President Hipolito Mejia is on the road again, this time to Bolivia and Brazil. He will first attend this week's Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, also to be attended by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, giving rise to speculation that the two will meet. Hoy's Emilio Lapayesse writes in his "En solo cien palabras" column that Bolivia, as "the continent's poorest country", is an auspicious venue for this week's meeting of Latin American leaders. "It would be good if the participants reflect on the failure of Bolivian democracy, which is as flawed as ours. Our President could ponder recent events in Bolivia, which culminated in the President's resignation." Lapayesse states that these summit meetings would be worthwhile if they really led to European-style economic integration, "but, unfortunately, they are not interested in that. Here, some are calling for dollarization." The writer can be contacted at e.lapayese@codetel.net.do After the summit, Mejia will travel to Brazil on the invitation of President Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva in the capital city of Brasilia, to attend a meeting of bilateral organizations aimed at drawing up a regional development strategy. President Mejia will also visit Sao Paulo for a meeting with Brazilian businesspeople and potential investors in the Dominican Republic. These include tourist and cruise ship operators, as well as sugar cane companies. This voyage will mark the President's 40th overseas trip since taking office in 2000.
The news of last week's appearance by President Hipolito Mejia on the US Spanish-language Univision TV channel is beginning to make waves in the country. During the interview, the President made several controversial comments, including insinuations about the sexual preferences of opposition party members, and used a racist term to refer to a camera operator. US-based Mexican journalist Jorge Ramos asked the President some difficult questions during the broadcast, ranging from his re-election ambitions to allegations of nepotism in his administration. Diario Libre's back-page editorial comment says that "the damage done is more electoral than personal," and that, although Dominicans are accustomed to the President's style and tend to let a lot of things like this pass, his performance of last week can only serve to harm his reputation in the United States, as well as on his home ground.
Tuesday's day of protest was a success, is the consensus in today's newspapers. Even the government is conceding that the strike was irreproachable and represented a legitimate expression of protest. Vice-President Milagros Ortiz Bosch went as far to say that the government owed the people an apology: "It was a protest that revealed a real situation, for which I would like to give my repeated apologies to the Dominican people." Hatuey Decamps, while denying that he had supported the protests, said that the strike was "a firm demonstration of the people's rejection of the government's economic policies, the power cuts, the high cost of living, increased interest rates, the price of chicken and expensive education." Opposition PLD general secretary Reinaldo Pared Perez said, "The people as a whole are saying 'no' to the government's economic policies." He then expressed hope that the strike action would help the authorities realize they are on the wrong track. Pared Perez called on the government to ease the dollar-peso exchange rate, reduce the price of fuel, food, and electricity and put an end to the power cuts. Private business association CONEP president Elena Viyella de Paliza said that Tuesday's strike should lead the government to contemplate the direction of their economic policies, and she expressed hope that the success of the protest would result in the government sitting round the table to discuss solutions to the country's problems. This view is shared by Monsignor Agripino Nunez Collado, who said that the government had to be open to alternatives in order to avoid disaster. The President rejected the strike organizing committee's call for a 30-day period in which the government must comply with its demands. Hipolito Mejia said that this was "unacceptable" and expressed his relief that the day of protest passed relatively peacefully.
El Caribe reports on the heartbreak of the bereaved families of those killed on Tuesday. A seventh victim, a woman, died in the northern town of Navarrete, where protests continued into Wednesday. As well as the dead, the newspapers report that 34 were injured and 544 were taken into police custody. The relatives of a young man shot dead by police in Santo Domingo's Los Mina district had no illusions that they would see justice done; they are only too aware that this has not been achieved by the families of the victims of previous incidents. "What justice is going to be done in this country?" says Carmen Martinez, mourning her son Francisco Alberto, 25. Her pessimism and despair are shared by Angela Henriquez, whose 22-year-old son, Nelson Arias, a police officer, was also killed in Tuesday's disturbances. Writing in Listin Diario, columnist Ana Mitila Lora laments the needless loss of life and the inevitable impunity of those responsible. She points to the fact that many of the deaths occurred accidentally, and asks whether Dominican lives have taken the route of their currency. "These deaths could have been prevented. So many police excesses cannot be justified. Does this mean that Dominican life has also become devalued?"
"The electric system is between hope and darkness" is El Caribe's depiction of what it goes on to describe as "the worst stint of power cuts in ten years." The generating companies continue to wait for the government and the distributors to pay their debts, while supply has sunk to as little as 50% of consumer demand in the last 24 hours. Generating stations around the country are lying idle, resulting in lengthy power interruptions. It is reported that the distribution of power cuts is far from equitable, with some neighborhoods suffering blackouts of up to 18 consecutive hours, while in other areas the outages only last for eight. The wealthier areas are not spared, however, as Urbanizacion Fernandez and El Millon, two districts in the capital, have endured 17-hour power cuts in the last few days. Other parts of the country report outages of 20 hours or more. Some of the papers report this morning that the government has made a payment of US$30 million to the generating companies, to whom it owes a total of US$375 million. This latest payment represents just 8% of the total debt. Listin Diario reveals that the administrative process aimed at resuming the flow of oil from Venezuela is underway. A Dominican diplomatic source in Caracas told the newspaper that the president of the Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos Venezolanos, Ali Rodriguez, held a meeting with Dominican ambassador Manuel Morales Lama, after which he authorized documentation to be sent for the necessary contracts. This development comes two weeks after an apparent heal in the rift between the two countries, which arose when Venezuela accused the Dominican government of complicity in a plot against President Hugo Chavez.
The two rival blocks of Presidential pre-candidates for the ruling PRD have called on the party's National Executive Committee (CEN) to convene party conventions that will determine the procedures for the selection of their ultimate Presidential candidate. The two meetings will differ on one key point, however - one will allow Presidential re-election and the other excludes it. Vice-President Milagros Ortiz Bosch, Rafael "Fello" Subervi Bonilla and Enmanuel Esquea Guerrero have accepted President Hipolito Mejia's inclusion as a pre-candidate, while their erstwhile fellow opponents of Presidential re-election, Hatuey Decamps, Ramon Alburquerque, Rafael Flores Estrella and Jose Rafael Abinader are persevering in their anti-re-electionist stance. Hatuey Decamps spoke of "dark clouds gathering over this country and the PRD, with the intentions of destroying it," but went on to insist that the President would not succeed in being re-elected. Decamps and his associates remain open to dialogue, he affirmed, as long as it led to a "non-re-electionist consensus". The convention committee for Saturday's meeting of the Mejia camp includes big names such as Peggy Cabral, Hugo Tolentino Dipp, Ivelisse Prats de Guerrero, William Jana and Virgilio Bello Rosa. Hugo Tolentino Dipp, the former Foreign Minister who resigned earlier this year over the President's support for the US action in Iraq, said that, although the President had the right to take part in the convention, he ought to relinquish his re-election ambitions for the sake of the party and the country.
At a meeting of opposition PLD party supporters last night, Presidential candidate Leonel Fernandez told the audience that President Hipolito Mejia was their greatest ally, because "he is helping us with his way of handling things, and for this reason we are not offended by his insults." Fernandez predicted that his party would command support of up to 60%, a level unsurpassed by any politician since the ill-fated Bosch government of 1963. He excluded the possibility of launching a campaign of "dirty tricks" and warned that if the ruling PRD took that route they would regret it. The former President said that he doubted his party's support could fall below 50%, guaranteeing an outright victory for the PLD at next year's Presidential elections.
The Economist Intelligence Unit profiles the events in the Dominican Republic on Tuesday, putting the strike into political and economic context. It ends with a gloomy prognosis, saying that economic recovery is unlikely and predicting further strikes and possibly more deaths between now and the election in May 2004. For the complete text of the EIU report EIU on strike.pdf.
Commerce Minister Sonia Guzman and US Trade representative Robert Zoellick have agreed on a program for the formalization of the upcoming free trade agreement between the Dominican Republic and the US. The meetings will take place in January, February and March of next year, in Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico and Washington DC. Guzman attended a meeting of the Trade and Investment Council in the US capital earlier this month, which included discussions on agriculture, intellectual property, legal aspects, services and investment. It also included a summary of the negotiations between the Central American nations and the US.
The government is authorizing the Banco de Reservas, Banco Agricola, Banco de Desarrollo and Banco Nacional de la Vivienda to renegotiate the repayment terms for agricultural sector debts. The loans to farmers had expired at the end of 2002, but Presidential Decree 1060-03, issued yesterday, will permit them to restructure the repayments, interest-free. It also opens the way to new credit facilities for the agricultural sector.
Endocrinologist Felix Manuel Escano says that over 8% of the Dominican population is diabetic and that "for each case diagnosed, there is one that is yet to come to light." Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Escano said the condition was on the rise amongst Dominicans, especially in the poorer sectors of society. As many as 400,000 Dominicans are afflicted with the condition, according to the specialist. To combat the situation, the Dr Marcelino Santana public hospital in Santo Domingo's Herrera district will begin offering specialized services for diabetics next year. According to the doctor, early detection is crucial to the successful treatment of diabetes and an inadequate diet was the main factor behind the disease.
The Dominican baseball manager could not conceal his delight at being named the American League's "Manager of the Year" on behalf of the Baseball Writers' Association of America. This prestigious award comes for his achievement in turning around the fortunes of his team, the Kansas City Royals. Pena received a phone call from President Hipolito Mejia, congratulating him on his prize. The flamboyant manager was celebrating at his Santiago home yesterday with a champagne toast, accompanied by a traditional "perico ripiao" musical trio. He stated that his ambition for next year was to take his team to victory. The formal presentation ceremony will take place in the US on 24 January 2004. Pena is the second Dominican to receive this honor; Felipe Alou earned the same title for the National League in 1994.
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