According to a story taken from the Miami Herald, the U.S. has suspended what would have been a US$1 million grant to the National Police (PN) due to an alleged failure to stop civil rights abuses. The notice was given to police informally last December, but an official communiqué from the Division of Training Assistance in Criminal Investigation of the Justice Department will be sent to President Leonel Fernandez this week. An unnamed Justice Department source is quoted as saying, "They’ve made no effort to reform the PN, consequently the decision has been made not to help them until they do."Reform has been a high priority for General Pedro De Jesus Candelier, who was seconded from the army by the Fernandez administration to head the PN. Candelier, who gained a reputation as incorruptible when he headed the army unit responsible for protecting the environment, is widely credited with combating corruption. He has dismissed more than 2,300 police officers accused of taking bribes, or of moonlighting in criminal activities, or of testing positive for drug use. However, under his stewardship, the killing of prison inmates, and others detained by the police has increased sharply.According to Virgilio Almanzar, head of the Dominican Committee for Human Rights (CDH), 70 alleged criminals have been killed so far this year while in police custody. "Just 5 or 10 per cent of these killings were in self defense," claims Almanzar. "The rest are simple murders by professional assassins." Official statistics reveal that 168 persons suspected of committing criminal acts were killed while in police custody. In 1999, the figure increased to 221. A 1999 report of the U.S. State Department states that the "vast majority of these killings [took place under conditions that are] questionable."U.S. officials, foreign diplomats, and Almanzar credit the increase of such homicides directly to Candelier, who swore an oath to halt crime in the DR when he took over as police chief. Dominican officials attribute the sharp increase in murder and other felonies to the U.S. policy introduced in the mid-90"s of repatriating convicted felons. In 1999, the U.S. deported 2,618 Dominicans, half of whom had been convicted of drug-related crimes.Last June, Amnesty International issued a report that accused the government of widespread civil rights abuses, including murders, beatings, illegal detentions, and sexual abuse. This past November, a UN document denounced the DR police and prison authorities for employing torture against citizens. Last December, the CDH demanded that disciplinary action be taken against police Coronel Benito Diaz Perez, accused of torturing detainees in the Villa Mella and Sabana Perdida sectors of the National District, where he has command.A police spokesman, Colonel Nelson Rosario Guerrero, admitted that "isolated acts," such as the recent one, in which women inmates of the Rafey Prison in Santiago were beaten by the police warden and other officers, need special attention. Some sort of specially trained police unit to manage prisons is "necessary," he said.
