Though the Mejia administration has yet to reveal the specifics of its proposed tax and economic reforms, public demonstrations are anticipated in response. Traditionally, in the DR, new programs and policies expected to affect the consumer?s pocketbook are greeted by rowdy demonstrations. Speaking at yesterday?s cabinet meeting in San Cristobal, the Interior and Police Minister, Rafael Subervi Bonilla, said that the right to peaceful demonstration is ?guaranteed.? However, He warned that, ?no one ought to convert these protests into the burning of vehicles.? Both the Chief of Police, Pedro De Jesus Candelier, and Defense Minister, Jose Miguel Soto Jimenez, affirmed that they are ready to meet any disturbances with force in order to ?preserve tranquillity and peace.? Officials were responding to rumors of protests, marches, and demonstrations that have surfaced in the press. Today?s Hoy quotes Juan Hubieres, President of the New Option National transport Federation (FENATRANO) as saying that the Mejia government ought to prepare itself for the protests that its economic plans will produce. ?The government says one thing today and something else tomorrow,? said Hubieres, ?and people who voted on August 16th [for Mejia] have now begun to withdraw their support and will generate small protests which, in turn, will produce social upheavals, which has been the history of our country.? Authorities at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD) were unwilling to place their faith in exhortations. They announced that the institution would remain closed ?indefinitely? in order that its campus not become the staging area for violent protests. The UASD, where the new academic year is scarcely a month old, was closed last week due to protests over proposed reforms to its basic charter.
