The Iberoamerican Governance Barometer poll lists President Leonel Fernandez with the highest domestic approval rate in Iberoamerica. Next were the Presidents of Uruguay (80%), Argentina (77%), Chile (76%), Colombia (71%), Puerto Rico (67%), Venezuela 65%). The Consorcio Iberoamericano de Empresas de Investigacion de Mercados y Asesoramiento (CIMA) carried out the poll. In the Dominican Republic, polling was carried out by their affiliate, Sigma Dos. For the poll, 8,249 persons eligible to vote in Latin America, Portugal and Spain, including 200 in the Dominican Republic were interviewed during April and May.
83% of those asked if they approve or disapprove the administration of the President answered that they approve. 18% of those polled called the administration very good so far, 42.5% described it as good, for a 60.5% internal approval rate. 31% said it was neither good nor bad, 6.5% described it as bad and 2% described it as very bad.
48% of Dominicans identified corruption as the most serious problem affecting the Dominican Republic; 15% said it was the economy, 11% mentioned unemployment, 9% focused on health issues, 8% on security, 7% on education, 3% on terrorism, and 1% on political instability. Only 33% of Dominicans consider that President Fernandez has given very good or good handling of the corruption issue, compared to a 63% approval rate for handling of the economy.
29% of those polled considered the DR is the country with greatest leadership in Latin America, followed by Venezuela with 20%, Cuba with 14%, Mexico with 12 and Brazil and Chile tied with 7%. The DR also rated high in perception of greatest economic stability in Latin America, with 19%, followed by Chile with 18%, Cuba with 12%, Mexico with 11, Brazil 9%, Venezuela with 7%, Puerto Rico with 6%, Costa Rica with 5%.
http://www.cimaiberoamerica.com/cima_paises.htm
Executive editor of the Diario Libre, Adriano Miguel Tejada, a former press secretary to President Leonel Fernandez in his first term, writes today in his page two column about incoherence in government. He comments that the government cannot work out why people are not pleased, despite the many achievements of the government. To explain, he said people voted on 16 May for an in depth change in the way politics is exercised in the country, and up to know what there have been are cosmetic changes. People voted for revenge, and this has not happened. On the contrary, he writes that the government appears to be happy to leave the fight against corruption to others.
He writes that people voted to be heard, that their needs be taken into consideration but instead the government has launched its own projects without the approval of the public opinion (metro, rescuing of the HOMS private hospital in Santiago, the Supreme Court of Justice), and the expected austerity policies have not been forthcoming, such as the decorating of the Supreme Court evidences.
"President Fernandez has the greatest support among voters, but he appears to be very alone. It is true that the problems are deep and serious, but it is the government that is denying this appreciation, with some of its most advertised acts. The country is demanding austerity from the President in these difficult times."
Antonieta Rodriguez Solano, wife of former chief of security of former President Hipolito Mejia, Pedro Julio (Pepe) Goico, sent a legal notification to district attorney Jose Manuel Hernandez Peguero to explain that her husband is not in the country and thus cannot comply with the petition to visit the prosecutor's office for questioning in the Hernani Salazar suit against Marino Vinicio (Vincho) Castillo. She suggests that instead her husband be questioned by a consular representative, a judge or prosecutor representative in Spain. Castillo has requested that Goico be questioned regarding the alleged association of former officers with former army captain Quirino Paulino Castillo. Quirino purchased a Colibri helicopter that Goico had in turn purchased using the credit card issued by Baninter for expenditures of President Hipolito Mejia.
Tales of how, when and where Shlomo Ben-Tov alias Sam Goodson, the Israeli-American businessman involved in the Plan Renove transportation scandal, have speculated on his leaving the country. Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito insists that Goodson departed on the 24th via Haiti, from where he took a flight to Miami. But Diario Libre says that American Airlines database shows that he departed on an American Airlines flight from Las Americas International Airport to Miami on 2:05 pm on Friday, 22 April. Regardless, Francisco Dominguez Brito, the Attorney General, told reporters that he would seek an extradition order for Goodson.
Judge Alfredo Rios Fabian had decreed restraining orders on Friday and vetoed any of the accused in the case from leaving the country. Rios Fabian decreed last 22 April that Goodson post a RD$50,000,000 bail bond, upon finding sufficient evidence that supports the accusations that Goodson was tied into the RD$1.8 billion fraud committed against the Dominican government. Goodson had left the courtroom 50 minutes before the judge's decision was announced. The judge had mentioned that Goodson had brought in several vehicles that were used to bribe high-ranking officials of the Hipolito Mejia government, including one in the name of Jose Ceferino Adames, a special assistant to Mejia.
The Attorney General of the Dominican Republic defended the Police round up of suspected gang members last weekend that netted 300 people. He said that they were a warning that the authorities would do all that is possible to fight the gangs that are attacking people that are hard working. Dominguez Brito denied that the dragnet violated any laws, and pointed out that the Capotillo operation had been authorized by several judges, and the policemen were accompanied by assistant district attorneys as called for under the new Penal Codes. Further more, the AG said that he was in agreement that everything must be done to reduce the delinquency rates and allow the normal citizens to go about their business in peace. He said that Capotillo was a neighborhood of a lot of hard working people that were being harassed by these delinquent gangs.
Visiting IMF officials reviewing the performance of the stand by arrangement warn that the fiscal institutions of the DR are still weak, that there are persistent problems of tax evasion and the administration of tax revenues, the electric deficit is large, while the debt of the Central Bank might complicate monetary policy. According to El Caribe, the team highlights the need to not only rationalize government expenditures, carry out an institutional reformation of the bureaucracy, but also the need for the Congress to legislate on how the money is spent and how to execute and prepare the budget. Jose Fajgenbaum, the deputy director of the IMF's Western Hemisphere Department and Luis Cortavarria joined Ousmene Mandeng, the locally-based IMF representative.
"The crisis is not over," Fajgenbaum told the press, highlighting that public spending has to be rationalized. They mentioned that subsidies to the electric sector alone were US$650 million last year.
Fajgenbaum pointed out the need for an overall institutional reform within the public sector, and singled out the work that the legislature has to carry out in areas such as how income is handled. According to the paper, tax evasion continues to be a major headache for the IMF and, of course, the Dominican government.
Fajgenbaum recalled the causes of the economic crisis that started in 2002 and was accentuated by the events of 9/11, the rise in oil prices and exacerbated by the banking crisis of 2003.
The team leader said that proof that the crisis was not over is that the Central Bank is still strongly supporting the private banking sector.
During the press conference to announce preliminary findings of the review, economic analyst Luis Cortavarria suggested that the term of office for the Central Bank governor and the Superintendent of Power be extended to five years and never coincide with a presidential election year in order that monetary and electricity policies may be more continuous.
The president of the Dominican Association of Free Zones (Adozona), Arturo Peguero disputed the reported 3.5% growth for the free zone sector posted by the Central Bank for the first quarter of the year. He said the bank has not revealed the details that support the growth. He says this is hard to believe when 36 free zone industries have closed, with a loss of 18,000 jobs, and the value of apparel exports has not increased. As reported in Diario Libre, he said that the depreciation of the peso caused a temporary expansion of the free zones in the first half of last year, with growth being around 3% from January to March 2004. But the contrary has occurred today. "We do not understand where this analysis of the Central Bank comes from," he said.
The Dominican exporters are initiating a series of talks with the DGA (Customs Department) in order to establish a program of random checks for those exporters that are registered as low-risk exporters by the Customs Department. This will move merchandise and commodities through the docks much faster and reduce costs.
The president of ADOEXPO, Jose Antonio Flaquer, also explained that ADOEXPO and Customs will sign an agreement at the end of the talks.
With the new system an exporter, instead of having to visit several offices to export a product, will be able to do most of the work electronically. Flaquer explained that the Internet facilities will direct an exporter to the correct information. The current process requires inspections by Customs officials, the J-2 Intelligence branch of the Army, officials from the Navy, and, of course, the DNCD for drug control.
A new-old hurdle has cropped up in the process of getting the DR-CAFTA agreement approved in the US Congress. Senator Kent Conrad (D-North Dakota, www.senate.cov/~conrad) announced that he was going to introduce an amendment to the DR-CAFTA legislation that would remove sugar from the discussions. Yesterday, Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, and the Under-Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, Roger Noriega, urged the Senate to ratify the bill. Rice said that approval of the bill would "advance the cause of liberty in the Americas." Conrad, who represents one of the major sugar producing states of the United States, sugar from sugar beets, that is, introduced his amendment and effectively paralyzed the deliberations of the Senate Finance Committee. According to the story in the El Caribe, an official from the Commerce Department said that Conrad wants to introduce an amendment that would exclude sugar from the DR-CAFTA legislation unless certain conditions that are not possible at this time are met. Until enough votes are rounded up in the Finance Committee to defeat Conrad's motion, all work on the legislation is halted.
The Wall Street Journal also mentions that debates in Costa Rica seem to indicate that the agreement might not pass their legislature, either. According to reports coming from Costa Rica, the Assembly might not take a vote on the bill until after the presidential election next February. So far only El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemalaa have approved the text.
The large trucks that haul propane gas around the country came to a halt yesterday as the SACTPA teamster's union called a strike to try and get better working conditions. As a result the union organizers halted the trucks from Gas Caribe, Crediga, Rally Gas, Cocigas, Cinco Estrellas Gas, and Cocaleca Gas from entering the Dominican Refinery and filling up their tanks. As a result dozens of tank trucks were parked outside of the refinery (REFIDOMSA) waiting to be dispatched.
Clemente Morillo, the union's leader, said that the strike was called in order to get the trucking company's owners and the propane distributors to the bargaining table under the auspices of the Ministry of Labor. He praised the refinery's president, Aristedes Fernandez Zucco, as a great mediator in the conflict.
The union is asking for family medical insurance, life insurance, social security benefits, safety equipment for the trucks in accordance with the law.
Diario Libre reports today that a study carried out by the Coalition for the Defense of the Environment shows that more than 30 Dominican beaches have been irregularly privatized by hotel companies or individuals that have restrained the access to non-authorized persons. Dominican law establishes that all beaches are public. Development plans have established that alternate access should be left to enable persons not staying at hotels to have access to the beaches.
The coalition study shows that in addition to taking over beaches, hotel companies have taken over stretches of roads that have provided access to the beaches.
Luis Carvajal and Eleuterio Martinez, spokesman for the coalition say that the situation ahs been going on for decades and its systematic violation of the law has led to several thinking that they are in their legitimate right to privatize beaches.
Diario Libre reports that article 145 of Environment Law 64-00 says that public domain maritime and land property are inalienable. Art. 146 states that the state will ensure the protection of the spaces of the coastline and guarantee that the water resources not be destroyed or appropriated.
Diario Libre today mentions the cases of El Dudu underwater cave system near Cabrera, that of Playa Rogelio in Rio San Juan, that of Uvero Alta, Arena Gorda, Cortesito, Bavaro, Cabreza de Toro, Cabo Engano, Punta Cana, Juanillo, Bayahibe, Casa de Campo (Isla Catalina) and Guayacanes, where beach violations have taken place. Also on the list is Costambar, Cofresi, Bahia Maimon, Bahia Luperon, Playa Dorada, Bahia Principe and La Playita in Azua.
Privatization of beaches and access roads has been much in the press after the community of Cabarete has rallied against the closing off of the road leading to Playa Encuentro, the country's main surfer's beach.
Architect Oscar Imbert called for a more tropical architecture, during the Primer Convite de Arquitectura Caribena Contemporaria held at the Fundacion Global, as reported in El Caribe. "We have forgotten about the breeze of the Caribbean," he said. "We are erecting buildings in glass, typical of large cities like New York. I do not want to say here this is not valid, but we have to be aware that we are not a rich country and these buildings need lots of energy to operate," he stressed. He recommended at the contemporary architecture discussion that architects instead design buildings that are best adapted to our economic condition and our climate.
Puerto Rican architect Andres Mignucci, who is participating in the design of the Parque Central de Santiago with Dominican architect Gustavo More, said that in both Puerto Rico and the DR there is a clash between a trend that recognizes the tropical Caribbean nature of the islands and a US or Nordic one that produces urbanism that does not feel part of the place. Mignucci commented on the artificial island proposed by the government, urging that it avoid catering to the elite or becoming an economic burden for the state.
Howard Wiarda, a noted political scientist and writer, currently at the University of Georga, told his audience at the Funglode conference center that small countries like the Dominican Republic don't have the capacity to bring a person like Hugo Chavez to the presidency and take on a foreign policy that is independent of the United States, because they simply don't have the resources on the one hand and because they are close to the United States on the other. Wiarda was speaking at the conference entitled "Cultural Tradition and Politics in Latin America" being held at FUNGLODE from 3 May until 5 May. He is representing the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
As part of his talk, Howard Wiarda said that because of the strong cultural and economic ties between the two nations, it is "impossible" for the DR to assume an independent political position, and to attempt to do so would be a "disaster".
Chavez can go a different way than the United States or any other international agreements, because he has the wealth of the oil income, but for countries like the Dominican Republic this is not possible, he said. He also reasoned that there are more Dominicans in the United States than there are Venezuelans, and the whole East Coast of the United States is economically tied to the Dominican Republic, tourism is very important and a lot of the resident Dominicans send remittances back to the DR. This is why the DR is different from Venezuela and the Dominicans need to understand this reality, in his opinion.
Nonetheless, Wiarda sees the nation as obliged to diversify in its relations with Europe, Caricom, Mercosur and even with China. However, he warns, this must be done on a pragmatic not ideological basis, especially during a time of globalization.
Large majority admits racism in the Dominican Republic
In a study carried out in Dajabon and Santo Domingo, 83.4% of the Dominican population admits that that live in a racist society, as evidenced by the rejection of dark skin and the insults and mistreatment of the darker people. The study was carried out by the Jesuit Service for Immigration and Refugees. The study surveyed over 500 people in Dajabon (33% of the sample) and 12 different neighborhoods in Santo Domingo (67% of the sample). The study concludes that prejudice is nearly a universal characteristic among the groups studied. Accordingly, 80.6% of the mestizo population studied said that the Dominican society was racist, while an even higher percentage of blacks and whites perceived the racism. (86.1% and 87.5% respectively). Nearly a quarter of the sample said that racism was expressed by a "denial of rights" and another 20% talked about verbal abuse, insults and injustices. The sample group included government employees, community leaders, educators, religious personnel, unionists and medical personnel. According to Carlos Andujar, the study leader, the racist theme has been shameful, selective and exclusionary within a society that prides itself on its Hispanic heritage. The theme has been banned in Dominican literature, and by the people that shape public opinion. Andujar said that even the intellectuals have shunned the topic.
Labor Minister Jose Ramon (Monchy) Fadul announced that there were 450 jobs available in Spain under the jobs program between the two countries. The Dominican-Spanish Commission announced the job availability as part of the Agreement to Regulate Migration Flows that was signed in 2001. Along with Fadul, Jorge Sanchez, the Spanish Consul General attended the press conference. There are 300 jobs available in the area of retail commerce and 150 on the area of hostels and lodgings. Applications are being accepted at the Spanish Consulate. Several in the hotel sector have complained the Spanish program has been attracting skilled hotel workers lured by the wages in euros.
A team of doctors from the Bambino Gesu (Baby Jesus) hospital in the Vatican are in the Dominican Republic carrying out surgeries of the heart and hare-lips on young children at the General Hospital in the Plaza de la Salud and at the Robert Reid Cabral Children's Hospital in Santo Domingo. First Lady Margarita Cedeno headed up the opening ceremonies. The heart surgeries will be carried out at the Reid Cabral facility and the hare-lip surgery will be done at the General Hospital in the Plaza de la Salud. As part of the agreement between the Dominican institutions and the Hospital Bambino Gesu, Dominican doctors will be able to get in-service training online, work-study programs in Rome and scholarships to Bambino Gesu. The medical bibliography available at hospital's web site will be available free of charge to the local doctors. Later in the program, other areas of the country will be able to attend the clinical sessions.
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