonic lodges,
mutual aid societies, and a variety of other cultural organizations.
Their descendants enjoyed a considerable measure of upward mobility
through education and religion. They were well represented in the
technical trades (especially those associated with the sugar industry)
and on professional baseball teams.
Arabs--Lebanese and lesser numbers of Palestinians and Syrians--first
arrived in the late nineteenth century, and they prospered. Their
assimilation was slower, however, and many still maintained contacts
with relatives in the Middle East. Italians also arrived during this
period and were assimilated rapidly, as did a few immigrants from
diverse South American countries. A few Chinese came from other
Caribbean islands and established a reputation for diligence and
industriousness. More followed with the United States occupation of the
island (1916-24). They began as cooks and domestic servants; a number of
their descendants were restaurateurs and hotel owners.
The most recent trickle of immigrants entered the country from the
1930s to the 1980s. Many founded agricultural colonies that suffered a
high rate of attrition. Among the groups were German Jews (1930s),
Japanese (after World War II), and Hungarians and Spaniards (both in the
1950s). More Chinese came from Taiwan and Hong Kong in the 1970s; by the
1980s, they were the second fastest growing immigrant group (Haitians
being the first). Many had sufficient capital to set up manufacturing
firms in the country's industrial free zones.
Dominican Republic - Haitians
The Elite
The last 200 years transformed the composition and the configuration
of the country's elite. Nonetheless, at the end of the 1980s, the
Dominican Republic continued to be a country where a relatively small
number of families controlled great wealth, while the majority of the
population lived in poverty. The middle stratum struggled (at its lower
end) to maintain economic standing and to expand its political
participation and (at its upper reaches) to gain greater social
acceptance and economic prosperity. Hispanic-Mediterranean ideals about
the proper mode of life and livelihood continued to be significant. The
primary social division was between two polar groups: the elite (la
gente buena or la gente culta) and the masses.
The first half of the nineteenth century had eliminated many of the
noteworthy families of the colonial era. During the period of Haitian
domination, many prominent landowners liquidated their holdings and
left. The War of Restoration against Spain permitted some social and
economic upward mobility to members of the lower classes who had enjoyed
military success. An increase in sugarcane production brought immigrants
of European extraction who were assimilated rapidly. Poorer elite
families saw a chance to improve their financial status through marriage
to recently arrived and financially successful immigrants. Even more
well-to- do families recognized the advantages of wedding their lineage
and lands to the monied merchant-immigrant clans. Although the Chinese
were generally excluded from this process, and the Arabs encountered
resistance, virtually everyone else found ready acceptance.
This pattern has repeated itself over the years. Each political or
economic wave has brought new families into the elite as it imperilled
the economic standing of others. By the end of the 1980s, this
privileged segment of society was hardly monolithic. The interests of
the older elite families, whose wealth was based mostly on land (and
whose prosperity diminished during the Trujillo years), did not always
match those of families who had amassed their fortunes under Trujillo,
or the interests of those whose money came from the expansion in
industry during the 1960s and the 1970s. The 1965 civil war further
polarized and fragmented many segments of the middle and the upper
classes.
Although rural elite families were relatively monolithic, in Santo
Domingo and Santiago there was a further distinction between families of
the first and the second ranks (la gente de primera and la
gente de segunda). Those of the first rank could claim to be a part
of the 100 families referred to locally as the tutumpote (totem
pole--implying family worship and excessive concern with ancestry).
Those of the second rank had less illustrious antecedents; they included
the descendants of successful immigrants and the nouveaux riches who had
managed to intermarry with more established families.
Family loyalties were paramount, and the family represented the
primary source of social identity. Elite families relied on an extensive
network of kin to maintain their assets. In difficult times, the family
offered a haven; as the situation improved, it provided the vehicle
whereby one secured political position and economic assets. Siblings,
uncles, aunts, cousins, and in-laws comprised the pool from which one
selected trusted business partners and loyal political allies. This
process of networking pervaded every level of society. The elite,
however, profited to a much greater degree from kinship-based networking
than did members of the lower classes.
The number of potential kin grew as an individual's net worth
increased. The successful were obliged, as a matter of course, to bestow
favors on a widely extended group of kin and confreres. Individual
success in the political arena brought with it a host of hangers-on
whose fortunes rose and fell with those of their patron. The well-to-do
tried to limit the demands of less illustrious kin and to secure
alliances with families of equal or greater status. These ties permitted
the extended family to diversify its social and economic capital.
<>The
Middle Sector
The limited availability of adequately paid and steady employment
defined life for most urban Dominicans. Unemployment in the 1980s ranged
between 20 and 25 percent of the economically active population. In
addition, another 25 percent of the work force was considered
underemployed. In Santo Domingo and Santiago, the two largest cities,
roughly 48 percent of the selfemployed , more than half of those paid
piece rates, and 85 percent of temporary workers were underemployed. A
late 1970s survey of five working-class neighborhoods in Santo Domingo
found that 60 percent of household heads had no regular employment. Under such conditions, those workers having regular employment
constituted a relatively privileged segment of the urban populace.
Rural-urban migration made the situation of the urban poor even more
desperate; however, the chances of earning a living were slightly better
in cities than in rural areas, although the advantages of an urban job
had to be weighed against the higher cost of foodstuffs. Landless, or
nearly landless, agricultural laborers might find it difficult to work
even a garden plot, but the rural family could generally get by on its
own food production. For the urban poor, however, the struggle to eat
was relentless.
Under conditions of chronically high unemployment, workers enjoyed
little power or leverage. Protective labor laws were typically limited
in their coverage to workers in private companies with more than ten
employees. Organized labor made significant gains in the early 1960s,
but by the late 1980s only a scant 12 to 15 percent of the labor force
was unionized. The legal code prohibited nearly half of all workers
(public employees and utility workers) from strikes and job actions.
Roughly one-quarter of urban households surveyed in the mid1970s were
headed by women. Even in families with a male breadwinner, a woman was
frequently the more consistent income earner among poorer city dwellers.
Women's economic activities were diverse--if poorly remunerated. They
took in washing and ironing, and they did domestic work. The more
prosperous sewed. Some bought cheap or used items and raffled them off.
A few who could muster the necessary capital ran stalls selling
groceries, cigarettes, and candy, but their trade was minimal. In
smaller towns, women also performed a variety of agricultural processing
tasks: grinding coffee, husking garlic, winnowing beans, and washing pig
intestines.
Like more well-to-do city families, the poor tried, wherever
possible, to maintain ties with their kin in the countryside. Aid and
assistance flowed both ways. Farmers with relatives in the city stayed
with them on trips to town and repaid this hospitality with foodstuffs
from their fields. New rural-urban migrants were assisted by kin who had
already made the transition. The poor were handicapped in these
exchanges because they typically had fewer kin in a position to help.
Nonetheless, the obligation to help was deeply felt. Women who migrated
to cities returned to their families in the countryside as economic
conditions and family needs dictated.
The small urban neighborhood functioned as the center of social life.
Most sharing, mutual aid, and cooperative activity took place within the
confines of a narrow circle of neighbors and kin. Most Dominicans shared
a general belief that neighbors should assist each other in times of
need.
Dominican Republic - RURAL SOCIETY
Most small rural neighborhoods and villages were settled originally
by one or two families. Extensive ties of kinship, intermarriage, and compadrazgo
(coparenthood) developed among the descendants of the original settlers. Most villagers married their near neighbors.
First cousins frequently married, despite the formal legal prohibitions
against this practice. The social life of the countryside likewise
focused on near neighbors, who were frequently direct blood relations.
The bonds of trust and cooperation among these relatives formed at an
early age. Children wandered among the households of extended kin at
will. Peasants distrusted those from beyond their own neighborhoods, and
they were therefore leery of economic relations with outsiders. The
development of community-wide activities and organizations was
handicapped by this widespread distrust. People commonly assumed deceit
in others, in the absence of strong, incontrovertible proof to the
contrary.
Until the latter twentieth century, most joint activities were
kin-based: a few related extended families joined together for whatever
needed attention. The junta was the traditional cooperative
work group. Friends, neighbors, and relatives gathered at a farmer's
house for a day's work. There was no strict accounting of days given and
received. As wage labor became more common, the junta gave way
to smaller cooperative work groups, or it fell into disuse entirely.
In small towns, social life focused on the central park, or the
plaza; in rural neighborhoods most social interaction among non-kin took
place in the stores, the bars, and the pool rooms where men gathered to
gossip. Six-day workweeks left little time for recreation or
socializing. Many farm families came to town on Sundays to shop and to
attend Mass. The women and children generally returned home earlier than
the men to prepare Sunday dinner; the men stayed to visit, or to enjoy
an afternoon cockfight or an important baseball or volleyball game.
Landholding in the late 1980s was both concentrated among large
holders and fragmented at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale. All
but the largest producers faced some constraints in terms of land and
money. Indeed, a national survey conducted in 1985 found extensive rural
poverty. More than 40 percent of the households surveyed owned no land;
another 25 percent had less than half a hectare. Roughly 70 percent of
all families relied on wage labor.
Land reform legislation had had little overall impact on landholding
both because the reforms contained few provisions for land
redistribution and because they were poorly enforced. Redistribution
began in the 1960s with land accumulated by Trujillo and acquired by the
state after his death. By the early 1980s, irrigated rice farms, which
had been left intact and had been farmed collectively, were slated for
division into small, privately owned plots. All told, by 1980 the
Dominican Agrarian Institute (Instituto Agrario Dominicano--IAD) had
distributed state land to approximately 67,000 families--less than 15
percent of the rural population.
Population growth over the past century had virtually eliminated the
land reserves. Parents usually gave children plots of land as they
reached maturity, so that they could marry and begin their own
families.Over the generations, the process had led to extreme land
fragmentation. Contemporary practices adapted to these constraints.
Educating children, setting them up in business, or bankrolling their
emigration limited the number of heirs competing for the family holdings
and assured that the next generation would be able to maintain its
standard of living. One or two siblings (usually the oldest and the
youngest) remained with the parents and inherited the farm. In other
cases, siblings and their spouses stayed on the parental lands; each
couple farmed its own plot of land, but they pooled their labor for many
agricultural and domestic tasks.
Migration served as a safety valve. Migrants' remittances represented an essential component in
many household budgets. These timely infusions of cash permitted
medium-sized landholders to meet expenses during the months before
harvest; they also allowed families to purchase more land. In
communities with a history of fifteen to twenty years of high levels of
emigration, such emigration had an inflationary impact on the local land
market. For those relying on wage labor to earn a living, the impact was
more ambiguous. In some communities, the increase in migration meant
more casual work was available as more family members migrated. In other
instances, migrants' families switched to livestock raising to limit
labor requirements, or they hired an overseer to handle the agricultural
work. Both these practices limited the overall demand for casual labor.
The vast majority (84 percent) of farm women contributed to the
family's earnings. Women devised means of earning income that meshed
with their domestic tasks: they cultivated garden plots, raised small
livestock, and/or helped to tend the family's fields. In addition, many
rural women worked at diverse cottage industries and vending. They sold
everything from lottery tickets to home-made sweets.
In the mid-1980s, approximately 20 percent of rural households were
headed by women. The lack of services in rural areas increased women's
working days with physically demanding and time-consuming domestic
tasks. Single women were further handicapped by the traditional
exclusion of women from mechanized or skilled agricultural work. Women
worked during the laborintensive phases of harvesting and processed
crops like cotton, coffee, tobacco, and tomatoes. They usually earned
piece rates rather than daily wages, and their earnings lagged behind
those of male agricultural laborers.
<>Sugar
Plantations
Most sugar mills and cane fields were concentrated in the southeast
coastal plains. Three large groups owned 75 percent of the land: the
State Sugar Council (Consejo Estatal del Az�carCEA ), Casa Vicini (a
family operation), and Central Romana (formerly owned by Gulf and
Western Corporation). The government created CEA in 1966, largely from
lands and facilities formerly held by the Trujillo family.
In the mid-1980s, there were roughly 4,500 colonos (sugar
planters) who owned some 62,500 hectares. These small to middle-sized
landholders were independent growers who sold their harvested cane to
the sugar mills. Although the level of prosperity of the colonos
varied significantly, some were prosperous enough to hire laborers to
cut their cane and to buy cane from smaller producers. Their actual
number fluctuated widely in response to the market for cane. There were
only 3,200 in 1970; this number had more than doubled by 1980, but it
had then declined by mid-decade.
Some colonos were descendants of former small mill owners
driven out of business during the expansion of sugar production in the
late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. The parents, or
grandparents, of others were either subsistence farmers, who had
switched to cane cultivation in response to rising demand for sugar, or
successful field workers. Like virtually all Dominican farmers, colonos
faced land fragmentation that increased geometrically with each
generation.
Sugar mills continued to be a major source of work for rural
Dominicans, although direct employment peaked at a high of roughly
100,000 workers in the early 1970s. By the mid-1980s, the mills employed
approximately 65,000 workers. The sugar industry generated considerable
indirect employment as well; some observers estimated that as much as 30
percent of the population was directly or indirectly affected by sugar
production. The 40,000 to 50,000 cane cutters constituted the bulk of
the work force. Most were immigrant Haitians or their descendants. In
the sugar industry's highly stratified work force, there were clear
divisions among cane cutters, more skilled workers (largely Dominicans),
clerical staff, and managers. Workers' settlements (bateyes)
dotted the mill and the surrounding fields; they usually included
stores, schools, and a number of other facilities.
Dominican Republic - Mixed Farming
Landholding was less concentrated in the north and the west; mixed
crop and livestock raising dominated agricultural production. Much
production was geared to subsistence, but growers also produced a number
of cash crops such as cacao, tobacco, coffee, and vegetables. The twin
constraints of land and money affected the various strata of rural
society differently, depending on the precise configuration of resources
a family could command, but hardship was widespread.
Those without land were the most hard pressed. Agricultural laborers
rarely enjoyed opportunities for permanent employment. Most worked only
sporadically throughout the year. During periods of high demand for
labor, contractors formed semipermanent work groups that contracted
their services out to farmers. As in much of social life, the individual
stood a better chance if he could couch his request for work in terms of
a personal link of kinship with the prospective employer.
Families that depended on wage labor had very limited resources at
their disposal. Their diet lacked greens and protein; eggs and meat were
luxury items. Such fare as boiled plantains, noodles, and broth often
substituted for the staple beans and rice. Keeping children in school
was difficult because their labor was needed to supplement the family's
earnings.
Those with very little land (less than one hectare) also faced very
severe constraints. Although members of this group had enough land to
meet some of their families' subsistence needs and even sold crops
occasionally, they also needed to resort to wage labor to make ends
meet. Like wage laborers, smallholders had trouble leaving children in
school. The children's prospects were extremely limited, moreover,
because their parents could neither give them land nor educate them. The
daily need for food also limited farmers' ability to work their own
land. Those who were both land-poor and cash-poor faced a dilemma: they
could not work their lands effectively because to do so meant foregoing
wage labor needed to feed their families. A variety of sharecropping
arrangements supplemented wage labor for those smallholders able to
muster some cash or credit. These were of little use to the landless;
only those who had land or money to finance a crop entered into these
schemes. Smallholders and the landless lived enmeshed in a web of
dependent relationships: they depended on their neighbors and kin for
help and assistance, on store owners for credit, and on larger
landholders for employment.
Families with middle-sized holdings (from one to three hectares)
faced slightly different problems. They often had enough land and
financial resources to meet most of their families' food needs and to
earn cash from the sale of crops or livestock. They did not usually need
to work for hire, and sometimes they could hire laborers themselves.
They usually ate better than smallholders, and their children stayed in
school longer. However, although middle holders earned more, they also
had greater needs for cash during the year, particularly if they hired
laborers before harvest.
Even relatively large holders faced seasonal shortages of cash. Their
production costs--especially for hired labor--were typically
higher.Their standard of living was notably higher than that of people
with less land. They generally ate better and could afford meat or fish
more frequently. Although their holdings supported their generation
adequately, subdivision among the family's offspring would typically
leave no heir with more than a hectare or two. Faced with this prospect,
these farmers often encouraged their children to pursue nonagricultural
careers and helped support them financially during their student years.
Almost all farmers depended to varying degrees on credit from local
storekeepers. The landless and the land-poor needed credit simply to
feed their families. Middling landholders used it to tide them over the
lean months before harvest. Prevailing interest rates varied
considerably, but the poorest farmers-- those who could not offer a
harvest as collateral and who usually needed short-term
credit--generally paid the highest rates.
Farmers often depended on storekeepers to market their crops because
they were usually unable to accumulate sufficient produce to make direct
marketing a viable option. Most farmers committed their crops to their
merchant-creditor long before harvest. Store owners could not legally
require that someone who owed them money sell his or her crops to them.
Nonetheless, for the farm family, the possibility of being denied
necessary credit at a time of future need acted as a powerful incentive.
The cycle of debt, repayment, and renewed debt was constant for most.
Traditionally, the local storekeeper aided farmers in ways beyond the
extension of credit. He often established a paternalistic relationship
with his customers; farmers consulted him on matters ranging from land
purchases to conflicts with neighbors. Such patronage carried a hefty
price tag, however; farmers found it difficult to haggle about terms
with a storekeeper who was also a friend or a relative. Studies of
coffee growers in the mid-1970s found that the cost of credit could
easily take one-third to one-half of a middling landholder's profits.
Cooperatives sometimes offered an alternative. The most successful
drew their membership from groups of kin and neighbors already linked by
ties of trust. Cooperatives provided a solution for farmers vexed by the
problem of cash shortfalls. Consumer and savings and loan cooperatives
thus expanded the options for some rural families. Cooperatives have not
ameliorated appreciably the plight of the poorest rural dwellers,
however. Cooperative loans were predicated on a family's ability to pay,
which effectively excluded the landless and the land-poor.
Dominican Republic - FAMILY AND KIN
The family was the fundamental social unit. It provided a bulwark in
the midst of political upheavals and economic reversals. People
emphasized the trust, the assistance, and the solidarity that kin owed
to one another. Family loyalty was an ingrained and unquestioned virtue;
from early childhood, individuals learned that relatives were to be
trusted and relied on, while those outside the family were, implicitly
at least, suspect. In all areas of life and at every level of society, a
person looked to family and kin for both social identity and succor.
Formal organizations succeeded best where they were able to mesh with
pre-existing ties of kinship. Indeed, until the 1960s and the 1970s,
most community activities were kin-based: a few related extended
families joined together for joint endeavors. In the countryside, the
core of extensively related families remained pivotal, despite
large-scale migration and urbanization. If anything, the ties among kin
extended more widely in contemporary society because modern
transportation and communications allowed families to maintain ties over
long distances and during lengthy absences.
In general, the extent to which families interacted, and the people
with whom they interacted, depended on their degree of prosperity.
Families with relatively equal resources shared and cooperated. Where
there was marked disparity in families' wealth, the more prosperous
branches tried to limit the demands made by the poorer ones. On the one
hand, generosity was held in high esteem, and failure to care for kin in
need was disparaged; but on the other hand, families wished to help
their immediate relatives and to give favors to those who could
reciprocate.
A needy relative might receive the loan of a piece of land, some wage
labor, or occasional gifts of food. Another type of assistance was a
form of adoption, by which poorer families gave a child to more affluent
relatives to raise. The adopting family was expected to care for the
child and to see that he or she received a proper upbringing. The
children were frequently little better than unpaid domestic help.
Implicit in the arrangement was the understanding that the child's
biological family, too, would receive assistance from the adopting
family.
Kinship served as a metaphor for relations of trust in general. Where
a kin tie was lacking, or where individuals wished to reinforce one, a
relationship of compadrazgo would often be established. Those
so linked are compadres (coparents or godparents). In common
with much of Latin America, strong emotional bonds linked compadres.
Compadres used the formal usted instead of tu
in addressing one another, even if they were kinsmen. Sexual relations
between compadres were regarded as incestuous. Compadres
were commonly chosen at baptism and marriage, but the relationship
extended to the two sets of parents. The tie between the two sets of
parents was expected to be strong and enduring. Any breach of trust
merited the strongest community censure.
There were three accepted forms of marriage: civil, religious, and
free unions. Both serial monogamy and polygamous unions were socially
accepted. Annulment was difficult to obtain through the Roman Catholic
Church; this fact, in addition to the expense involved, made couples
reluctant to undertake a religious marriage. Civil marriage was
relatively common. Divorce in this case was relatively easy and
uncomplicated. Marriage forms also reflected the individual's life
cycle. Most opted for free unions when they were younger, then settled
into more formal marriages as they grew older and enjoyed more economic
security. Class also played a role: religious marriage was favored by
middle-class and upper-class groups, and it thus indicated higher
socioeconomic status. The ideal marriage involved a formal engagement
and a religious wedding followed by an elaborate fiesta.
No shame accrued to the man who fathered many children and maintained
several women as concubines. Public disapproval followed only if the man
failed to assume the role of "head of the family" and to
support his children. When a free union dissolved, a woman typically
received only the house she and her mate inhabited. The children
received support only if they had been legally recognized by their
father.
Families were usually more stable in the countryside. Since the
partners were usually residing in the midst of their kin, a man could
not desert his wife without disrupting his work relationship with her
family. A woman enjoyed greater leverage when she could rely on her
family to assist if a union failed or when she owned her own land and
thus had a measure of financial independence.
In keeping with the doctrine of machismo, males usually played a
dominant role within the family, and they received the deference due to
the head of the household. There was wide variation in practice,
however. Where a man was absent, had limited economic assets, or was
simply unassertive, a woman would assume the role of head of the family.
Sex role differentiation began early: boys were allowed to run about
unclothed, while girls were much more carefully groomed and dressed.
Bands of boys played unwatched; girls were carefully chaperoned. Girls
were expected to be quiet and helpful; boys enjoyed much greater
freedom, and they were given considerable latitude in their behavior.
Boys and men were expected to have premarital and extramarital sexual
adventures. Men expected, however, that their brides would be virgins.
Parents went to considerable lengths to shelter their daughters in order
to protect their chances of making a favorable marriage.
Parent-child relationships were markedly different depending on the
sex of the parent. Mothers openly displayed affection for their
children; the mother-child tie was virtually inviolate. Informal polls
of money changers in the 1970s indicated that remittances sent from the
United States for Mother's Day exceeded even those sent at Christmas.
Father-child relationships covered a broader spectrum. Ideally, the
father was an authority figure to be obeyed and respected; however,
fathers were typically more removed from daily family affairs than
mothers.
Dominican Republic - RELIGION
More than 90 percent of Dominicans were professed Roman Catholics. In
the late 1980s, the church organization included 1 archdiocese, 8
dioceses, and 250 parishes. There were over 500 clergy, more than 70
percent of whom belonged to religious orders. This yielded a ratio of
nominal Roman Catholics to priests of more than 10,000 to 1. Among Latin
American countries only Cuba, Honduras, and El Salvador had higher
ratios in the late 1980s.
Roman Catholicism is the official religion of the Dominican Republic,
established by a Concordat with the Vatican. For most of the populace,
however, religious practice was limited and formalistic. Few actually
attended Mass regularly. Popular religious practices were frequently far
removed from Roman Catholic orthodoxy. What little religious instruction
most Dominicans traditionally received came in the form of rote
memorization of the catechism. Many people felt that they could best
approach God through intermediaries--the clergy, the saints, witches (brujos),
and curers (curanderos). The saints played an important role in
popular devotion. Curanderos consulted the saints to ascertain
which herbs, roots, and various home cures to employ. Witches (brujos)
also cured by driving out possessive spirits that sometimes seized an
individual.
Many Dominicans viewed the Roman Catholic clergy with ambivalence.
People respected the advice of their local priest, or their bishop, with
regard to religious matters; however, they often rejected the advice of
clergy on other matters on the assumption that priests had little
understanding of secular affairs. Activist priests committed to social
reform were not always well-received because their direct involvement
with parishioners ran counter to the traditional reserve usually
displayed by the Roman Catholic clergy. Villagers often criticized this
social involvement. Nonetheless, the priest was generally the only
person outside their kinship group that people trusted and confided in.
As such, the parish priest often served as an advocate in rural
Dominicans' dealings with larger society.
Foreigners predominated among the clergy. The clergy itself was split
between the traditional, conservative hierarchy and more liberal parish
priests. At the parish level, some priests engaged in community
development projects and in efforts to form comunidades de base
(grass-roots Christian communities), designed to help people organize
and work together more effectively.
The Roman Catholic Church was apolitical during much of the Trujillo
era, although a pastoral letter protested the mass arrests of government
opponents in 1960. This action so incensed Trujillo that he ordered a
campaign of harassment against the Church. Only the dictator's
assassination prevented his planned imprisonment of the country's
bishops. The papal nuncio attempted to administer humanitarian aid
during the 1965 civil war. The bishops also issued various statements
throughout the 1970s and the 1980s, calling for respect for human rights
and an improved standard of living for the majority. In the 1970s,
Bishop Juan Antonio Flores of La Vega campaigned for indemnification for
peasants displaced by the expansion of the Pueblo Viejo mine. Bishop
Juan F. Pepen and Bishop Hugo Polanco Brito both supported the efforts
of peasants and sugar colonos to organize.
Protestants first came as migrants from North America in the 1820s.
West Indian laborers added to their numbers in the late nineteenth and
the early twentieth centuries. By the 1920s, the various Protestant
groups had organized nationally and had established links with North
American Evangelical groups. The main Evangelical groups included the
Seventh Day Adventists, the Dominican Evangelical Church, and the
Assemblies of God. Protestant groups expanded, mainly in the rural
areas, during the 1960s and the 1970s; Pentecostals made considerable
inroads in some regions. With minor exceptions, relations between
Protestants and the Roman Catholic majority were cordial.
Most Haitian immigrants and their descendants adhered to voodoo, and
practiced it in secret because the government and the general population
regarded the folk religion as pagan and African. In Haiti voodoo
encompassed a well-defined system of hierology and ceremonialism.
Dominican Republic - EDUCATION
Formal education included the primary, the secondary, and higher
education levels. The six-year primary cycle was compulsory. Three years
of preschool were offered in some areas, but not on a compulsory basis.
There were several types of secondary school; most students (90 percent)
attended the sixyear liceo, which awarded the bachillerato
certificate upon completion and was geared toward university admission.
Other secondary programs included teacher training schools,
polytechnics, and vocational schools. All primary and secondary schools
were under the formal jurisdiction of the Secretariat of State for
Education and Culture (Secretaria de Estado de Educaci�n y Cultura). In
1984 there were an estimated 5,684 primary schools and 1,664 secondary
schools.
Despite the compulsory nature of primary education, only 17 percent
of rural schools offered all six grades. This explained to some degree
the lower levels of secondary enrollment. For those who did go on to the
secondary level, academic standards were low, the drop-out rate
reportedly was high, and all but the poorest students had to buy their
textbooks--another disincentive to enrollment for many.
The government decreed major curriculum reforms at the primary and
secondary levels in the 1970s in an effort to render schooling more
relevant to students' lives and needs. Expanded vocational training in
rural schools was called for as part of the reforms. Few changes had
been fully implemented by the early 1980s, however. Primary school
teachers were trained in specialized secondary schools; the universities
trained secondary-school teachers. In 1982, however, roughly half of all
teachers lacked the required academic background. A chronic shortage of
teachers was attributable to low pay (especially in rural areas), the
relatively low status of teaching as a career, and an apparent
reluctance among men to enter the profession.
Education expanded at every level in the post-Trujillo era.
Enrollment as a proportion of the primary school-aged population grew by
more than twenty percentage points between the mid-1960s and the
mid-1980s, and that of the secondary school-aged population nearly
quadrupled. By the mid-1980s, the primary school population was
virtually fully enrolled, but only 45 percent of those of secondary
school age were enrolled.
Problems accompanied educational expansion. Teaching materials and
well-maintained facilities were lacking at every level. Salaries and
operational expenses took up most of the education budget, leaving
little surplus for additional investment and growth. In addition,
although an estimated 74 percent of the population was literate in 1986,
the expansion of educational programs and facilities left a sizable
backlog of illiterates largely untouched. Although there were some
programs in adult literacy, in 1981 fully one-third of the population
over twenty-five years of age had never attended school; in some rural
areas the proportion rose to half.
Higher education enjoyed the most spectacular growth. At Trujillo's
death there was one university, the University of Santa Domingo
(Universidad de Santo Domingo), with roughly 3,500 students. By the late
1980s, there were more than twenty-six institutions of higher education
with a total enrollment of over 120,000 students. Legislation created
the National Council of Higher Education (Consejo Nacional de Educaci�n
Superior--CONES) in 1983 to deal with issues surrounding accreditation,
the awarding of degrees, and the coordination of programs on a national
level.
The sole public institution was the Autonomous University of Santo
Domingo (Universidad Aut�noma de Santo Domingo--UASD). The UASD traced
its lineage directly to the Universitas Santi Dominici, established in
1538. Although the university's administration was autonomous, the
government provided all of its funding. This enabled the UASD to offer
courses free of charge to all enrolled students. The student body
reached approximately 100,000 in 1984. The leading private institutions
were the Catholic University Mother and Teacher (Universidad Cat�lica
Madre y Maestra--UCMM), located in Santiago and administered by the
Roman Catholic Church, and the Pedro Henr�quez Ure�a National
University (Universidad Nacional Pedro Henr�quez Ure�a--UNPHU) in
Santo Domingo. In the early 1980s, UCMM had a student body of
approximately 5,000, while UNPHU enrolled approximately 10,000.
Enrollment in private schools also expanded during the postTrujillo
era. Private schools, most of them operated by the Roman Catholic
Church, enjoyed a reputation for academic superiority to public schools.
By the 1970s, they appeared to be the preferred educational option for
the urban middle class.
Dominican Republic - Health and Social Security
Programs offered through the Secretariat of State for Public Health
and Social Welfare (Secretaria de Estado de Salud P�blica y Asistencia
Social--SESPAS) covered 70 to 80 percent of the population in the late
1980s. The Dominican Social Security Institute (Instituto Dominicano de
Seguro Social) covered another 5 percent (or 13 percent of the
economically active population), and the medical facilities of the armed
forces reached an additional 3 to 4 percent. SESPAS had a regionally
based, fivetiered health care system designed to bring primary care to
the whole population. The services ranged from specialized hospitals in
the National District to rural clinics scattered throughout the
countryside.
Both personnel and facilities were concentrated in the two largest
cities. There were roughly 3,700 inhabitants per physician
nationally, for example, but this figure ranged from about 1,650 in the
National District to roughly 5,000 in some southeast provinces and in
the southcentral provinces. Similarly, more than half of all hospital
beds were in the National District and the central Cibao.
SESPAS began a major effort to improve rural health care in the
mid-1970s. By the early 1980s, the government had set up more than 5,000
rural health clinics, health subcenters, and satellite clinics. Doctors,
performing their required year of social services, as well as a variety
of locally hired and trained auxiliary personnel staffed the facilities.
Critics charged that lack of coordination and inadequate management
hampered the program's effectiveness, however. Preventive services
offered through local health workers (who were often poorly trained in
disease prevention and in basic sanitation) were not coordinated with
curative services. In addition, absenteeism was high, and supplies were
lacking. In 1982 there were approximately 2,500 physicians in the
country (a ratio of one physician to 2,600 inhabitants) and 516
dentists.
Life expectancy at birth was 62.6 years for the 1980-84 period, 60.9
years for males and 63.4 for females. The crude mortality rate was 4.7
per 1,000 population in 1981. The infant mortality rate was 31.7 per
1,000 live births in 1982--down from 43.5 per 1,000 in 1975. Early
childhood mortality declined from 5.9 per 1,000 in 1970 to 3.2 in 1980.
The main causes of death in the population as a whole were pulmonary
circulatory diseases and intestinal diseases. Enteritis, diarrheal diseases, and protein energy
malnutrition were the major causes of death in those under four.
Maternal mortality in 1980 was 1.66 deaths per 1,000 live births. The
main causes were toxemia, hemorrhages, and sepsis associated with birth
or abortion. Roughly 60 percent of births were attended by medical
personnel. As of late 1988, the Dominican Republic had reported 701
cases of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS); of these, 65 had
died. Studies of the human immunodeficiency virus conducted in 1986
among sample groups of Dominican homosexual and bisexual males indicated
an infection rate of 8.3 percent, much lower than the 70 percent rate
detected in some similar sample groups in the United States.
Social security coverage included old-age pensions, disability
pensions, survivors' and maternity benefits, and compensation for work
injuries. General tax revenues supplemented employer and employee
contributions. Wage earners, government employees (under special
provisions), and domestic and agricultural workers were eligible,
although the benefits that most domestic and farm workers received were
quite limited. Permanent workers whose salaries exceeded 122 Dominican
Republic pesos per week and the self-employed were excluded. In the
early 1980s, more than 200,000 workers were enrolled. They represented
only about 13 percent of the economically active population, or
approximately 22 percent of wage earners. Most of those enrolled were in
manufacturing, commerce, and construction.
Although the level of government services exceeded that of the
republic's impoverished neighbor, Haiti, limited resources,
inefficiency, and a lagging economy circumscribed the overall impact of
these programs. In 1985 some 8.8 percent of the national budget
supported health services and an additional 6.9 percent funded social
security and welfare programs. From the perspective of the late 1980s,
there appeared little prospect for major improvement in the quality of
life for most Dominicans by the end of the twentieth century.
Dominican Republic - The Economy
LONG DEPENDENT ON SUGAR, the Dominican Republic diversified its
economy during the 1970s and the 1980s to include mining, assembly
manufacturing, and tourism. In 1987, the country's gross domestic
product (GDP) was approximately US$5.6 billion, or roughly US$800 per
capita, which made the island nation the third poorest state in Latin
America. A lower-middle- income country by World
Bank standards, the Dominican Republic depended on
imported oil and, despite diversification, retained its historical
vulnerability to price fluctuations in the world sugar market. Although
poverty continued to be acute for many rural citizens in the 1980s, the
economy had progressed significantly since the 1960s.
Beginning in the late 1960s, the Dominican economy began the arduous
task of diversifying away from sugar. By 1980 the mining industry had
become a major foreign exchange earner; exports of gold, silver,
ferronickel, and bauxite constituted 38 percent of the country's total
foreign sales. In the 1980s, the assembly manufacturing industry,
centered in Industrial Free Zones, began to dominate industrial
activity. During this decade, the number of people employed in assembly
manufacturing rose from 16,000 to nearly 100,000, and that sector's
share of exports jumped from 11 percent to more than 33 percent. Tourism
experienced a similarly dramatic expansion during the 1980s, when the
number of hotel rooms quadrupled. Revenues from tourism surpassed sugar
earnings for the first time in 1984, and by 1989 total foreign exchange
earnings from tourism nearly matched earnings from all merchandise
exports.
Despite indisputable advances, by 1990 the country also faced serious
inflation, chronic balance-of-payments deficits, and a large foreign
debt. More important, whereas the Dominican Republic had made great
strides since the dictatorial rule of Rafael Le�nidas Trujillo Molina
(1930-61), the nation's political economy continued to be strongly
influenced by patronage, graft, and a lingering lack of political will
to confront the traditional institutions that continued to restrain
economic performance.
Dominican Republic - GROWTH AND STRUCTURE OF THE ECONOMY
Only three decades after their arrival on Hispaniola (La Isla Espa�ola)
in 1492, Spanish mercantilists largely abandoned the island in favor of
the gold and silver fortunes of Mexico and Peru. The remaining Spanish settlers briefly
established an economic structure of Indian labor tied to land under the
systems of repartimiento (grants of land and Indian labor) and encomienda
(grants of Indian labor in return for tribute to the crown). The rapid
decline of the Indian population ended the encomienda system by
the mid-1500s, however. Little productive economic activity occurred in
Eastern Hispaniola (the approximate site of the present-day Dominican
Republic). The French assumed control of the western third of the island
in 1697, establishing Saint- Domingue (modern-day Haiti), which
developed into a productive agricultural center on the basis of black
slave labor. In the eastern part of the island, cattle ranching was
common, but farming was limited to comparatively small crops of sugar,
coffee, and cacao.
The Spanish side of Hispaniola slowly developed a plantation economy
during the nineteenth century, much later than the rest of the West
Indies. For much of the century, political unrest disrupted normal
economic activity and hindered development. Corrupt and inefficient
government, by occupying Haitian forces and by self-serving Dominican
caudillos, served mainly to increase the country's foreign debt. After
failing to achieve independence from Spain in the Ten Years' War
(1868-78), Cuban planters fled their homeland and settled in
Hispaniola's fertile Cibao region, where they sowed tobacco and later
cacao. When tobacco prices fell in the late nineteenth century, United
States companies began to invest heavily in the large-scale cultivation
of sugar, a crop that dominated the Dominican economy for most of the
twentieth century.
The rise of the sugar industry represented only one aspect of growing
United States influence on the island in the early twentieth century. In
1904 United States authorities established a receivership over Dominican
customs to administer the repayment of the country's commercial debt to
foreign holders of Dominican bonds. United States forces occupied the
Dominican Republic from 1916 to 1924, for the purposes of restoring
order and limiting European (primarily German) influence. Although
security interests motivated the occupation, the United States also
reaped commercial benefits. Dominican tobacco, cacao, and sugar,
previously exported to French, German, and British markets, were shipped
instead to the United States. The powerful United States sugar companies
came to dominate banking and transportation, and they benefited from the
partition of former communal lands, which allowed the companies to
augment their holdings. Although politically unpopular, the United
States presence helped stabilize Dominican finances and greatly improved
the physical infrastructure, as roads, sanitation systems, ports, and
schools were built. The United States Marines left in 1924, but United
States economic advisors remained to manage customs revenues until 1932,
two years into the thirty-one year Trujillo dictatorship.
For more than three decades, the Trujillo regime invested heavily in
infrastructure, but the bulk of economic benefits accrued to the
dictator, his family, and his associates. Trujillo's primary means of
self-enrichment was the national sugar industry, which he rapidly
expanded in the 1950s despite a depressed international market. In the
process of establishing his enormous wealth, he forced peasants off
their land, looted the national treasury, and built a personal fiefdom
similar to those of the Somoza and the Duvalier families in Nicaragua
and Haiti, respectively. Before his assassination in 1961, Trujillo and
his coterie reputedly possessed more than 600,000 hectares of improved
land and 60 percent of the nation's sugar, cement, tobacco, and shipping
assets. This immense wealth encompassed eighty-seven enterprises,
including twelve of the country's fifteen sugar mills. Although the
economy experienced steady growth under Trujillo, roughly 6 percent a
year in the 1950s, the unequal distribution of that growth impoverished
rural Dominicans as thoroughly as were any of their counterparts
elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere.
The period between Trujillo's assassination and the 1965 civil war
was chaotic economically as well as politically. Instability prompted
capital flight. While demands on spending increased--mainly as a result
of social programs instituted under the presidency of Juan Bosch Gavi�o
(February-September, 1963)-- bureaucratic upheaval hampered the
collection of needed revenue. The country's economy was buoyed to some
extent by infusions of cash from abroad in the forms of foreign aid
(mainly from the United States) and loans.
During the presidency of Joaqu�n Balaguer Ricardo (1966-78), the
country experienced a period of sustained economic growth characterized
by relative political unity, economic diversification, the establishment
of a developmental role for the state, and a more equitable distribution
of the benefits of growth among the citizenry. During its peak growth
period, from 1966 to 1976, the economy expanded at a rate of nearly 8
percent a year, one of the highest growth rates in the world at the
time. With the formation of the National Planning Council in 1966, the
national government assumed a developmental role after centuries of
neglect. The Balaguer administration increased spending on social
services, introduced the Industrial Incentive Law (Law 299) to protect
domestic manufacturing and to spur more import
substitution industries, and promoted mining,
assembly manufacturing, construction, and tourism. Mining in particular
took on a greater role, as that sector's share of exports grew from an
insignificant level in 1970 to 38 percent by 1980. Land reform programs
helped rural dwellers to improve their economic status somewhat, but
government pricing policies and the trend toward urbanization inhibited
growth in rural areas. The country's physical infrastructure--roads,
ports, and airfields-- also expanded.
The apex of the Dominican economic "miracle" came in 1975
when sugar prices peaked, other commodity prices were high, and gold
exports became significant. Despite these fortuitous circumstances, the
country still failed to register a trade surplus that year, an
indication of structural problems in the economy. Economic growth,
slowed by the late 1970s as sugar prices fluctuated and the quadrupling
of oil prices that began in 1973, turned the country's terms
of trade sharply negative. Growing
balance-of-payments shortfalls, declining government revenues resulting
from widespread tax exemptions, and growing expenditures on
state-operated companies rapidly increased the country's debt. The
symbolic, if not the real, end of the Dominican economic
"miracle" arrived in the form of Hurricane David and Hurricane
Frederick in 1979. The two storms killed more than 1,000 Dominicans, and
they caused an estimated US$1 billion in damage.
In the early 1980s, oil prices jumped again, international recession
stifled the local economy, sugar prices hit a forty- year low, and
unprecedentedly high interest rates on foreign loans spiraled the
economy into a cycle of balance-of-payments deficits and growing
external debt. Because economic growth averaged slightly above 1 percent
per annum during the first half of the decade, per capita income
declined. Another devastating blow was dealt in the 1980s by reduced
United States sugar quotas, in response to the lobbying efforts of
domestic producers, which served to cut the volume of Dominican sugar
exports to the United States by 70 percent between 1981 and 1987. The
unstable economic situation prompted the administration of Salvador
Jorge Blanco (1982-86) to enter into a series of negotiations with the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and to begin to restructure government economic policies. In
1983 the Jorge government signed a three-year Extended Fund Facility
with the IMF that called for lower fiscal deficits, tighter credit
policies, and other austerity measures. This paved the way for the first
in a series of rescheduling agreements with foreign creditors. Although
the reschedulings slowed the pace of repayment, the higher consumer
prices that resulted from the agreements sparked food riots. The
administration consequently suspended the agreements. In 1985 the Jorge
government signed a one-year IMF Standby Agreement that included more
austerity measures and the floating of the Dominican Republic peso in relation to the dollar for the first time in decades.
Serious differences of opinion over the pace of reforms again ended the
agreement prematurely, and the electorate ousted Jorge's Dominican
Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Dominicano--PRD) in 1986 in
favor of former president Balaguer, who evoked memories of the economic
growth of the 1970s.
In contrast to Jorge, the Balaguer administration, refusing to
negotiate with the IMF, sought to avoid the austere economic conditions
that IMF agreements usually entailed. The economy expanded rapidly in
1987, but then contracted sharply in 1988, largely in response to
government spending patterns. Balaguer's continued devaluation of the
peso maintained the country's burgeoning export sector and tourist
trade, but eroded the quality of life of poorer Dominicans earning fixed
salaries. The administration's expansionary fiscal policies also fueled
unprecedented inflation (prices rose 60 percent in 1988 alone), which
worsened economic conditions for poor people. By the close of the
decade, the country's foreign debt had reached nearly US$4 billion,
roughly double the 1980 figure.
High levels of inflation, increasing debt, and persistent deficits
masked several positive trends during the 1980s. The most positive
development was the country's rapid diversification away from its
dependence on sugar. New jobs in assembly manufacturing offset many of
the lost jobs in the cane fields. Employment in assembly operations grew
from 16,000 in 1980 to nearly 100,000 by 1989. This represented the
world's fastest growth in free-zone employment during the 1980s. By 1987
the value of assembly exports surpassed that of traditional agricultural
exports. The Dominican Republic also enjoyed the Caribbean's fastest
growth in tourism during the 1980s. Although the mining industry
suffered from low prices and labor disputes, it contributed a
significant percentage of foreign exchange as well. The agricultural
sector also diversified to a limited degree with a new emphasis on the
export of nontraditional items such as tropical fruits (particularly
pineapple), citrus, and ornamental plants to the United States under the
Caribbean Basin Initiative.
Dominican Republic - ECONOMIC POLICY
Fiscal Policy
The Budget Office within the Technical Secretariat of the Presidency
(Secretaria T�cnica de la Presidencia) administered fiscal policies.
The fiscal year (FY) concurred with the calendar year throughout the government,
except in the case of the State Sugar Council (Consejo Estatal de Az�car--CEA),
which ran on the cycle October 1 to September 30. Fiscal authorities
traditionally pursued rather conservative policies, allowing for small
deficits and occasional surpluses. Fiscal deficits grew in the 1980s,
however, as the result of dwindling revenues and increasing losses from
price and exchange-rate subsidies to state-owned enterprises. Revenues,
as a percentage of GDP, fell from 16 percent in 1970 to a low of 10
percent by 1982, placing the Dominican Republic below virtually every
Latin American country in this category. Liberal incentive laws enacted
to spur industrialization during the 1960s and the 1970s were the main
cause of the erosion of the revenue base. Beginning with the Jorge
administration, officials began to increase taxes on an ad hoc basis,
assessing mainly international trade. A moderate expansion of revenues
resulted. Nonetheless, fiscal deficits averaged roughly 5 percent of GDP
a year in the mid-1980s to the late 1980s. The shortfalls were financed
by the printing of more pesos, a policy that accelerated inflation.
Successive governments demonstrated a lack of political will to address
the structural deficiencies on both the expenditure and the revenue
sides of the national budget.
The execution of fiscal policies was influenced by personal and
political custom. For example, many businesses illegally received
tax-exempt status because of political contacts, while other qualified
firms did not. Tax evasion among wealthier Dominicans was common.
Government corruption, particularly among the parastatals, was believed
to be similarly commonplace. The 1989 conviction of former president
Jorge on charges that he and military leaders embezzled large sums on
military contracts illustrated the extent of official corruption. The
lack of competitive bidding on government construction contracts also
contributed to perceptions of fiscal mismanagement. Despite Balaguer's
anticorruption drive of the 1980s,institutionalized graft prevailed.
Expenditures
Government expenditures, as a percentage of GDP, reached 21 percent by
1987, up from an earlier low of 15 percent; both figures were low by the
standards of most developing countries. These data indicated that, with
the exception of the enterprises inherited from Trujillo's holdings, the
government's role in the economy was relatively limited. The ratio of
total spending had also declined, beginning in the 1970s, because of the
decline in revenues as a percentage of total output. Falling revenues
dictated a corresponding decrease in the percentage of spending on
social services, which worsened the position of poorer Dominicans.
Ironically, a major drain of fiscal resources in the 1980s was the
result of the low prices of goods and services provided by
government-subsidized enterprises, such as utility companies, many of
which were created to cater to lower-income citizens. These subsidies
began in the 1970s, at a time of greater government resources; by the
1980s, however, they had created serious price distortions between
government and market prices. Politicians were reluctant to cut price
subsidies to the poor in the late 1980s, as the economy weakened and
popular expectations for continued government support remained high.
Government spending was divided between current and capital
expenditures. Current expenditures averaged nearly 70 percent of total
expenditures during most years, and they were divided among the
categories of social services, general services, and financial services.
Social services received 30 percent of the national budget in 1988, some
13 percent of which was dedicated to education and 8 percent, to public
health. As recently as 1984, social expenditures had accounted for 47
percent of the total. General services constituted 21 percent of
spending: about 7 percent of this was allocated to defense; 5 percent,
to judiciary and police; and 9 percent, to government operations. The
1988 budget also allocated 22 percent of expenditures under the
designation of financial services to debt servicing; this percentage was
lower than it had been in previous years, as a result of debt
rescheduling. During most of the 1980s, capital expenditures (referred
to as economic services in the budget) represented at least 30 percent
of total government expenditures, a relatively high proportion. As the
Balaguer administration initiated major public-works projects in the
late 1980s, the budget share dedicated to capital expenditures increased
to more than 40 percent.
Revenues
The core of the government's fiscal problems lay on the revenue side.
Starting in 1970, revenues, as a percentage of GDP, steadily declined.
These revenues hit a low in 1982, as the result of generous tax
exemptions for industry. Many economists criticized the role of fiscal
exemptions in the island's industrialization because the government
thereby forfeited badly needed revenues in favor of job creation. In
1983 the government introduced a 6-percent value-added tax and initiated
a number of ad hoc taxes on international trade, licensing, luxury
items, and foreign exchange transactions. These new taxes, however, did
not make up for the loss of revenue that had resulted from the low rates
of taxation on income and business profits.
A fundamental feature of the nation's tax system was the low level of
taxes on income and profits. In 1985 income taxes represented only 0.6
percent of GDP, well below the average of 2 percent of GDP for all
developing countries. Furthermore, the income tax was effectively
regressive because it utilized a flat rate and allowed numerous
exemptions. Most new corporations, generally the most dynamic, benefited
from at least one of the many fiscal incentives, and these enterprises
therefore added little to the public coffers. In 1987 taxes on income
and profits accounted for 19 percent of total tax revenue. Because of
the political strength of the local and the foreign business
communities, major reforms in this section of the tax law were unlikely.
In addition to personal and corporate income taxes, goods and
services and international trade were also taxed. Taxes on goods and
services equalled 36 percent of all taxes in 1987, whereas those on
international trade had reached 43 percent, a relatively high share.
Steep import tariffs and export taxes on principal commodities
constituted the bulk of taxes on trade. Dominican authorities found
taxes on imports and exports far easier to legislate and to collect than
domestic taxes, despite the fact that they created numerous economic
disincentives. Non-tax revenues, such as government income from property
and other equity, provided 12 percent of total revenues in 1987.
Dominican Republic - LABOR
Formal Sector
According to official statistics, the Dominican labor force had grown
to 2.8 million by 1988. The labor force equaled about 74 percent of the
nation's 3.8 million economically active citizens, a group that included
all those between the ages of 15 and 64. Official unemployment stood at
26 percent, but like many of the country's labor statistics, this
measure was only an approximation. More than 80,000 workers entered the
job market annually in the 1980s. Unemployment declined slightly in the
late 1980s, and it was expected to continue to drop because of the
explosive growth of free-zone manufacturing jobs. The seasonal nature of
jobs in agriculture and tourism, however, created patterns of structural
underemployment that affected a quarter of the labor force. Half of the
economically active population suffered from either unemployment or
underemployment.
The structure of the labor force had changed significantly during the
post-Trujillo era as agriculture's share of output diminished. In 1950
agriculture had employed 73 percent of Dominican labor, but by the end
of the 1980s it accounted for as little as 35 percent. Industry and
services had incorporated approximately 20 percent and 45 percent,
respectively, of displaced agricultural labor. As a consequence of gaps
in the labor statistics, official estimates of the female segment of the
economically active population varied widely, from 15 to 30 percent of
the labor force. Whatever the total figures, the role of women,
particularly in the urban economy, was growing by the late 1980s.
Seventy percent of the employees in free zones were women; as greater
numbers of free zones opened in the late 1980s, the rate of employment
for females more than doubled the rate of employment for males. This
shift represented a major transformation in the labor force; previously,
the percentage of women in the Dominican work force had been lower than
that for any other Latin American country. Men continued to dominate
agricultural jobs in the late 1980s. These were among the lowestpaid
jobs in the country. The highest salaries were earned in mining, private
utilities, financial services, and commerce. The distribution of income
among workers was highly skewed; the top 10 percent earned 39 percent of
national income, while the bottom 50 percent garnered only 19 percent.
Dominican labor laws dated back to the Labor Code of 1951. Among the
many matters on which the code ruled were the maximum number of
foreigners that could be employed in a workplace, guidelines for labor
unions, child labor practices, the minimum wage, the length of the
workweek, vacations, holiday pay, Christmas bonuses, overtime, social
security, and other benefits. No government agency enforced labor
legislation, however, which reduced the actual power of most workers
vis-�-vis management.
In the 1980s, the most controversial labor law was the one governing
the national minimum wage. Although the Congress of the Republic
increased minimum wages on several occasions throughout the decade,
unusually high inflation usually outpaced these increases, which reduced
the real wages of workers. General strikes or other confrontations
between labor and government frequently resulted. Government officials
were reluctant to grant frequent raises in the minimum wage, in part,
because they felt the need to keep Dominican wages competitive with
those of other developing countries. Dominican wages did indeed remain
lower than those in other Caribbean Basin countries, with the exception
of impoverished Haiti.
Organized labor represented between 12 percent and 15 percent of the
labor force in the late 1980s. The number of active union members ranged
somewhere between the government's estimate of 250,000 and labor's
figure of more than 500,000. Thousands of unions were syndicated into
eight major labor confederations; nearly 100,000 Dominicans also
belonged to independent unions. Scores of peasant-based movements and
organizations were also active. Thirty-two percent of the eight labor
confederations' member unions were affiliated with the International
Confederation of Free Trade Unions, 16 percent with the World
Confederation of Labor, and slightly more than half with international
communist unions. Unions appeared only after the Trujillo era, and in
the 1980s they were still young, weak, poorly financed, and politically
divided. The issues most important to Dominican labor included rising
prices, the declining real minimum wage, and collective bargaining.
Industrial disputes increased noticeably in the late 1980s. In
particular, these took the form of general strikes and intensified
activism among professionals. Organized labor had begun to establish a
foothold in the free zones, and disputes over unionization in these
areas loomed as the fundamental labor issue of the future.
Informal Sector
Many Dominicans escaped formal government data collection, but
nonetheless played a major economic role, particularly in the urban
economy. Estimates of the size of the informal urban economy in the late
1980s ranged from 20 percent to 50 percent of the total urban labor
force. Workers in the informal sector included self-employed people,
unpaid family workers, domestic servants, and very small businesses or
"microenterprises" of only a few workers in manufacturing and
assorted services. Although little reliable data existed on the
country's informal sector, many in that sector received economic
assistance from the United States Agency for International Development
(AID), the InterAmerican Foundation, and other development agencies to
promote their expansion into the formal sector. Some observers believed
that the growth of the informal sector was a response to the complex
legal framework for business, restrictive exchange-rate controls,
widespread informal financial markets, pricing and tax policies, and the
often-cited Dominican preference for highly personal relations.
Dominican Republic - AGRICULTURE
The uneven distribution of arable land continued to be a fundamental
obstacle to the economic development of the Dominican Republic in the
1980s. Despite active attempts to reform land tenure patterns, the basic
dichotomy of latifundio and minifundio continued to be the
predominant feature of rural life. According to the 1981 agricultural
census, 2 percent of the nation's farms occupied 55 percent of total
farmland. By contrast, landholdings averaging under 20 hectares, which
represented 82 percent of all farms (314,665 units), covered only 12
percent of the land under cultivation. Land distribution on both
extremes was notably worse. Some 161 farms, 0.1 percent of all farms,
occupied 23 percent of all productive land, whereas tens of thousands of
peasants possessed only a few tareas. (The tarea, the
most common measurement of land on the island, equalled one-sixteenth of
a hectare.)
The government was the largest landholder. The CEA and the Dominican
Agrarian Institute (Instituto Agrario Dominicano--IAD), the national
land reform agency, controlled the overwhelming share of public-sector
land, most of which was derived from Trujillo's estate. The two major
sugar producers in the private sector, Central Romana and Casa Vicini,
along with several large cattle ranches, represented the largest private
landholdings.
Data from the 1981 census displayed a land tenure structure that was
essentially the same as that reflected in the 1971 census. The total
number of farms in the 1981 survey was 385,000, up from 305,000 a decade
earlier.While the number of farms had increased substantially, the
amount of cultivated land had actually decreased slightly, from 2.74
million hectares in 1971 to 2.67 million hectares in 1981. The greater
number of farms had resulted from agrarian reform measures and
population growth, whereas the decrease in land cultivated had been
caused by erosion, development, urbanization, the decline of the sugar
market, and other factors. The size of the average farm shrank from
1,439 hectares in 1971 to 698 hectares in 1981, an indication of some
minor success in land reform. Types of ownership were not so well
documented, but government surveys indicated that individuals owned 66
percent of all farms, families owned 16 percent, and other types of
tenure, such as cooperative ownership, sharecropping, and renting,
accounted for the remaining 18 percent.
The concentration of land in the Dominican Republic, although it
could trace its roots back to Christopher Columbus's parceling of land,
had resulted principally from the "latifundization" of land
with the advent of commercial sugarcane production in the late
nineteenth century. The concentration of arable land ownership increased
after 1948, when Trujillo intensified his involvement in the sugar
industry. Trujillo doubled the amount of land dedicated to sugarcane, in
a little over a decade. The dictator and his cronies seized as much as
60 percent of the nation's arable land through colonization schemes, the
physical eviction of peasants from their land, and the purchase of land
through spurious means. In the aftermath of Trujillo's assassination in
1961, the government expropriated his family's landholdings by means of
Decree 6988, thus setting the stage for contemporary land policy.
In 1962 the post-Trujillo Council of State created the IAD, to
centralize agrarian reform and land policy, with a mandate to
redistribute the ruler's former holdings to peasants. Agrarian reform
was hindered by the country's stormy political transitions in the 1960s,
but it was strengthened in 1972 by legislation that authorized the
government to expropriate unused farms in excess of 31.4 hectares under
certain conditions. During the 1970s and the 1980s, however, the IAD
made slow and uneven progress in dividing up the government's huge new
properties. IAD reforms provided individuals, cooperatives, and
settlements (asentamientos) with parcels of land. A range of
support services, including land- clearing, road construction,
irrigation, agricultural extension services, and credit usually were
also provided. By the end of 1987, the IAD and its predecessor agencies
had redistributed more than 409,000 hectares of land. The redistribution
included 454 projects that benefited 75,000 families, or 460,000
citizens. In the late 1980s, IADsponsored land yielded 40 percent of the
national output of rice, 75 percent of tomatoes, 31 percent of corn, and
39 percent of bananas and plantains.
Despite the broad mandate for land reform, a cause strongly advocated
by the Balaguer administration in the late 1980s, many criticized the
IAD's overall lack of progress since 1962. The greatest progress on land
reform occurred from 1966 to 1978, when the government redistributed
approximately 174,000 hectares. Reform slowed considerably from 1978 to
1986, when only 66,000 hectares were redistributed. Making land
available, however, is only one component of successful reform. Peasants
criticized the IAD's sluggish performance in transferring land titles,
its providing mainly marginal agricultural land, and the generally
inadequate level of support services caused by the lack of funding and
the ineffectual management of the IAD. Only 38 percent of IAD land was
actually devoted to the cultivation of crops in the late 1980s; 9
percent was devoted to livestock and 53 percent to forestry or to other
uses.
After decades of wrangling, the Dominican Republic completed the
1980s with the issue of land largely unresolved from the perspectives of
both peasants and commercial farmers, a failure most evident in data
demonstrating an ongoing pattern of skewed land ownership. Frequent
spontaneous land seizures and invasions by peasants of underused land
throughout the 1980s epitomized rural frustrations. On one end of the
economic spectrum, numerous rural associations, disconcerted by the pace
and the quality of land reform, participated in land seizures, demanding
"land for those who work it," an approach that forced the land
reform issue into the judiciary rather than into the legislature. On the
other end of this spectrum, agribusinesses complained of the
government's inconsistent policies with regard to the expropriation of
land. Some analysts viewed such inconsistencies as a deterrent to new
investment in agriculture and therefore as counterproductive to the
republic's efforts to diversify its economy away from sugar. Poverty
continued to be a largely rural phenomenon and land a sensitive
political subject, indicating that agrarian reform would persist as an
issue.
Land Use
An estimated 27,452 square kilometers, or 57 percent of the Dominican
Republic's total territory of 48,442 square kilometers, was devoted to
agriculture-related activities in the late 1980s. According to a soil
survey conducted in 1985, 43 percent of the country's total area was
moderately suited, or well-suited, for cultivation. The Cibao and the
Vega Real regions, north and northeast of Santo Domingo, respectively,
contained the republic's richest agricultural lands and produced most of
the nation's food and cash crops, with the exception of sugar. Sugarcane
cultivation centered on the coastal plains of the south and the east.
Dominican Republic - AGRICULTURE - Farming Technology
Despite ongoing diversification efforts, in the late 1980s the
Dominican Republic continued to be the world's fourth largest producer
of sugarcane. The sugar industry influenced all sectors of the economy
and epitomized the nation's vulnerability to outside forces. Fluctuating
world prices, adjustments to United States sugar quotas, and the actions
of United States sugar companies (such as Gulf and Western Corporation's
sale of all its Dominican holdings in 1985) all could determine the pace
of economic development for decades.
Columbus introduced sugarcane to Hispaniola, but sugar plantations
did not flourish in the Dominican Republic until the 1870s, much later
than on most Caribbean islands. Investment by United States sugar
companies, such as the United States South Porto Rico Company and the
Cuban-Dominican Sugar Company, rapidly transformed the Dominican
economy. These companies had established themselves by the 1890s, and
between 1896 and 1905 sugar output tripled. During the United States
occupation (1916- 24), the sugar industry expanded further, acquiring
control of major banking and transportation enterprises.
Trujillo constructed a string of sugar mills, many of which he owned
personally, beginning in 1948. The elimination of United States sugar
quotas for Cuba after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 further enhanced the
economic role of sugar, as the Dominican Republic assumed Cuba's former
status as the main supplier under the quota system.
Heavy reliance on sugar created a number of economic difficulties.
The harvest of sugarcane, the zafra, is arduous,
labor-intensive, and seasonal, and it leaves many unemployed during the tiempo
muerto, or dead season. Haitian laborers have harvested most of the
Dominican cane crop since the late nineteenth century, by agreement
between Hispaniola's two governments. Although Haitian cane cutters
lived under conditions of virtual slavery, two factors continued to draw them across the border:
depressed economic conditions in Haiti and the reluctance of Dominicans
to perform the backbreaking, poorly regarded work of cane cutting.
After the death of Trujillo, Dominican policy makers faced the
sensitive issue of how best to manage the dictator's economic legacy,
which on the one hand was the rightful property of the people, but on
the other hand represented more of a drain on national finances than a
catalyst to development. These contradictions played themselves out
within the CEA, an entrenched, politicized, and inefficient parastatal.
The role of sugar changed markedly in the 1980s as external
conditions forced the national economy to diversify. Sugar prices had
reached unprecedented highs in 1975 and again in 1979. The international
recession of the early 1980s, however, pushed prices to their lowest
level in forty years. Lower world prices hurt the Dominican economy, but
the reduction of sales to the United States market, as a result of quota
reductions that began in 1981, was even more costly because of the
preferential price the United States paid under the quota system. The
international market continued to be unpromising in the late 1980s. The
market had been glutted by over-production, caused principally by
European beet growers; major soft-drink manufacturers had also begun to
turn to high-fructose corn sweeteners and away from cane sugar.
In the late 1980s, the CEA continued to control about 60 percent of
national sugar output through the ownership of twelve of the country's
sixteen sugar mills, employment of a work force of 35,000, and
possession of 233,000 hectares of land, only 100,000 hectares of which
were sown with sugarcane. Governed by a board--the members of which were
drawn from the public sector, labor, and the private sector--the CEA
operated at a financial loss and at lower productivity than the two
major private sugar companies, Casa Vicini and Central Romana. Besides
these major producers, thousands of small farmers (colonos)
also grew cane. Sugar from all properties covered an estimated 240,000
hectares in 1987, and it yielded 816,000 tons, well below the 1.25
million tons harvested in 1976, the year of peak volume. Worse yet,
lower prices kept 1987 sales at less than one-third of what was realized
in 1975, when sugar export revenues peaked at US$577 million. The
Dominican Republic still exported about half its sugar to the United
States in the late 1980s (but, unlike in the past, not all under the
quota system with its preferential prices). The Soviet Union became the
second largest purchaser of Dominican sugar, following the signing of a
three-year bilateral agreement in 1987.
Coffee, the second leading cash crop, was also subject to varying
market conditions in the 1980s. Introduced as early as 1715, coffee
continued to be a leading crop among small hillside farmers in the late
1980s; it covered 152,000 hectares throughout various mountain ranges.
Coffee farming, like sugar growing, was seasonal, and it entailed a
labor-intensive harvest involving as many as 250,000 workers, some of
whom were Haitians. The preponderance of small holdings among Dominican
coffee farmers, however, caused the coffee industry to be inefficient,
and yields fell far below the island's potential. Output of coffee
fluctuated with world prices, which reached an eight-year low in 1989.
Another problem was the coffee bushes' vulnerability to the hurricanes
that periodically ravaged the island.
The Dominican coffee industry faced not only national problems, but
also international ones, which resulted mainly from the failure of the
International Coffee Organization (ICO) to agree on quotas through its
International Coffee Agreement (ICA). As a consequence, the Dominicans'
ICA quota dropped several times late in the decade, hitting a low of
425,187 sixty-kilogram bags by 1988. Although Dominicans consumed much
of their own coffee, they were increasingly forced to find new foreign
markets because of the ICO's difficulties. As was true of many Dominican
commodities, middlemen often smuggled coffee into Haiti for re- export
overseas. Official coffee exports in 1987 were US$63 million, down from
US$86 million in 1985 and US$113 million in 1986.
Cacao, the bean from which cocoa is derived, endured as another
principal cash crop, occasionally surpassing coffee as a source of
export revenue. The Dominican cocoa industry emerged in the 1880s as a
competing peasant crop, when tobacco underwent a steep price decline.
Although overshadowed by sugar, cocoa agriculture enjoyed slow, but
steady, growth until a period of rapid expansion in the 1970s. In
response to higher world prices, the area covered with cacao trees grew
from 65,000 hectares in 1971 to 117,000 hectares by 1980. Small farmers
cultivated the most cacao, producing some 40,000 tons on approximately
134,000 hectares in 1987. This crop was enough to make the Dominican
Republic the largest producer of cacao in the Caribbean. Combined cacao
and cocoa exports in 1987 reached US$66 million. Despite the brisk
growth in the crop, the Dominican cocoa industry suffered from low
yields and from increasing quality-control problems. In addition, three
exporters controlled 75 percent of all cocoa, thus limiting competition.
The country also forfeited greater foreign-exchange earnings because
only a small portion of the crop was processed into cocoa before export.
Tobacco enjoyed a renaissance in the 1960s, with the introduction of
new varieties and an increase in prices. Sales revenues peaked in 1978,
but they declined considerably in the 1980s because of lower prices,
disease, and inadequate marketing. In 1987, 23,000 hectares yielded
23,000 tons of tobacco. Black tobacco of the "dark air-cured and
sun-cured" variety represented 88 percent of national production in
the late 1980s. Manufactured into cigars for export, black tobacco was
the foremost foreign- exchange earner among the various strains of the
crop grown in the Dominican Republic.
Numerous companies participated in the export of black tobacco. Sales
to Spain, the United States, the Federal Republic of Germany (West
Germany), and France totaled US$14 million in 1987. A growing number of
cigar companies operated out of the country's burgeoning free zones,
registering US$26 million in sales in 1987.
Declining prices and structural changes in the international market
for the Dominican Republic's traditional cash crops of sugar, coffee,
cocoa, and tobacco forced the government to consider opportunities for
nontraditional agricultural exports during the 1980s. This new emphasis
on nontraditional exports also coincided with the implementation of the
Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), which afforded the country
reduced-tariff access to the United States market. The main categories
of nontraditional exports that the government promoted included
ornamental plants, winter vegetables (vegetables not grown in the United
States during winter months), citrus, tropical fruits, spices, nuts, and
certain types of produce popular among the growing Hispanic and
Caribbean populations in the United States. However, new investments in
agribusiness during the 1980s were less successful than anticipated,
particularly in comparison to the dramatic success of assembly
manufacturing and tourism. Nonetheless, officials apparently had
succeeded in broadening the options of farmers and investors from a few
crops to a diverse range of products. The government spearheaded
agricultural diversification through an export promotion agency, the
Dominican Center for the Promotion of Exports (Centro Dominicano de
Promoci�n de Exportaciones--Cedopex), and through cooperation with a
nongovernmental organization, the Joint Agricultural Consultative
Committee, which promoted agribusiness investment in the republic. By
1989 some successes had been achieved with citrus and pineapples, but
quicker growth in nontraditional agricultural exports was hindered by
the slow pace of the CEA's diversification program, which had scheduled
portions of the fertile sugar plains for conversion to nontraditional
crop production.
Dominican Republic - Food Crops
As part of the national dish of rice and beans, rice was the
Dominican Republic's most important food crop in the late 1980s.Rice
production expanded significantly in the post-Trujillo era, and by late
1979 the country had achieved self-sufficiency for the first time. Rice
production, however, waned in the 1980s, forcing renewed imports. In
1987 about 112,000 hectares yielded 320,000 tons of rice, an amount
inadequate to meet national demand, but well above the level of 210,000
tons in 1970.
Declines in production were related to a series of economic factors.
Rice subsidies to the urban poor, who enjoyed less than two kilograms of
rice a week as part of Inespre's food basket, or canasta popular,
were generally at odds with the goal of increased output. The
government's land reform measures also may have had a negative impact on
rice yields; IAD's rice holdings, which rendered 40 percent of the
nation's rice, were noticeably less productive than private rice
holdings. In the late 1980s, the government continued to involve itself
extensively in the rice industry by supplying irrigation systems to over
50 percent of rice farmers as well as technical support through the Rice
Research Center in Juma, near Bonao. The government also moved to
increase the efficiency of local distribution in 1987, when it
transferred rice marketing operations from Inespre to the Agricultural
Bank of the Dominican Republic (Banco Agr�cola de la Rep�blica
Dominicana--Bagricola) and then to the private sector.
The other principal grains and cereals consumed in the Dominican
Republic included corn (or maize), sorghum, and imported wheat. Corn,
native to the island, performed better than many food crops in the 1980s
because of the robust growth of the poultry industry, which used 95
percent of the corn crop as animal feed. The strong demand for feed
notwithstanding, Inespre's low prices for corn and other distortions in
the local market caused by donated food from foreign sources decreased
incentives for farmers and reduced output during the late 1970s and the
early 1980s. As of 1987, corn covered 28,000 hectares, and it supplied
43,000 tons, an amount far below domestic needs. The cultivation of
sorghum, a drought-resistant crop also used as a feed, expanded rapidly
in the 1980s because of sorghum's suitability as a rotation crop on
winter vegetable farms and as a new crop on newly idle cane fields. An
estimated 16,000 hectares yielded 49,000 tons of sorghum in 1987, more
than double 1980's output of 23,000 tons. Wheat was another increasingly
important cereal because Dominicans were consuming ever-greater
quantities of the commodity, donated primarily by the United States and
France. As a result, the country's two mills were functioning at full
capacity in the late 1980s. The government was reluctant to do something
about Dominicans' preference for the heavily subsidized wheat over local
cereals for fear of violent protests by poorer consumers.
Other major food crops included starchy staples such as plantains and
an assortment of tubers. Dominicans consumed large quantities of
plantains, usually fried, because of their abundance, sweet taste, and
low cost. An estimated 31,000 hectares of trees produced 251,000 tons of
plantain in 1987. Peasants routinely cultivated and consumed root crops,
such as cassava, taro, sweet potatoes, and yams because they were cheap
and easy to cultivate. Production of these basic food crops did not fare
well in the late 1970s and the 1980s because of low government prices
and the exodus of population to the cities. Some 17,000 hectares sown
with cassava, the most common tuber, produced approximately 98,000 tons
of that crop in the late 1980s.
Beans, a dietary staple and the chief source of protein for many
Dominicans, were grown throughout the countryside. Although the country
was generally self-sufficient in the universally popular red bean,
shifts in output created the need to import some beans during the 1980s.
Red beans covered 57,000 hectares, yielding 39,000 tons, whereas black
beans were grown on only 9,000 hectares, yielding only 4,000 tons. Other
varieties generated even smaller harvests.
Dominicans also grew an assortment of fruits, vegetables, spices, and
other foods. These included bananas, peanuts, guava, tamarind, passion
fruit, soursop, coconut, tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, cabbage, scallions,
cilantro, onions, and garlic.
Dominican Republic - Livestock
During the Trujillo era, manufacturing grew more slowly than it did
in other Latin American and Caribbean countries because of the
dictatorship's disproportionate emphasis on sugar production. In 1968
the Balaguer government introduced the Industrial Incentive Law (Law
299). For the first time, domestic manufacturers received substantial
tariff protection from foreign competition. In the same year, the
government signalled the beginning of industrial diversification in the
post-Trujillo era by establishing the Industrial Development Board to
oversee industrial policy. Although these incentives stimulated an array
of domestic industries, created jobs, and helped to diversify the
country's industrial base, Dominican industries failed to develop a
capacity to compete internationally. Although envisioned largely in
terms of import substitution, most Dominican industries depended heavily
on foreign inputs. In addition, because they were generally
capital-intensive, these industries failed to provide adequate
employment for a burgeoning population.
Local manufacturing was both inefficient and inequitable. The
application of tariff and income tax exemptions became a politicized
process whereby benefits accrued to individual firms rather than to
specific industries. The Jorge government, which itself manipulated
incentives regulations to its political advantage, introduced in 1983
the Democratizing Law 299, purportedly to standardize industrial
incentives for all producers.
In the late 1980s, more than 5,000 traditional manufacturing firms
existed in the republic. Food-processing activities were dominant,
representing over 50 percent of manufacturing activity; followed by
chemicals, 12 percent; textiles, 9 percent; and nonmetallic minerals, 6
percent. Some 3 percent of all firms accounted for nearly 50 percent of
all industrial output; these firms, however, employed only 23 percent of
the manufacturing labor force, indicating the capital-intensive nature
of larger companies. By contrast, 85 percent of the smallest firms
registered only 30 percent of industrial production, while employing 50
percent of Dominican workers.
The Dominican government generally abstained from involvement in new
manufacturing operations, but twenty-five industrial enterprises, part
of the Trujillo "legacy," remained in the government's
portfolio in the late 1980s. Most of these parastatals were under the
control of a state holding company, the Dominican State Enterprises
Corporation (Corporaci�n Dominicana de Empresas Estatales--Corde).
Initially converted into state-owned enterprises as the
"inheritance of the people," Dominican parastatals endured in
the late 1980s because of their role in the political patronage system.
Corde's holdings were diverse, ranging from a five-man auto parts firm
to a 1,600-employee cigarette factory. Although the Balaguer
administration considered privatizing some state-owned enterprises to
improve its fiscal position, that prospect remained unlikely because of
the political value of such firms.
Dominican Republic - Free-Zone Manufacturing
There was no economic process more dynamic in the Dominican Republic
during the 1980s than the rapid growth of free zones. Although the
Dominican government established the legal framework for free zones in
1955, it was not until 1969 that the Gulf and Western Corporation opened
the country's first such zone in La Romana. Free-zone development
progressed modestly in the 1970s, but it accelerated rapidly during the
1980s as the result of domestic incentives, such as Free-Zone Law 145 of
1983 and the United States CBI of 1984. Free-Zone Law 145, a special
provision of the Industrial Incentive Law, offered very liberal
incentives for free-zone investment, including total exemption from
import duties, income taxes, and other taxes for up to twenty years. By
the close of the decade, the results of free-zone development were
dramatically clear. From 1985 to 1989, the number of free zones had more
than doubled, from six to fifteen; employment had jumped from 36,000 to
nearly 100,000. The number of companies operating in free zones had
increased from 146 to more than 220. In 1989 six more free zones were
being developed, and three more had been approved. These zones were
projected to bring the total to twenty-four by the mid-1990s. Demand
nonetheless outpaced growth, forcing some companies to wait as long as a
year to acquire new factory space.
The country's free zones varied widely in terms of size, ownership,
production methods, and location. The size of free zones ranged from
only a few hectares to more than 100 hectares. Private companies
operated nine of the country's fifteen free zones in 1989, but only four
of those were managed as for-profit ventures. The government
administered six zones, including the Puerto Plata free zone, the only
mixed public-private venture. Most companies in the free zones, 66
percent in 1989, were from the United States. Dominicans owned 11
percent of the firms, and the remaining enterprises had originated in
Puerto Rico, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Panama, the Republic of Korea (South
Korea), Canada, Italy, and Liberia. Most free zones hosted an assortment
of producers, while a few focused on a limited number of subsectors,
such as garments, electronics, or information services. Other free-zone
products included footwear, apparel, jewelry, velcro, furniture,
aromatics, and pharmaceuticals. Most operations were performed under
short-term subcontracting arrangements. The government also afforded
free-zone benefits to certain agrobusinesses , dubbed special free
zones, which were physically located outside the free zones themselves,
thus causing some agro-processing to fall under the free-zone export
category. Among the most innovative activities in the free zones were
information services, such as data entry, Spanish-English translation,
computer software development, and even toll-free telephone services for
Spanish-speakers in the United States; all of these services were
available because of the island's advanced telecommunications
infrastructure. By 1989 nearly every region of the country was home to at
least one free zone; the greatest concentration was found in the south
and southeast.
Apart from the incentives of Free-Zone Law 145 and other domestic
legislation, a growing number of foreign companies chose the Dominican
Republic as an investment site because of the twin
plant scheme, or 936 scheme, with Puerto Rico under
the CBI. The twin-plant concept allowed companies to benefit both from
the exemption of United States import duties under the CBI and from
income the tax exemptions granted to firms in Puerto Rico under Section
936 of the United States tax code, while also taking advantage of the
Dominican Republic's low labor costs. As the Spanish-speaking country
closest to Puerto Rico and the most prolific developer of free zones in
the region, the Dominican Republic hosted over 50 percent of the seventy
twinplant investments that had been recorded by 1989.
The National Council for Free Zones (Consejo Nacional de Zonas
Francas--CNZF), within the Secretariat of State for Industry and
Commerce, spearheaded free-zone development. A major justification for
the development of free zones was the levels of employment that the
generally labor-intensive work stimulated. Also, free zones provided
hard currency, mostly in the form of wages, rent, utilities, and
supplies, for a nation hungry for foreign exchange. By the late 1980s,
however, jobs in the free zones were only beginning to make a dent in
the country's chronically high unemployment, which had averaged about 25
percent for more than a decade.
Based on the export success of Southeast Asian nations, freezone
development had a proven economic value, but it was not without policy
trade-offs. Although the strategy provided numerous jobs, the new jobs
that it created offered limited opportunity for advancement. Similarly,
with the exception of information services and agro-processing,
free-zone enterprises entailed limited technology transfer for
longer-term development. Free-zone development also forged few economic
links with the local economy because of the limited value added by
assembly operations. Besides labor and utilities, few local inputs
became part of the manufacturing process, mostly because of insufficient
local supply, uneven quality, and certain government regulations. The
rapid growth of free-zone construction also created some nationwide
bottlenecks in cement production, the generation of electricity, and
other basic services. Finally, the liberal tax and tariff exemptions
extended to free-zone manufacturers reduced the potential revenue base
of the government and forced domestic businesses and individuals to
assume a greater portion of the tax burden.
Dominican Republic - Mining
Like the economy at large, the mining industry enjoyed extraordinary
growth in the 1970s, when the country's major ferronickel and dor�
(gold and silver nugget) operations were inaugurated. Mining's
contribution to GDP rose from 1.5 percent in 1970 to 5.3 percent by
1980, where it remained in the late 1980s. Although the mining sector
employed only about 1 percent of the labor force throughout this period,
it became a major foreign-exchange earner, increasing from an
insignificant portion of exports in 1970 to as much as 38 percent by
1980, then leveling off at approximately 34 percent in 1987.
Nonetheless, mining companies struggled in the 1980s because of low
international prices for the island's key minerals--gold, silver,
bauxite, and nickel. In the late 1980s, the government strove to tap new
resources and to strengthen export diversification by actively seeking
foreign investment in mining.
Gold and silver dor�, which occur naturally in the
Dominican Republic, played a central role in the rapid emergence of
mining. Although the Spanish mined gold on the island as early as the
1520s, gold production in the Dominican Republic was insignificant until
1975, when the private firm Rosario Dominicano opened the Pueblo Viejo
mine, the largest open-pit gold mine in the Western Hemisphere. In 1979
the Dominican government, then owner of 46 percent of the shares of
Rosario Dominicano, purchased the remaining equity from Rosario
Resources, Inc., a New York-based company, thereby creating the largest
Dominican-owned company in the country. Rosario's huge mining
infrastructure, with an annual capacity of 1.7 million troy ounces of
gold and silver, impelled by rapidly increasing international prices for
gold, had nearly succeeded in pushing dor� past sugar as the
country's leading source of export revenue by 1980. From 1975 to 1980,
gold and silver skyrocketed from 0 percent of exports to 27 percent.
Declining prices for gold and silver during the 1980s, however,
curtailed the extraordinary growth trend of the 1970s, and by 1987 dor�
exports represented only 17 percent of total exports (one percentage
point above ferronickel exports, and one percentage point below sugar
exports). Declining reserves also limited dor� production.
Japanese and United States companies actively explored new gold reserves
on the island, but gold mining was shifting away from the search for
oxide ores, supplies of which were dwindling, toward the more expensive
process of exploiting sulphide ores. There were some alluvial gold
deposits as well.
Ferronickel also contributed to the mining prosperity of the 1970s.
From 1918 to 1956, the United States Geological Survey performed a
series of mineral studies in the Dominican Republic. These studies
encouraged the Canadian firm Falconbridge to undertake its own nickel
testing starting at the end of that period. Falconbridge successfully
opened a pilot nickel plant in 1968, and by 1972 the company had begun
full-scale ferronickel mining in the town of Bonao. In the late 1980s,
the Bonao ferronickel mine was the second largest in the world. Buoyed
by high international prices, nickel exports rose from 11 percent of
total exports in 1975 to 14 percent by 1979. Although nickel exports, as
a percentage of total exports, continued to climb in the 1980s, reaching
16 percent by 1987, lower world prices for nickel and a lengthy dispute
between the government and Falconbridge over tax payments hampered
output throughout the decade. Unlike gold, nickel had been proven to
exist in large reserves in the Dominican Republic, which meant bright
prospects for mining.
The Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) began bauxite mining in the
southwest province of Barahona in 1958. Bauxite output peaked in 1974
when Alcoa surface-mined nearly 1.2 million tons; exports totaled as
much as US$22 million as late as 1979. As with other minerals, however,
the international recession of the early 1980s caused bauxite prices to
topple, as world supply outpaced demand. Alcoa closed its Dominican
bauxite operations in 1982 and its small limestone mine in 1985. The
Barahona mine remained closed until 1987, when the government purchased
Alcoa's facilities and recommenced bauxite mining, selling the red ore
to Alcoa for processing in Suriname.
The Dominican Republic also produced varying amounts of iron,
limestone, copper, gypsum, mercury, salt, sulfur, marble, onyx,
travertine, and a variety of industrial minerals, mainly for the
construction industry. In the late 1980s, the National Marble Company
was a profitable, but outmoded, government monopoly that mined marble,
onyx, and travertine for the local construction industry. Corde's Minas
de Sal y Yeso extracted salt and gypsum, generally at a loss. Salt
mining was primitive, and its product was destined solely for the local
market. The private sector mined and exported limestone, some of which
went to the United States.
The government increasingly favored greater participation by the
private sector in mining, so that the state's resources might be
combined with the technology and the capital of foreign firms. Mining's
promoters also sought to diversify the economy's export basis and to
improve its international credit worthiness. Through Decree 900 of March
1983, the Jorge government further defined and limited the role of
government in mining, by providing broader incentives for private
involvement. Nonetheless, the state retained exclusive rights to mine
gold, gypsum, and marble. United States, Japanese, Australian, and
European firms explored Dominican soils after 1987, when the government
opened up areas previously closed to foreign investors.
Dominican Republic - Construction
The construction industry had a major effect on the economy during
the 1970s and the 1980s, as government-funded public works provided
thousands of jobs and improved the physical infrastructure. In 1987 the
sector contributed nearly 9 percent of GDP, a relatively high figure for
a developing country. Construction activity boomed in the early 1970s,
increasing at a rate of 16 percent annually from 1970 to 1975, faster
than any other sector during that period, with the exception of mining.
Public-works projects such as dams, roads, bridges, hospitals,
low-income housing, and schools transformed the national infrastructure
during the 1970s. The sector's rapid growth continued in the 1980s, but
it was very uneven because of fluctuations in annual government
spending. Private-sector construction, particularly of free-zone
facilities and hotels, also boosted industry performance.
Construction firms, like many other Dominican businesses, relied
heavily on personal contacts. For example, in the late 1980s the
government awarded only about 15 percent of its construction contracts
through a competitive bidding process. Government authorities, up to and
including the president, negotiated or offered the remaining contracts
as if they were personal spoils. The Balaguer administration's emphasis
on construction in the late 1980s focused primarily on renovations in
Santo Domingo, and it included the construction of museums, a
lighthouse, and a new suburb, all in preparation for 1992's observance
of the five-hundredth anniversary of Columbus's arrival in the New
World.
The construction sector generally was self-sufficient; less than
one-third of all construction materials was imported. Domestically
produced materials included gravel, sand, clay, tiles, cables, piping,
metals, paint, and cement. Although the main indicators of construction
materials output generally rose in the 1980s, the rapid expansion of
activity during the decade caused a serious shortage of cement that
slowed the progress of some projects. The Dominican government built
cement factories in Santiago and San Pedro de Macor�s in 1977 in joint
ventures, with private investors, to complement its major plant in Santo
Domingo, but the new capacity quickly became insufficient, and the
country was forced to begin importing cement by the mid1980s . By the
late 1980s, cement factories were operating at full capacity, a rarity
among developing countries such as the Dominican Republic. Besides
materials, the industry encompassed ten major construction firms as well
as several design and civil engineering companies, which handled all but
the most complex projects. The construction sector was a major employer
of unskilled labor, which constituted 65 percent of that industry's work
force.
Dominican Republic - Energy
The cost and the availability of energy became major impediments to
development in the 1970s and the 1980s. An oil importing nation, the
Dominican Republic saw its import bill for petroleum multiply tenfold in
absolute terms during the 1970s. Although oil prices eased during the
1980s, the country faced a new energy crisis as a result of a critical
shortage of electrical-generating capacity. Inadequate supplies of
electricity resulted by the late 1980s in frequent power outages,
frustrated consumers, and disrupted productive activities.
The country's aggregate consumption of energy was low, even by Latin
American standards. For example, Costa Rica consumed more than half
again the amount that the Dominican Republic did on a per capita basis
in the 1980s. The energy consumed by the nation came from a variety of
sources: petroleum and petroleum products (49 percent), wood (26
percent), biomass (20 percent), hydropower (3 percent), and coal (2
percent). The country continued to be dependent on imported crude oil
and related petroleum products, and its narrow domestic energy resource
base satisfied barely half the nation's energy demand. The potential
supply of hydropower, the most promising resource, was estimated at
1,800 megawatts (MW), but less than a quarter of that amount was being
tapped in 1989. Wood and charcoal use was constrained by the small size
of the country's remaining forests. Biomass, mostly bagasse from
sugarcane residue, was getting more use but had limited potential as a
fuel. Deposits of lignite (brown coal), were known to exist in the Saman�
Peninsula in undetermined amounts, but exploitation of this resource was
considered unprofitable in the late 1980s. Nontraditional energy
resources, such as geothermal and solar power, were also being
considered, but they, too, promised little return on potential
investment in the 1980s.
United States, Venezuelan, and Canadian oil companies began
prospecting for oil in Dominican soil in the early twentieth century;
these efforts met with little success, however. Only small deposits were
known to exist at Charco Largo in the 1980s, and the prospect of new oil
finds appeared poor. Consequently, the country imported crude oil and
certain special petroleum products that could not be refined locally.
Mexico and Venezuela, under the San
Jos� Accord, met about one-third of the country's
oil needs at concessional rates. Under pressure from urban consumers,
the government traditionally had subsidized gasoline prices; sudden
price increases, like those of 1984 and 1989, often triggered unrest.
The Dominican Electric Company (Corporaci�n Dominicana de
Electricidad--CDE), a parastatal that replaced a private company in
1955, operated the country's national electrical system in 1989. The CDE
supplied two-thirds of the country's 1,573 MW electrical capacity in
1986. Private and public production--used to power mines, sugar mills,
cement factories, other industries, and residences--accounted for the
balance. Oil-based thermal plants generated most of the nation's
electricity (62 percent). Smaller amounts were produced by gas turbines
(14 percent), hydroelectric dams (14 percent), and other sources (10
percent). Residences consumed the most electricity (41 percent),
followed by industry (28 percent), the public sector (19 percent), and
commercial users (12 percent). Prices ranged from the low subsidized
rates afforded households to the much higher tariffs the CDE charged its
large commercial customers. Only 38 percent of Dominican homes had
electricity in the late 1980s, a low percentage by Latin American
standards; for example, 54 percent of Jamaicans had such access.
Generally dilapidated and outdated, the CDE's facilities suffered
from inadequate maintenance and inefficient, politicized financial
management. For example, approximately one-third of all electricity
generated in 1988 was lost because of maintenance problems or
unauthorized use. Not surprisingly, by the late 1980s the country was
facing a huge deficit in electrical capacity that was substantially
hindering economic development. Some areas suffered as many as 500 hours
of outages a year, which often caused damage to appliances because of
drops in voltage and other irregularities. Because of this unreliable
service, many businesses, especially in free zones, ran their own
generators. With assistance from the World Bank and the Japanese
government, the CDE attempted to improve efficiency by increasing
tariffs, upgrading infrastructure, and expanding capacity. The Balaguer
administration in the late 1980s considered privatizing portions of the
CDE's operations. Nevertheless, demand was expected to outpace supply
for years to come.
Dominican Republic - TOURISM
The Dominican tourist industry grew tremendously during the 1970s and
the 1980s, and by 1989 it boasted more than 18,000 hotel rooms--more
than any other location in the Caribbean. Foreign-exchange earnings from
tourism also multiplied dramatically, during the 1980s, from US$100
million in 1980 to US$570 million by 1987, or the equivalent of 80
percent of all merchandise exports. In 1984 tourism replaced sugar as
the country's leading foreign-exchange earner, exemplifying the growing
diversity of the Dominican economy. The number of tourists visiting the
island increased from 278,000 in 1975 to 792,000 in 1985, and in 1987
the number of vacationers surpassed 1 million for the first time. This
total surpassed those of traditional resort locations like Bermuda and
Barbados, and it made the Dominican Republic the fifth largest earner of
tourism dollars in the Caribbean, behind the Bahamas, Puerto Rico,
Jamaica, and the United States Virgin Islands.
Government promotion of tourism did not begin in earnest until the
passage in 1971 of the Tourist Incentive Law (Law 153). Law 153 created
certain "tourist poles" to promote the industry's growth, and,
more important, it provided investors in tourism a ten-year tax holiday
and an exemption from tariffs on imports not available locally. The law
also created a special arm of the central bank to co-finance new
investments in the sector. In 1979 the administration of Silvestre
Antonio Guzm�n Fern�ndez (1978- 82) elevated the director of the
country's tourism development efforts to cabinet level, a further
indication of official interest and commitment.
The Dominican Republic offered a number of attractions to tourists,
not least among them, its bargain rates and liberal divorce laws. As a
consequence of numerous devaluations of the peso in the 1980s, the
country was the least expensive Caribbean resort. The republic also
benefited from a general upswing in Caribbean tourism, in the 1980s,
associated with the strong United States economy. Each year during the
decade, the United States accounted for more than fifty percent of the
visitors to the Dominican Republic. Other vacationers came mainly from
Canada, Italy, Spain, West Germany, and the Scandinavian countries. As
the island offered more "all-inclusive" package vacations to
visitors, the average tourist expenditure and length of stay also
increased, indicating the gradual maturation of the trade. Levels of
hotel occupancy generally were very high, between 80 percent and 90
percent. Traditionally, the most popular resorts had been in La Romana,
Puerto Plata, and Santo Domingo, but new beach hotels in the southwest,
the east, and the north all promised to be major attractions in the
future.
Despite its successes, the tourist industry was still relatively
young, and it faced a series of problems related to its rapid growth.
For example, inadequate supplies of clean water and electricity,
combined with slow construction caused by shortages of materials, forced
some vacationers to leave early because of unsuitable accommodations.
Although workers were drawn by tourism's higher wages and the access
that it provided to foreign currencies, the rapid development of the
industry ensured that qualified labor continued to be in short supply.
Tellingly, the industry's return rate for visitors was low, by Caribbean
standards.
Dominican Republic - FOREIGN TRADE
According to official figures, exports in 1987 dipped to US$718
million, a ten-year low. Diminished exports, in combination with the
country's largest import bill ever (US$1.5 billion), caused the nation's
merchandise trade deficit to reach the unprecedented and precarious
level of US$832 million. Traditional exports suffered a steady decline
from 1984 to 1987 because of a steep drop in sugar revenues.
This negative data on overall exports, however, masked positive
patterns in exports at the sectoral level, as the economy continued to
diversify away from sugar. For example, the structure of Dominican
exports changed dramatically from 1981 to 1987 as the share of
traditional exports (sugar, coffee, cocoa, and tobacco) dropped from 62
percent to 43 percent, while minerals as a percentage of exports went
from 28 percent to 34 percent, and nontraditionals jumped from 10 to 23
percent. These data, however, excluded free-zone exports, which
technically were not recorded as merchandise trade. Free-zone exports
swelled from the equivalent of 10 percent of total exports to 31 percent
of total exports from 1981 to 1987, and in 1987 free-zone export
revenues surpassed those derived from traditional agricultural exports
for the first time.
The novel composition of Dominican exports also caused a redirection
of the country's goods and services toward the United States market and
those of developed countries in general. The United States share of
Dominican exports, after peaking at 83 percent in 1970, fell to 52
percent by 1980, but then leaped to 87 percent by 1987, indicating a
somewhat risky dependence on a single export market. Puerto Rico's share
of the country's exports, which were included in the United States
figures, steadily increased during the 1980s, and it exceeded 7 percent
by 1987. Less developed countries received only 3 percent of Dominican
exports in 1987; only 2 percent of all foreign sales went to Latin
America. The Soviet Union, which first contracted to purchase Dominican
sugar in the mid-1980s, accounted for 2 percent of exports, a figure
that was expected to increase. European markets, particularly Spain,
Switzerland, and Belgium, received the balance. An unknown, but
presumably large, amount of exports was smuggled out of the Dominican
Republic, especially to Haiti, to circumvent international agreements,
exchange controls, and export taxes.
The government supported the diversification of exports through the
Dominican Center for Export Promotion (Centro Dominicano de Pronoci�n
de Exportaciones--Cedopex). Although established in 1971, Cedopex had a
minimal economic role until the 1980s, when the country began to move
from import substitution toward export promotion. An important
foundation of that policy was the Export Incentive Law of 1979 (Law 69),
which afforded duty-free entry of imported inputs for exporters and
provided certain foreign-exchange benefits. In the first five years that
Cedopex administered Law 69, businesses exported 275 new products as a
result of the legislation. This number rose considerably after 1984 with
the passage of the CBI, the signing of bilateral textile agreements with
the United States, and the designation of a series of new free zones.
Cedopex also extended conventional investment promotion services, such
as market research, overseas promotion of new products, and investor
guidance to government regulations. Despite these advances in export
promotion, some economists pointed to the continued use of export taxes
and the outright prohibition of certain exports, mainly staple foods, as
disincentives to improved export performance.
Dominican imports reached an unprecedented US$1.55 billion in 1987.
Even more alarming than the country's unparalleled trade deficit,
however, was its inability to reduce import demand even as oil prices
fell during the late 1980s. Oil's share of total imports, as high as 61
percent in 1980 after the disruptions of the 1970s, declined to a
manageable 24 percent by 1987. Non-oil imports mounted, however, thereby
ravaging the country's balance of payments and leaving the nation
vulnerable in the event of another oil price increase. In order of
importance, other imports included intermediate, consumer, and capital
goods. A large percentage of increased imports in the late 1980s was
dedicated to public sector projects pursued for both economic and
political reasons. The country drew an increasing share of its total
imports from developed countries; this figure grew from 62 percent in
1981 to 78 percent in 1987. The United States was the major supplier,
providing 55 percent of imports, followed by Japan with 11 percent, and
West Germany and Canada with 2 percent each. Developing countries
contributed only 22 percent. This consisted primarily of oil imports
originating in Venezuela and Mexico.
The government's import policies in the 1980s continued to endorse
steep tariff protection for local industry, and only limited import
liberalization was achieved. In the late 1980s, the country banned more
than 100 imports, mostly agro-industrial products, and some tariffs
reached 350 percent. Moreover, successive Dominican governments used
import tariffs as a political tool to reward powerful constituents.
Excessive public sector imports and exchange-rate subsidies for certain
parastatals exacerbated the import crisis in the late 1980s.
The republic's other trade policies consisted of securing markets for
traditional and nontraditional exports through bilateral agreements,
such as the United States sugar quota agreement, the United States
General System of Preferences, the CBI, and the 807 program, as well as
international agreements for coffee, cocoa, and other products. For many
years, the Dominican Republic unsuccessfully attempted to become a
member of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom) and the
Lom� Convention of the European Economic Community. Although the
country had achieved observer status in both, full participation
continued to be unlikely because Dominican exports competed directly
with those of other members.
Dominican Republic - Government and Politics
THE ROOTS OF DEMOCRACY were not deep in the Dominican Republic. The
country traditionally had been mostly poor, rural, and underdeveloped.
It had a weak economy, largely based on sugar exports, and it lacked the
social and the political infrastructures--political parties, interest
groups, and effective government institutions--necessary for democratic
rule. Thus, for most of their history the people of the Dominican
Republic had lived under authoritarian governments.
In addition, the international climate had not favored democracy and
development. The Dominican Republic, a small, dependent nation, poor in
resources, shared the island of Hispaniola (La Isla Espa�ola) with more
populous but even poorer Haiti. Tensions between the two nations could
be traced back to the nineteenth century, when Haiti controlled the
entire island (1822-44), or farther back, to the era of colonial rule by
the Spaniards. The Dominican Republic's economy, historically oriented
toward the export of primary products for the world market, was
dependent on fluctuating world market prices for those products, or on
the quotas set by major importers--factors beyond the Dominican
Republic's control. Moreover, the country's strategic location in the
Caribbean, astride all the major sea lanes linking North America and
South America and leading into the Panama Canal, exposed the country to
the buffeting winds of international politics, or led to its occupation
by major powers such as Spain, Britain, France, The Netherlands, and,
most recently, the United States. The nation's almost inevitable
entanglement in international conflicts afforded it little opportunity
to develop autonomously.
Beginning in the early 1960s, however, many things began to change in
the Dominican Republic. Per capita income in the late 1980s was four
times what it had been in 1960. The country's population was
approximately 70 percent urban (the corresponding figure in 1960 was 30
percent), more literate (in about the same proportion), and more middle
class. Political institutions had developed and had become more
consolidated. The country's international debt continued to be a major
problem and a severe drain on the economy, but in general the Dominican
Republic's economic position within the international community was more
stable than it had been in past decades. These changed conditions made
the climate more conducive to democracy than it had been at any previous
time.
In 1961 assassins ended the thirty-one-year dictatorship of Rafael Le�nidas
Trujillo Molina. There followed five years of instability that witnessed
a short-lived democratic regime under Juan Bosch Gavi�o, the military
overthrow of Bosch, a Bosch-led revolution in 1965, civil war, United
States intervention, and the restoration of stability in 1966 under a
former Trujillo puppet, Joaqu�n Balaguer Ricardo. Balaguer governed for
the next twelve years, until forced to bow to the electorate's desire
for change in 1978. That year Silvestre Antonio Guzm�n Fern�ndez, of
Bosch's party, the Dominican Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario
Dominicano--PRD), won the presidency. Guzm�n was succeeded by another
PRD leader, Salvador Jorge Blanco (1982-86). In 1986 the shrewd, but
aging, Balaguer won four more years as president in another fair and
free election.
There was, therefore, a democratic breakthrough in the Dominican
Republic in the early 1960s that led to instability, conflict,
intervention, and eventually an authoritarian restoration. In 1978,
however, a new democratic opening occurred. Whether this new democracy
would be more permanent than other frustrated efforts in the past, or
the Dominican Republic would again revert to instability and
authoritarianism, remained to be seen.
<>THE
SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT
Constitutional Development
Constitutional Development
By 1989 the Dominican Republic had gone through 29 constitutions in
less than 150 years of independence. This statistic is a somewhat
deceiving indicator of political stability, however, because of the
Dominican practice of promulgating a new constitution whenever an
amendment was ratified. Although technically different from each other
in some particular provisions, most new constitutions contained in
reality only minor modifications of those previously in effect. Sweeping
constitutional innovations were actually relatively rare.
The large number of constitutions does, however, reflect a basic lack
of consensus on the rules that should govern the national political
life. Most Dominican governments felt compelled upon taking office to
write new constitutions that changed the rules to fit their own wishes.
Not only did successive governments often strenuously disagree with the
policies and the programs of their predecessors, but they often rejected
completely the institutional framework within which their predecessors
had operated. Constitutionalism--loyalty to a stable set of governing
principles and laws rather than to the person who promulgates
them--became a matter of overriding importance in the Dominican Republic
only after the death of Trujillo.
Dominicans historically had agreed that government should be
representative and vaguely democratic, that there should be civil and
political rights, separation of powers, and checks and balances. Beyond
that, however, consensus broke down. The country actually had been
alternately dominated throughout its history by two constitutional
traditions, one relatively democratic and the other authoritarian.
Rarely were there attempts to bridge the gap between these diametric
opposites.
The first Dominican constitution was promulgated in 1844, immediately
after the nation achieved independence from Haiti. It was a liberal
document with many familiar elements--separation of powers, checks and
balances, and a long list of basic rights. However, an authoritarian
government replaced the country's liberal, democratic government during
its first year. The new regime proceeded to write its own constitution.
This second constitution considerably strengthened the executive,
weakened the legislative and the judicial branches, and gave the
president widespread emergency powers, including the power to suspend
basic rights and to rule by decree. Thereafter, governance of the
country often alternated between liberal and authoritarian
constitutional systems.
Even the dictator Rafael Trujillo always took care to operate under
the banner of constitutionalism. Under Trujillo, however, the
legislature was simply a rubber stamp; the courts were not independent;
and basic rights all but ceased to exist. He governed as a tyrant,
unfettered by constitutional restrictions.
After Trujillo's death in 1961, the constitution was amended to
provide for new elections and to allow the transfer of power to an
interim Council of State. Although promulgated as a new document, the
1962 constitution was actually a continuation of the Trujillo
constitution, and it was thus unpopular.
In 1963, Bosch's freely elected, social-democratic government drafted
a new and far more liberal constitution. It separated church and state,
put severe limits on the political activities of the armed forces,
established a wide range of civil liberties, and restricted the rights
of property relative to individual rights. These provisions frightened
the more conservative elements in Dominican society, which banded
together to oust Bosch and his constitution in September 1963.
Subsequently, the more conservative 1962 constitution was restored. In
the name of constitutionalism, Bosch and his followers launched a
revolution in 1965, the objective of which was restoration of the
liberal 1963 constitution.
Largely as a result of the United States military intervention of
April 1965, the civil war had died down by 1966. With Balaguer and his
party in control, the Dominicans wrote still another constitution. This
one was intended to avert the conflicts and polarization of the past by
combining features from both the liberal and the conservative
traditions. The 1966 Constitution incorporated a long list of basic
rights, and it provided for a strengthened legislature; however, it also
gave extensive powers to the executive, including emergency powers. In
this way, the country sought to bridge the gap between its democratic
and its authoritarian constitutions, by compromising their differences.
Although the 1966 Constitution had been amended several times
afterwards, it was this document under which the Dominican Republic
continued to operate in 1989.
Dominican Republic - The Executive
The executive had long been the dominant branch in the Dominican
governmental system. The president's powers derived from his supreme
authority over national administration, the armed forces, and all public
affairs. In addition, the president was the beneficiary of the worldwide
trends toward centralized decision making and increased executive
dominance. Television and other forms of modern mass communications also
focused greater attention on the president. The political culture of the
Dominican Republic, with its emphasis on machismo and strong leadership,
reinforced this tendency to make the president the focal point of the
political system. Not surprisingly, Dominican presidents traditionally
had been dominant, charismatic, forceful personalities.
The Constitution vests executive power in a president who is elected
by direct popular vote and whose term of office is four years. There is
no prohibition against a president's seeking reelection, but since the
electoral defeat of Balaguer in 1978, presidents had limited themselves
to one term. The Constitution requires that presidential candidates be
Dominican citizens by birth or origin, at least thirty years old, and in
possession of all political and civil rights. A candidate cannot have
been a member of the military, or the police, for at least one year
prior to his election. Vice presidential candidates must meet the same
qualifications.
The vice president may assume the office of president when the chief
executive is ill, outside the country, or otherwise unable to perform
his duties. If the president dies, or becomes permanently unable to
carry out the functions of his office, the vice president serves until
the next scheduled election. If the vice president is also unable to
fill the office, the president of the Supreme Court of Justice (who is
chosen by the Senate) serves temporarily. Within fifteen days, he must
convene the National Assembly (which consists of both houses of the
Congress of the Republic), which must then select a substitute to fill
out the term.
The Dominican Constitution takes twenty-seven paragraphs to spell out
the president's extensive powers. Among the most important are those
that grant him authority over virtually all appointments and removals of
public officials; empower him to promulgate the laws passed by Congress;
direct him to engage in diplomatic relations; and empower him to
command, to deploy, and to make appointments in, the armed forces. The
president also has vast emergency powers to suspend basic rights in
times of emergency, to prorogue the Congress, to declare a state of
siege, and to rule by decree. Historically, the exercise of these
emergency powers usually had been the prelude to dictatorship.
The few limitations the Constitution places on presidential authority
focus primarily on the requirement to secure congressional consent to
certain appointments, treaty negotiations, entry into certain contracts,
and the exercise of emergency powers. These provisions put no more thana
limited check on presidential authority, however, because the Dominican
voting system almost automatically guarantees the president a majority
of his followers in Congress. The Dominican courts also offer little
impediment to the exercise of executive power, mainly because they lack
the power of judicial review.
The 1966 Constitution provides for ministers and subcabinet ministers
to assist in public administration. These officials must be Dominican
citizens, at least twenty-five years of age, with full civil and
political rights. The powers of the ministers are determined by law;
they are not set forth in the Constitution. However, the president is
constitutionally responsible for the actions of his ministers. Ministers
serve at the president's discretion, can be removed by him, and function
both as administrators of their ministries and as agents of presidential
authority.
In a system as heavily weighted toward the executive as the Dominican
one, the force of a president's personality can do much to determine his
relative success or failure in office. Trujillo, the dictator, was tough
and forceful; Bosch, the democrat, was weak and ineffectual. Balaguer,
although he appeared meek in public, proved to be a very shrewd
politician.
Dominican Republic - The Legislature
The 1966 Constitution confers all legislative powers on the Congress
of the Republic, which consists of a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies.
The election of senators and deputies is by direct vote every four
years. Congressional terms, therefore, are coterminous with presidential
terms, which greatly increases the possibility that the president's
party will enjoy a majority in the legislature.
One senator is elected from each of the country's provinces and from
the National District (Santo Domingo). In 1989 the Dominican Senate had thirty members. Deputies also
represent provinces, but their seats are apportioned on the basis of
population; thus, the more populous provinces and the National District
have larger delegations. In 1989 there were 120 representatives in the
Chamber of Deputies.
Deputies and senators must be Dominican citizens, at least
twenty-five years old, with full civil and political rights. They must
have been natives, or residents for at least five years, of the province
they wish to represent. Naturalized citizens are eligible to run for
Congress if they have been Dominican citizens for ten years. Congressmen
are not allowed to hold another public office concurrently.
The Senate and the Chamber of Deputies may meet together as the
National Assembly on certain specific occasions cited by the
Constitution--for example, when both the president and the vice
president are unable to complete their terms of office and a successor
must be designated. By a three-fourths vote, the Chamber of Deputies may
bring accusations--against public officials--before the Senate, but it
has no other exclusive powers. In contrast, the Senate has several
exclusive powers: selecting members of the Supreme Court and other lower
courts, choosing the president and the members of the Central Electoral
Board, approving diplomatic appointments made by the president, and
hearing cases of public misconduct brought before it by the Chamber of
Deputies.
The Congress has broad powers to levy taxes, to change the country's
political subdivisions, to declare a state of emergency, to regulate
immigration, to approve or to reject extraordinary expenditures
requested by the executive, to legislate on all matters concerning the
public debt, to examine annually all the acts of the executive, to
interrogate cabinet ministers (a bow to parliamentary government), and
to legislate on all matters not within the constitutional mandate of
other branches of government or contrary to the Constitution.
For more than a century, the Congress remained a submissive, even
somnolent, branch. For many years, under one or another of the country's
many dictators, it did not meet at all. Beginning in the 1960s, however,
the Congress began to assert itself. President Bosch sometimes had
trouble with members of his own party in the Congress; and, although
Balaguer ruled as a strong leader from 1966 to 1978, his Congress did
not always function as a rubber stamp either.
The real breakthrough came with the restoration of full democracy in
1978. Even though, under presidents Guzm�n and Jorge, the majority in
Congress belonged to the president's party, that did not stop the
Congress from dissenting on various bills, frustrating presidential
initiatives in certain particulars, and serving as an increasingly
important check on the executive. Although not yet coequal with the
executive as a branch of government, the Congress had grown as an
independent body, and its ability to check presidential power could no
longer be easily dismissed.
Dominican Republic - The Judiciary
Judicial power is exercised by the Supreme Court of Justice and by
other courts created by the Constitution and by law. The Constitution
establishes courts of first instance in each province as well as a land
tribunal and courts of appeal. Justices of the peace exist in each
municipality and in the National District. The Constitution also
mandates a court of accounts, which examines the country's finances and
reports to the Congress.
Centralized and hierarchical, the Dominican legal system was
patterned after the French system. It employed a code-law legal system
rather than a common law system, such as the one used in the United
States. Detailed and comprehensive, the codes left little room for
United States-style judicial activism or citation of precedent. Legal
reasoning was deductive (from the codes), rather than inductive, or
based on past cases.
The Constitution calls for a Supreme Court consisting of nine judges.
Judges are chosen by the Senate, not by the president, ostensibly to
limit executive power. The Senate also selects the judges for the lower
courts. Supreme Court justices must be Dominican citizens by birth or
parentage, at least thirty-five years old, with full political and civil
rights. They are required to have law degrees and to have practiced law,
or held judicial office, for at least twelve years. These requirements
become progressively less strict for lower-court justices.
The Supreme Court has the exclusive power to assume jurisdiction in
matters affecting the president and other high officials, to act as a
court of cassation, to serve as a court of last instance in matters
forwarded from appellate courts, to exercise final disciplinary action
over other members of the judiciary, and to transfer justices from one
jurisdiction to another. The Supreme Court does not have the formal
power to review the constitutionality of laws, decrees, or resolutions
put into effect by the president or the Congress, although a movement
began in the late 1970stoward limited judicial oversight of government
acts.
The courts in the Dominican Republic historically have been
subservient to the government in power. Moreover, politics have
frequently dominated court proceedings, and the entire judicial system
may be subject to outside pressures and, at times, even intimidation.
Nevertheless, since the early 1960s the court system has become
stronger, and the judiciary has become a more independent, if not a
coequal, branch of government.
Dominican Republic - Public Administration
The fall of the Trujillo dictatorship in 1961 did not produce a
corresponding disruption of the traditions and practices characteristic
of the government service. Corruption, nepotism, wholesale dismissals
for purely political reasons, loyalty checks, patronage, and the sowing
of distrust and suspicion had become ingrained habits which, unlike
Trujillo, did not disappear overnight. However, the old habits were
challenged by new pressures: demands that the bureaucracy provide real
goods and services, that public functions be carried out honestly and
efficiently, and that the government respond to the pent-up needs and
demands of the population. The clash between the traditional patterns of
bureaucratic behavior and new demands for public services, such as
health care, education, water supplies, and electricity, contributed
significantly to the political instability of the post-Trujillo period.
No effective law existed to protect Dominican public officials in
their jobs. From the cabinet level to the lowest ranks, virtually all
civil servants were appointed, served, and could be removed largely at
the will of the president. The result was a patronage-dominated system
in which public sector jobs were given out in return for loyalty and
service.
Merit, achievement, and competence, therefore, were not always the
main criteria guiding government appointments. The public bureaucracy
was often characterized by genuine incompetence, even at the highest
levels. Nepotism and corruption--defined as a favor in return for a
favor, the granting of special governmental privileges to favored
persons, private enrichment stemming from public service, or outright
bribery--were also widespread. Those who tried to be honest were
scorned; they were considered foolish by their colleagues. Indeed,
government service was thought of, not so much as an honored career, as
a brief opportunity to indulge oneself at the public trough. The
frequent failure of government programs could often be attributed
directly to the corruption and incompetence of the bureaucracy.
Patronage and related activities were often tolerated at lower levels,
so long as they were kept within reasonable bounds; however, when the
corruption became blatant, as it did under President Jorge, the
government was likely to suffer at the polls.
Under the president, were a number of technical offices--
administration, planning, budget, personnel--designed to help him
perform his job more effectively. These offices generally did not
function well, however, and most Dominican presidents continued to
operate as personalistic and patronage leaders.
The size of the cabinet could vary; in 1989 it consisted of sixteen
secretaries of state, three without ministerial portfolio. There were
also an administrative secretary of state for the presidency, a
technical secretary of state for the presidency, and twelve additional
secretaries of state administering various ministries. The cabinet did
not function as an independent arm of, nor very often as an advisory
body for, the presidency (although some of its individual members
might); rather, it was a loose collection of administrators, operating
almost entirely according to the wishes of the president.
In addition to the cabinet ministries, there were in 1989 fourteen
autonomous agencies and eleven semiautonomous agencies. The autonomous
and semiautonomous agencies were established in the early 1960s to
administer new public programs as well as the vast properties and
enterprises inherited by the state after the death of Trujillo, who in
addition to his political power had vast economic holdings. These
agencies administered an array of programs and enterprises, ranging from
farm loans to cooperatives and vast sugar lands. The largest of these
were the State Sugar Council (Consejo Estatal de Az�car--CEA), the
85,000 employees of which made it the largest employer in the country,
and the State Enterprises Corporation (Corporaci�n Dominicana de
Empresas Estatales--Corde), into which a number of smaller state-owned
enterprises had been consolidated.
Dominated by patronage considerations and plagued by corruption, the
autonomous and semiautonomous agencies were frequently mismanaged. Some
officials, believing that these agencies could be run more efficiently
by the private sector, periodically proposed putting them up for sale.
The usual reactions to such efforts included objections from
nationalists about selling out the national patrimony; from politicians,
seeking to preserve patronage opportunities; and from the employees of
the state-run agencies, who feared layoffs under private sector
management.
Dominican Republic - Local Government
The Dominican system of local government, like the Dominican legal
system, was based on the French system of top-down rule and strong
central authority. The country was divided into twentynine provinces,
plus the National District (Santo Domingo). The provinces, in turn, were
subdivided into a total of seventy-seven municipalities (or counties).
Each province was administered by a civil governor appointed by the
president. A governor had to be a Dominican citizen, at least
twenty-five years old, and in full possession of his civil and political
rights. The powers and duties of governors are set by law. The
Constitution establishes the structure of local government; its specific
functions are enumerated in the municipal code.
The municipalities and the National District were governed by mayors
and municipal councils, both popularly elected to fouryear terms. The
size of the councils depended on the size of the municipality, but each
was required to have at least five members. The qualifications of local
officials as well as the powers and duties of mayors and councils were
set by law. Naturalized citizens could hold municipal office, provided
they had lived in the community at least ten years.
Neither provinces nor municipalities had any independent power to
levy taxes, so few services could be initiated at the local level. There
were no local police departments, only a single national force. Policy
and programs with regard to education, social services, roads,
electricity, and public works were similarly administered at the
national level, rather than at the provincial or the municipal level.
Local government was therefore weak and ineffective, not only because it
lacked taxing authority, but also because, in the Dominican system, the
central government set virtually all policy.
Starting in the early 1960s, various efforts were made to strengthen
Dominican local government. A new municipal league came into existence
in 1962, and efforts were made to develop community spirit, local
initiative, and self-help projects. These projects were not wholly
successful, in large part because of the traditional arrangement under
which virtually all power flowed downward from the central government.
In the late 1980s, Santo Domingo remained the focus of the country's
affairs, the source of power and largesse.
Dominican Republic - The Electoral System
The electoral system in place as of 1989 could trace its roots to the
death of Trujillo. Following the dictator's assassination in 1961, the
Dominican government asked the Organization of American States (OAS) to
send a technical advisory mission to the country to help set up a system
of free elections. Upon the mission's recommendation, the country
established a hierarchy of electoral boards. The Central Electoral
Board, consisting of three members appointed by the Senate, was the
highest of these bodies.
Members of the Central Electoral Board were appointed to serve
twelve-year terms. The Board chose the members of the provincial and
municipal boards, who served at its pleasure. The Board issued
regulations to ensure free and honest elections; directed the
distribution of ballots, equipment, and voting materials; and supervised
the functioning of the lower-level electoral boards.
The Central Electoral Board was given responsibility for printing
ballots for each Dominican political party. To facilitate voting by
those unable to read, each party's ballot was printed a different color.
The ballots also bore the emblems of the parties participating, as an
additional aid to nonreaders. Election day was a national holiday;
alcoholic beverages could not be sold that day, and the polls were open
from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Voting was free, secret, and obligatory for both men and women.
Suffrage was granted to everyone eighteen years old or older, and to
every married person regardless of age. Members of the police or the
armed forces were ineligible to vote, as were those who had lost their
political and civil rights, such as incarcerated criminals. Elections
were regulated by law, and they were administered by the Central
Electoral Board.
Dominican elections could be breathtaking affairs. In 1978 losing
candidate Balaguer impounded the ballot boxes and seemed about to steal
the election; pressure from the United States forced a resumption of the
vote count, which led to Guzm�n's victory. The 1986 presidential
election also produced controversy. This time Balaguer won, but the
losing candidate of the PRD Jacobo Majluta Azar, claimed fraud and
refused to concede. Majluta demanded a recount and threatened that
violence might result otherwise. In this case, an independent electoral
commission headed by the archbishop of Santo Domingo intervened in the
dispute, verified the Balaguer victory, and persuaded Majluta to accept
its independent vote tally.
Since 1978, elections had gained legitimacy as a means of choosing
the president and other leaders. The elections of 1982 and 1986 had
generally been fair, honest, competitive, and free, but elections still
represented only one of several possible means to power in the Dominican
Republic, the others being a skillfully executed coup d'�tat or a
heroic revolution. Moreover, Dominican elections did not necessarily
bestow the definitive legitimacy usually accorded an elected government
in more developed democratic nations.
Dominican Republic - POLITICAL DYNAMICS
The System of Dominican Politics
The Dominican Republic's long history of political instability had
included many revolutions, coups d'�tat, barracks revolts, and pronunciamientos
(insurrections accompanied by declarations of disagreement with the
existing government), as well as social and political breakdowns. Coups
and revolutions are among the easiest political phenomena to measure
systematically. When a country has had so many, one must conclude that
they are a regular, normal part of the political process. Therefore, it
is not the case that Dominican politics are unsystematic.
Politics in the Dominican Republic functions on a smaller and less
formal scale than politics in the United States. Sometimes it seems that
everyone in the Dominican Republic who counts politically knows everyone
else who counts; many in this group are also interrelated by blood or
marriage. It is a small country, with only one main city. Politics is
therefore more like old-fashioned United States county politics. In this
context, family and clan networks, patronage systems, close friendships,
the bonds of kinship, personal ties, and extended family, ethnic, or
other personal connections are as important as the more formal and
impersonal institutions of a larger political system. The Dominican
Republic has large-scale organizations, such as political parties,
interest groups, professional associations, and bureacratic
organizations, but often the informal networks are at least as
important. They are, in addition, the features that are the most
difficult for outsiders to penetrate and to understand.
To comprehend Dominican politics, therefore, one must understand
first of all the family networks: who is related to whom, and how and
what (if anything) these family ties mean. One must also understand the
social and the racial hierarchies, who speaks to whom and in what tone
of voice, who sees whom socially, and what these social ties imply
politically. One must know about past business deals and associations,
whether they were clean or "dirty," and what each family or
individual knows or thinks about associates. One must understand where
the different families "fit" in the Dominican system, whether
they are old rich or new rich, their bloodlines, what they share
politically, and what pulls them apart. Many of these family and clan
associations and rivalries go back for generations.
Family and personalistic associations overlap and interact with the
institutions of a more modern political system in all sorts of complex
ways. For example, what goes by the name of a political party actually
may turn out to be the personalistic apparatus of a single politician or
family; or a certain office within the government bureaucracy may turn
out to be the private preserve of a single family or clan. In order to
understand Dominican politics, one must comprehend these complex
overlaps of traditional and modern institutions and practices, of family
and clan-based politics, and of modern political organizations.
Dominican Republic - Political Developments since 1978
The contemporary political system of the Dominican Republic dates
from 1978. That year Balaguer, who had governed the country in an
authoritarian, but paternalistic, manner for the preceding twelve years,
was forced, because of domestic and international pressures, to yield
the presidency to Guzm�n, a wealthy rancher and candidate of the PRD,
who had clearly won the election. Guzm�n governed democratically and
with full respect for human rights, but he committed suicide in 1982,
apparently because of evidence of corruption reaching into his own
family. The vice president, Majluta, took over temporarily until a new
government, which actually had been elected before Guzm�n's suicide,
could be inaugurated.
The 1982 election was fair, honest, and competitive. It was won by
Jorge, a lawyer who, like Guzm�n, was a member of the PRD. But whereas
Guzm�n had represented the conservative wing of the party, Jorge
represented its centrist, or social-democratic, wing.
President Jorge continued, like Guzm�n, to govern in a democratic
matter. His government respected civil liberties and honored human
rights. Jorge had promised to expand the democratic reforms begun by his
predecessor in the areas of agrarian reform, social justice, and
modernization. He campaigned on the slogan, and entered office with the
intention of bringing, "economic democracy" to the country to
go with its now flourishing political democracy.
But 1982, the year of Jorge's inauguration, was the year the bottom
dropped out of the Dominican economy. The country began to feel the full
impact of the second oil price rise, induced by the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC); recession in the United States and
Western Europe dried up the market for Dominican exports; and the
international debt crisis also hit home strongly. These conditions
forced Jorge to abandon his ambitious reform agenda in favor of severe
austerity, belttightening , and a cutback in services. The nation
witnessed the wrenching dilemma of a reform democrat, a socialist, who
had to give up his entire social-democratic program in order to impose
severely restrictive economic policies, the burden of which, as usual,
fell most heavily on the shoulders of the poor--precisely those people
who had been Jorge's main constituency. Jorge's popularity plummeted,
and in 1985 riots broke out in response to his austerity measures, riots
that the police put down with considerable loss of civilian life.
To his credit, Jorge succeeded in putting in place a sorely needed
budget-balancing program that offered hope of getting the country out of
its severe economic troubles. The steep decline in the president's
popularity, however, prompted even members of his own party in the
Congress and elsewhere to turn against him. In addition, increasing
evidence of corruption in the public bureaucracy began to surface; as
the austerity measures pinched, there was little extra money in the
system, and the low-level patronage that had always existed began to be
perceived as blatant, high-level graft. As Jorge's popularity declined,
so did that of his entire government and his party.
New elections were held in 1986. President Jorge's deeply divided PRD
eventually nominated Majluta, Guzm�n's vice president, who four years
earlier had served a short stint as interim president. Majluta was of
Lebanese background, a longtime PRD stalwart, and a businessman who was
tainted with the corruption of the previous administrations. He was
opposed by Balaguer, who, though old and legally blind, still enjoyed
widespread popularity. Many associated Balaguer with the economic boom
of the 1970s; in addition, he was widely admired as a shrewd,
resourceful, and skilled politician. In a very closely contested
election, Balaguer won with 41 percent of the vote to Majluta's 39
percent. Another former president, Bosch, candidate of the leftist
Dominican Liberation Party (Partido de la Liberaci�n Dominicana--PLD),
garnered 18 percent.
In office, Balaguer proved as adept as before, although now slowed by
age and infirmity. He juggled assignments within the armed forces to
assure its loyalty and support; followed policies that pleased the
economic elites, while at the same time doling out land and patronage to
the peasants; and fostered greater contact with Cuba, while
simultaneously keeping United States support. He listened to advice from
all quarters, but kept his own counsel, kept his subordinates off guard
and insecure so they could not develop a base from which to challenge
the president himself, and refused to designate a successor while
keeping all his own options open. Balaguer delegated some limited power
and patronage to subordinates, but he kept most of the reins of power in
his own hands; he let cabinet and autonomous agency heads have a bit of
responsibility, while he maintained control of the allimportant
jobs--patronage, money, and military matters. Whatever one thinks of his
policies, Balaguer must be considered one of the cleverest presidents in
Dominican history.
Dominican Republic - Interest Groups
The armed forces (army, navy, air force, and National Police) were
among the best organized and the most powerful groups in Dominican
national life. The military was more than a simple interest group,
however. Stemming historically from the medieval Spanish system, the
military constituted an integral part of the political regime, but one
only nominally subordinate to civilian authority.
The modern Dominican armed forces were a product of the Trujillo era
and of the often corrupt and brutal practices of that regime. Trujillo
built up the armed forces enormously and gave them modern equipment, but
he also encouraged graft, rakeoffs , and political interference.
Since Trujillo, various efforts had been made to reform, to
modernize, and to professionalize the armed forces. These efforts had
been only partially successful. In the late 1980s, the armed forces
undoubtedly were better trained, better educated, and better equipped
than before, but military personnel also tended to use their positions
to augment their salaries, to acquire wealth and land, and to exercise
political as well as military power, sometimes on a grand scale. At the
same time, civilian political interference in the military (promotions,
commands, favoritism, etc.) occurred at least as often as military
interference in political affairs.
Since the mid-1970s, the pressures to reform the armed forces and to
make them definitively apolitical and subordinate to civilian authority
had intensified. Evidence of the success of this subordination is that,
in various crises (for example, the electoral crises of 1978 and 1986
and the riots of 1985), the military behaved quite professionally and
made no effort to seize the government. Nevertheless, no one is really
certain how the armed forces would react in the face of endemic unrest,
a popular guerrilla movement, economic collapse, or the possibility of a
leftist electoral victory.
Dominican Republic - The Roman Catholic Church
The Dominican Republic remained over 90 percent Roman Catholic in the
late 1980s, despite major gains by Protestant groups, especially
evangelical, charismatic, and spiritualist sects. The Dominican Roman Catholic Church was historically
conservative and traditionalist; in general it supported the status quo
and the existing power structure. The Roman Catholic Church was weak
institutionally, however, with few priests (fewer than 200 in the entire
country), little land, few educational or social institutions, and
little influence over the daily lives of most Dominicans.
Since the 1960s, the Roman Catholic Church had ceased to identify
wholly with the status quo. Rather, it tended to stand for moderate
change. It organized mainstream Catholic political parties, trade
unions, student groups, peasant leagues, and businessmen's associations.
Liberation theology had made few inroads in the Dominican Republic. A
few priests espoused liberationist ideas, but they were not considered
to be in the mainstream of the clergy. Nor had there been calls by
church officials for an alliance with Marxist groups, let alone calls
for guerrilla struggles or other militant action against the system.
As the Dominican Republic modernized and secularized, the church lost
some of its influence. The country had legalized divorce in 1963 and had
instituted government-sponsored family planning in 1967, two measures
the church had opposed. The church seldom succeeded in mobilizing voters
in support of its favored programs. With only about 10 percent of the
population engaged as active, practicing Catholics, and with Protestant
groups continuing to grow rapidly, political scientists estimated that
the church had gone from being one of the top three most influential
interest groups, in past decades, to about the sixth or the seventh by
the late 1980s.
Dominican Republic - Economic Elites
Traditionally the forgotten sector of Dominican society, the peasants
were largely illiterate, unorganized, and politically inarticulate.
Although numerically the largest group in Dominican society, politically
they were the weakest.
By the late 1980s, however, vast changes had begun to occur, even in
the Dominican countryside. For example, in 1960 the country was 70
percent rural and 30 percent urban, but as 1990 approached those
percentages had been reversed. In the intervening decades, millions of
peasants had left the harsh life of the countryside behind for the
somewhat more promising life of the cities; many others had emigrated,
mainly to Puerto Rico and the United States.
In addition, mobilization and organization had begun in the
countryside. The requirement that voters be literate had been struck
down in 1962. Peasants voted regularly and in high numbers, usually
splitting their votes between liberal and conservative candidates.
Beginning in the early 1960s, Peace Corps volunteers, political party
officials, community organizers, students, missionaries, and government
officials had been fanning out into the countryside organizing the
peasants, soliciting their votes, and generally mobilizing them. Modern
communications--radio, even television--also reached the countryside,
and, along with numerous farm-to-market roads, they had helped ease the
isolation of rural life.
Numerous peasant cooperatives and associations had also sprung up.
Like the unions and the student groups, most of these were associated
with the main political parties: Bosch's PLD, the PRD, and the Social
Christian Reformist Party, (Partido Reformista Social Cristiano--PRSC;
also referred to as the Christian Democrats). Balaguer also attracted
widespread support among the peasants because they associated his rule
with peace, stability, and prosperity. In highly paternalistic fashion,
and with great publicity, Balaguer also made a point of handing out land
titles to peasants for lands formerly belonging to Trujillo. Despite the
upswing in their political activities, however, the peasants were still
not effectively organized, and they seldom managed to influence national
policy making.
Dominican Republic - Middle Class
By the 1980s, Dominican society no longer consisted of a small landed
elite at the top and a huge mass of peasants at the bottom, with almost
no one in between. In large part, as a result of the economic
development and modernization that had occurred since the end of the
Great Depression, a sizable middle class, constituting 30 to 35 percent
of the population, had emerged.
The middle class consisted of shopkeepers, government officials,
clerks, military personnel, white-collar workers of all kinds, teachers,
professionals, and the better paid members of the working class. Most of
the middle class resided in Santo Domingo, but secondary cities like
Santiago, Barahona, Monte Cristi, La Romana, San Francisco de Macor�s,
and San Pedro de Macor�s had also developed sizable middle-class
populations.
The middle class, not the oligarchy, had come to predominate within
the country's major political institutions: the Roman Catholic Church,
the military officer corps, the government service, the political
parties, interest groups, and even the trade union leadership. However,
the middle class was often divided on social and political issues.
Generally, its members advocated peace, order, stability, and economic
progress. It backed Balaguer in the late 1960s and the early 1970s
because he was thought to stand for those things that the middle class
wanted; later it supported the PRD governments of Guzm�n and Jorge for
the same reason. The middle class used to support authoritarian
governments because it thought they would best protect its interests; in
the 1980s, however, the middle-class consensus generally supported
democracy as the best way to preserve stability and to sustain
development.
Dominican Republic - The Bureaucracy
The Dominican Republic is a relatively small and weak country,
heavily dependent on the outside world economically and strategically,
and located in the center of one of the world's most important areas of
East-West and North-South conflict--the volatile Caribbean. For these
reasons, various outside actors have long exercised a significant degree
of influence in the island nation's internal politics.
In the early nineteenth century, the principal outside actors were
Spain, France, and Britain; toward the end of the century, Germany and
the United States had also become involved in Dominican affairs. Because
the Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, and
because Haiti represented a constant threat to the Dominican Republic,
both before and after the Haitian occupation of 1822-44, Haiti also
exerted significant influence.
A variety of transnational actors have played a significant role in
Dominican politics. Transnational actors had no single national
identity; they transcended national boundaries, but had local influence
nonetheless. They included multinational corporations, the Socialist
International (the international grouping of social democratic parties
highly involved in Dominican affairs during the 1970s and the 1980s),
the Vatican, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Christian Democratic
International, among others.
Many of these agencies, or the embassies of such countries as the
United States or Haiti, played a role not only in Dominican
international affairs, but in the country's internal affairs as well.
Some of them tried to influence national politics; they maintained
programs (scholarships, travel awards, etc.) to attract and to influence
young people, labor leaders, and government officials. In many ways,
they functioned almost like domestic interest groups. In a small, weak,
and dependent country like the Dominican Republic, the influence of
outside actors was often considerable.
Dominican Republic - Political Parties
Political parties and a political party system in the modern sense
had a very short history in the Dominican Republic, dating back only to
the early 1960s. Most parties were weakly organized, had weak and
inexperienced political leadership, were neither very ideological nor
programmatic, and were generally based on personalistic followings
rather than on concrete programs.
Beginning in the mid-1960s, two main parties, or movements, had
dominated Dominican politics. These were the PRD and the Reformist Party
(Partido Reformista--PR). Both these parties had gone through several
reorganizations.
The PRD had been founded in 1939 by exiles from the Trujillo
dictatorship. It functioned as an exiled organization for twentytwo
years, before returning to the Dominican Republic in 1961 after
Trujillo's assassination.
In the late 1980s, the PRD was a left-of-center, democratic political
party. Strongly oriented toward social justice, it sought to assist
peasants and workers. Although nationalistic, the PRD belonged to the
Socialist International. Its platform supported both political and
economic democracy. A strongly reformist party, the PRD nonetheless was
committed to implementing change through democratic means.
On the strength of this program, the PRD, led by the charismatic Juan
Bosch, had won the 1962 election, the freest in the country's history,
by a two-to-one margin. Bosch was overthrown, however, after only seven
months in office. The PRD organized a constitutionalist revolt, in 1965,
aimed at restoring democratic government, but the revolution was put
down militarily by the United States, an action that made Bosch and many
PRD leaders bitterly resentful of the United States. Perceived as a
symbol of instability and revolution, Bosch lost the 1966 election to
Balaguer. For the next twelve years, the PRD went into eclipse; it
functioned primarily as the Dominican Republic's largest opposition
party. After a major split, Bosch left to form his own, more radical,
PLD.
In 1978, under Guzm�n, and again in 1982 under Jorge, the PRD won
the national elections. It governed moderately and without the rancor of
the past, but as it tried to put its social program into effect, it ran
up against the constraints of austerity.
The PRD had a clear ideological program and was the best organized
political party in the country; however, it was torn by personal and
ideological differences. Pitted against each other were its right wing,
led by Majluta; its center, led by Jorge; and its left wing, led by Jos�
Francisco Pe�a G�mez. These differences became even more pronounced in
1989. Former president Jorge was indicted for corruption, and hence his
popularity plummeted; Majluta was neither trusted nor respected by many
in the party and the nation; and Pe�a G�mez was reportedly
contemplating the launching of his own independent movement, which would
further split the PRD. A number of younger leaders, such as Jorge proteg�
Hatuey de Camps Jim�nez, also rose to prominence within the party in
the 1980s. When unified, the PRD was usually strong enough to win
elections, but when divided it usually lost. After the death of
Trujillo, the PRD was divided more often than it was unified.
The other major party was the PR, the personal machine of President
Balaguer. More conservative than the PRD, the PR lacked a clear-cut
program. It consisted of officeholders, job seekers, and persons loyal
to Balaguer. The PR functioned more as a patronage mechanism than as a
party with an identifiable ideology. Balaguer used this political
machine to win elections in 1966, 1970, and 1974. The PR dispensed jobs
and favors and, in general, helped him to govern.
In 1985 Balaguer promoted a union between the PR and the
Revolutionary Social Christian Party (Partido Revolucionario Social
Cristiano--PRSC). The PRSC was the established Christian Democratic
party in the country; it was widely respected, but it had little
electoral strength. Balaguer gave the PRSC the leadership and the
electoral support that it had lacked. The PRSC, in turn, gave Balaguer
the support of its trade union, student, and peasant organizations; its
legitimacy as a serious Christian Democratic party; and its connections
with the Christian Democratic International. The new party designated
itself the Social Christian Reformist Party (Partido Reformista Social
Cristiano--PRSC), changing its name slightly, but retaining the old
initials. The PRSC won the 1986 election by a slim margin over the PRD.
The third major party, Bosch's PLD, won 18 percent of the vote in
1986. It was more radical than the PRD and more antiUnited States. Its
program called for the establishment of a "revolutionary
dictatorship" and for close relations with Cuba and the Soviet
Union. The PLD appealed to young people and to those whose disaffection
with the prevailing social, political, and economic system in the
Dominican Republic had reached an extreme degree; it gained popular
support during the 1980s as a result of the country's manifold economic
and political problems.
Balaguer and Bosch had long been personal, as well as political and
ideological, rivals. Indeed, by 1989 these two men had been jousting
with each other politically for some fifty years. In 1989 both were in
their eighties. They were the two main protagonists, the two rival
caudillos, of modern Dominican politics. Their rivalry delineated the
overlap between traditional personalism and modern party politics.
The Dominican Republic's several minor parties were weakly organized,
and they usually represented the personal followings of individual
caudillos. In the 1986 election, none of these parties received as much
as 1 percent of the vote, which made their eligibility to compete in
future elections questionable. Several of these personal machines were
simply testing the political waters in 1986, and they might come back in
reorganized form in future elections. Another possibility was that their
leaders might try to merge their organizations with the larger parties,
or perhaps themselves become the candidates of the larger parties. These
relations illustrated the fluidity and the lack of institutionalization
of the Dominican party system.
The extreme-left and communist parties never had much of a popular
following. Bosch's formation of the PLD further undermined the potential
support of the extreme left. Many Dominican peasants were conservative
rather than radical, and the weak unions were increasingly oriented
toward "bread-and-butter" issues rather than revolutionary
action. In addition, the close ties of the Dominican Republic to the
United States and the absence of widespread class conflict among
Dominicans--Haitians formed the cane-cutting "proletariat" in
the countryside, and, therefore, the potential for class conflict was
sapped by racial, cultural, and nationalistic considerations--further
diminished the possibility of a strong communist movement.
The two main far-left parties were the Communist Party of the
Dominican Republic (Partido Comunista de la Rep�blica Dominicana-
-Pacoredo)--a splinter group of the Dominican Communist Party (Partido
Comunista Dominicano--PCD)--and the Socialist Bloc (Bloque
Socialista--BS). These two parties chose not to field candidates in the
1986 election, in part because doing so would have revealed their weak
electoral appeal. The Moscow-line PCD did enter the 1986 election, and
it received only 4,756 votes-- considerably less than 1 percent of the
total. Nevertheless, all the far-left parties actively criticized the
PRD and the PRSC and publicly presented their own points of view. The
communist parties had little popular following in their own right, but
by attaching themselves to the nationalistic Bosch and the PLD they
could conceivably wield influence out of proportion to their numbers.
Some signs indicated that a basic and more stable two-party system,
consisting of the left-of-center PRD and the right-of- center PRSC,
might be evolving in the Dominican Republic in the late 1980s. A
two-and-a-half party system, with the PLD joining these other two,
represented another possibility. Nevertheless, the political system
continued to be quite fluid; personalities still counted at least as
much as parties. Other routes to power existed besides party activism
and elections; therefore, the consolidation of a stable, functioning
party system could not yet be taken for granted.
Dominican Republic - The Mass Media
Beginning in the early 1960s, the Dominican Republic experienced a
communications revolution. The spread of radio, television, and
newspapers awakened the previously isolated countryside, stimulated
rapid urbanization, and led to the political mobilization of millions of
people who had never participated in politics before. In addition, since
Trujillo's death in 1961, the Dominican media had been among the freest
of all those in Latin America.
There were 123 radio stations--115 commercial and 8
government-sponsored--operating in the country in 1989. Of these,
thirty-four stations operated in the capital city alone, and half that
number broadcasted from the second city, Santiago. Most other secondary
cities had several radio stations. All stations were
government-licensed. The Dominican Republic's large number of stations
ensured that every part of the island was accessible to radio
broadcasting.
The advent of cheap transistor radios in the early 1960s ushered in
the communications revolution. Even poor peasants, eking out a
subsistence living, could afford such a radio. Transistor radios brought
in the political news from the capital city and thus helped to integrate
rural elements into the national political life for the first time. Just
as important, they also exposed Dominicans to the culture, the behavior,
and the music of the outside world.
There were eighteen television channels, operated by six companies in
1989; two channels were government-owned, and sixteen were private. All
were government-licensed. Although most Dominicans could not afford a
set of their own, those who did not own one often watched at neighbors'
houses or in public places, such as bars or shops. Thanks to relay
stations, television broadcasts originating in Santo Domingo could be
transmitted to the interior.
The main newspapers were El Caribe and List�n Diario.
Both were dailies, published in the capital city, and both had
circulations over 30,000. El Caribe was moderate and
nationalistic; it was, for a long time, the main newspaper in the
country. List�n Diario, founded in 1889 and published
intermittently thereafter, was most recently revived in 1964. It was
more reformist and more critical of the government. It established a
reputation as a crusading paper and soon matched El Caribe in
circulation.
Other major Santo Domingo newspapers were El Tiempo, El
Nacional, and �ltima Hora. El Tiempo was
conservative, El Nacional was more crusading and nationalistic,
and �ltima Hora had been launched by List�n Diario
as an afternoon newspaper to challenge El Nacional. In Santiago
there were two main newspapers: La Informaci�n, a conservative
afternoon paper, and El Sol, a moderate morning paper. Other
cities had smaller papers, focused mainly on local news. The big
circulation dailies all received the major wire services--Associated
Press (AP), United Press International (UPI), Reuters, and others. As a
result, their international coverage was often quite extensive. The
largest weekly newsmagazine in the country was Ahora, which was
owned by El Nacional.
Each main political party published its own small newspaper and aired
its own radio program. The major trade unions, professional
associations, and interest groups also produced their own newspapers,
although they often published sporadically, and some maintained public
relations offices. The armed forces operated its own radio station, and
the Roman Catholic Church owned and operated several radio stations and
small newspapers. The Voice of America was widely listened to; Radio
Havana and Radio Moscow also beamed broadcasts that could be heard
throughout the country.
Although the coverage of news stories was not always entirely
professional, and although there had been attempts by government and the
military over the years to intimidate, or even to close down, some
papers and stations, by and large the Dominican media had been
remarkably free, independent, and diverse since 1961. They performed an
important educational function in the country, and they exerted an
important influence in mobilizing the country politically. In fact, the
mass media had become one of the most important bulwarks of Dominican
democracy.
Dominican Republic - FOREIGN RELATIONS
The Dominican Republic maintained very limited relations with most of
the countries of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. It
had little commerce, tourist trade, or diplomatic contact with most of
these nations, and hence little reason for an embassy or mission. The
Dominican Republic was not a global power with global responsibilities;
nor, as a poor country, could it afford to maintain widespread
diplomatic representation.
The Dominican Republic concentrated its diplomatic activities in four
critical arenas: the circum-Caribbean, Latin America, the United States,
and Western Europe. It belonged to the Organization of American States
(OAS), the United Nations (UN), and other international bodies.
Although the Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola with
Haiti, traditionally relations between the two countries have seldom
been good. In the nineteenth century, Haiti repeatedly invaded,
plundered, and occupied the Dominican Republic. In addition, Dominicans
tended to see Haiti as black, African, and uncivilized, in contrast to
their own country, which they considered Hispanic and European.
When political troubles flared up in Haiti, Dominican governments
usually mobilized the armed forces and put them on alert. Haitian
political exiles often settled in Santo Domingo, which they used as a
springboard for their partisan activities. Numerous Dominican
governments had also tried to influence political events in Haiti. The
border between the two countries had been closed on a number of
occasions.
Over the years, higher salaries and better living conditions had
induced many Haitians to settle in the Dominican Republic. Dominicans
would express resentment of this Haitianization, but at the same time
they depended on Haitian labor. This was particularly true during the
cane-cutting season, when thousands of Haitians were trucked in, kept in
miserable labor camps, and then trucked back (although some remained
behind, melding into the local population). The practice commonly gave
rise to human rights abuses, and the term "slavery" was
sometimes used when changes were raised in some international bodies.
Little trade or commerce existed between the Dominican Republic and
Haiti. Each eyed the other's politics warily and often tried to
influence the outcome. Because of the complex racial, cultural, and
social disparities between the two nations, it seemed doubtful that
relations between the two countries would ever be friendly.
Dominican relations with the nearby island of Puerto Rico were quite
good. A considerable amount of commercial trade, tourism, and investment
activity took place between the two islands. Many Dominicans emigrated
to Puerto Rico, where they generally enjoyed better jobs, salaries, and
benefits. A lively-- and dangerous--traffic existed in small boats that
traversed the Mona Passage, by night, carrying illegal Dominican emigr�s
to Puerto Rican shores. Puerto Rico's links to the United States through
its commonwealth status also facilitated the migration of Dominicans to
the United States mainland.
Many Puerto Ricans had invested in the Dominican Republic or owned
weekend cottages there. At the same time, the large Dominican population
in Puerto Rico was used by some as evidence to support the charge that
Dominicans were taking jobs away from Puerto Ricans.
Despite a few minor points of contention, relations between the
Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico were generally stable and amiable. In
contrast, the Dominicans had an uneasy, and still largely informal,
relationship with Cuba. The Dominican Republic had broken diplomatic
relations with Cuba in 1962; on several subsequent occasions, Cuba
sought to promote revolution in the Dominican Republic. With the growth
of the Dominican economy in the 1970s, however, the Dominican Republic
surpassed Cuba in per capita gross domestic product (GDP), reversing the two nations' traditional relative positions. By
the late 1980s, the Dominicans dealt with Cuba from a position of
strength rather than weakness, but they remained wary of Cuban military
strength and the possibilities of Cuban subversion.
During the 1980s, the contacts between Cuba and the Dominican
Republic increased: there were both sports and cultural exchanges. Most
of these contacts were informal, but some official contacts between
government representatives of the two countries also took place. For
Cuba these exchanges formed part of its hemispheric-wide efforts to
break out of the relative diplomatic and commercial isolation in which
it existed after 1962 and to overcome the United States economic
blockade. For the Dominican Republic, a flirtation with Cuba served to
keep the domestic left from criticizing the government; it also put
pressure on the United States, which in the 1980s did not favor
normalization of relations with Cuba. One major impediment to closer
ties was the competition of the two island nations in world sugar
markets, a situation hardly calculated to encourage cooperation.
By 1989 the Dominican Republic had become more closely involved in
the larger political and economic developments of the circum-Caribbean.
It maintained close relations with Venezuela, with which it had
important trade links. Its relations with the smaller, formerly British,
Caribbean islands (including Jamaica) were also closer than they had
been previously, and they included observer status in the Caribbean
Community and Common Market (Caricom).
The Dominican Republic avoided too deep an involvement in the Central
American imbroglios. It had offered its good offices and had served as
an intermediary and peacemaker in some facets of the conflict. Not
wanting to jeopardize its relations with Mexico, the Central American
nations, or the United States, however, it had stayed aloof from the
more controversial aspects of the various Central American conflicts.
Dominicans were resentful when Nicaragua used its Soviet, East European,
and "non-aligned" connections to beat out the Dominican
Republic for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
The Dominican Republic's most important relations were with the
United States. Politically, economically, and strategically, the
Dominican Republic was more dependent on the United States than it was
on any other nation. The United States maintained the largest embassy,
by far, in Santo Domingo, and the Dominican embassy in Washington was
the country's most important.
Dominicans sometimes resented the large United States presence in
their country and the condescending and patronizing attitudes of some
Americans. They also resented United States intervention in their
internal affairs, particularly the military intervention of 1965. But
most Dominicans strongly liked and admired the United States, wanted to
travel or emigrate there, and had gotten used to the influence of the
United States embassy in their country. Although Dominicans did not
appreciate United States interference, they also feared United States
inaction in regional affairs. Over the years, most Dominican politicians
had determined that the prudent course was to make accommodations with
the United States. In recent years, however, this relationship of
dependence had become more one of bilateral interdependence.
The Dominican Republic maintained good relations with the nations of
Western Europe and tried to increase trade with that region as a way of
diversifying its economic relations. Cultural and political links were
also important. The leading West European nations with interests in the
Dominican Republic were the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany),
which significantly increased its exchange programs during the 1980s;
Spain, for reasons of culture and language, as well as the Spaniards'
generally more visible and active foreign policy in Latin America; and
France, because of cultural and economic relations.
Among Asian nations, Japan had become a significant commercial
presence in the 1980s, but it had little interest in political or
strategic matters. The Republic of China (Taiwan) had extensive
commercial and diplomatic relations. Similarly, Israel had provided aid
and technical assistance and maintained some commercial, cultural, and
diplomatic ties. In return, the Israelis often counted on the Dominican
Republic to support their positions in international fora.
The Dominican Republic was a signatory to the Charter of the OAS, the
Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (the Rio Treaty), the
Pact of Bogot�, and all major inter-American conventions. Historically,
its ties to, and involvement in, the OAS had been stronger than its
relations with the UN.
The Dominican Republic was a member of the UN, its Economic
Commission for Latin America (ECLA), and its Education, Scientific, and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the International Labour Organisation
(ILO), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the International Court
of Justice. It subscribed to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the
World Bank, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and the International Development
Association (IDA). It was a participant in the International Civil
Aviation Organization (ICAO), the Universal Postal Union (UPU), and the
International Telecommunications Union (ITU). It was also a member of
the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the Postal Union of the
Americas and Spain, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
In the 1980s, the Dominicans have actively sought leadership roles in
international organizations. This trend, along with the establishment of
new diplomatic and economic ties, prompted debate throughout the country
on issues of foreign policy and strategic relations. Such an awareness
of world affairs was understandable in a country the identity,
development, and direction of which were, in considerable measure, the
result of external influences.
Dominican Republic - Bibliography
Atkins, G. Pope, and Larman C. Wilson. The United States and
the Trujillo Regime. New Brunswick: Rutgers University
Press, 1972.
Black, Jan Knippers. The Dominican Republic: Politics and
Development in an Unsovereign State. Boston: Allen and
Unwin, 1986.
Calder, Bruce J. The Impact of Intervention: The Dominican
Republic During the U.S. Occupation of 1916-1924. (The
Texas Pan American Series.) Austin: University of Texas Press,
1984.
Campillo P�rez, Julio G. Historia Electoral Dominicana, 1848-
1986: El Grillo y El Ruise�or. Santo Domingo: Editora
Corripio, 1986.
Crassweller, Robert D. Trujillo: The Life and Times of a
Caribbean Dictator. New York: Macmillan, 1966.
Diederich, Bernard. Trujillo: The Death of the Goat.
Boston: Little, Brown, 1978.
Fagg, John Edwin. Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.
(Modern Nations in Historical Perspective Series.) Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1965.
Knight, Melvin M. The Americans in Santo Domingo. (Studies
in American Imperialism.) New York: Vanguard Press, 1928.
Logan, Rayford W. Haiti and the Dominican Republic. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1968.
Mej�a Ricart, Gustavo Adolfo. Biograf�a del Caudillo Pedro
Santana. (Colecci�n "Temas Hist�ricos," 1.) Santo
Domingo: Fundaci�n Mej�a Ricart--Guzm�n Boom, 1980.
Moya Pons, Frank. La Dominaci�n Haitiana, 1822-1844.
(Colecci�n `Estudios.') Santiago, Rep�blica Dominicana:
Universidad Cat�lica Madre y Maestra, 1972.
------. Historia Dominicana. (2 vols.) (Colecciones
Dominicanas.) Santo Domingo: Caribe Grolier, 1982.
P�rez, Carlos Federico. El Pensamiento y la Acci�n en la Vida
de Juan Pablo Duarte. Santo Domingo: Organizaci�n de
Estados Americanos, Universidad Nacional Pedro Henr�quez
Ure�a, 1979.
Rodman, Selden. Quisqueya: A History of the Dominican
Republic. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1964.
Rotberg, Robert I., with Christopher K. Clague. Haiti: The
Politics of Squalor. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971.
Slater, Jerome. Intervention and Negotiation: The United States
and the Dominican Revolution. New York: Harper and Row,
1970.
Welles, Sumner. Naboth's Vineyard: The Dominican Republic,
1844-1924. (World Affairs: National and International
Viewpoints.) New York: Payson and Clarke, 1928. Reprint. New
York: Arno Press, 1972.
Wiarda, Howard. J. The Dominican Republic: Nation in
Transition. New York: Praeger, 1969.
Wiarda, Howard J., and Michael J. Kryzanek. The Dominican
Republic: A Caribbean Crucible. (Nations of Contemporary
Latin America Series.) Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press,
1982.
------. The Politics of External Influence in the Dominican
Republic. (Politics in Latin America: A Hoover
Institution Series.) New York: Praeger/Hoover Institution
Press, 1988.
CITATION: Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress. The Country Studies Series. Published 1988-1999.
Please note: This text comes from the Country Studies Program, formerly the Army Area Handbook Program. The Country Studies Series presents a description and analysis of the historical setting and the social, economic, political, and national security systems and institutions of countries throughout the world.
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