Some time ago, DR1 News told its readers of the impending arrival of units of the US Army. Initial accounts varied wildly, until a US Embassy press release relayed that a few hundred soldiers would take part in joint-training and humanitarian missions in conjunction with the Dominican armed forces. With the arrival of approximately 200 soldiers, a left-wing party spokesman, Narciso Isa Conde, denounced yesterday what he termed a "new American invasion." Today the US Embassy told the press that there will be 200 soldiers on rotation to assist the Dominican armed forces in the construction of housing, public health projects and other social assistance programs. The Armed Forces Minister, Lt. General Jose Miguel Soto Jimenez, told reporters that the declarations of Isa Conde were "apocryphal".
