Feature Page: Dominican Republic shaken by general strike

by Gerry Foley

On Jan. 28-29, a 48-hour general strike shut down the Dominican Republic. It was called to protest neoliberal policies carried out by the government of Hipolito Mejia. Among its demands were a moratorium on payments on the international debt and the suspension of imports of luxuries for two years, as well as the imposition of a special tax on luxuries and real estate and the abolition of the tax on gasoline.

According to the coordinating committee of trade unions and left organizations (Colectivo de Organizaciones Populares) that called the strike, it was 97 percent effective.

The right-wing regime called out its repressive forces—both the official armed forces and the reactionary thugs known as the Banda Blanca (White Gang)—against the strikers. At least eight protesters are known to have been killed. But repression failed to intimidate the workers.

In the wake of the strike, the Mexico City daily La Jornada reported, “In the provinces, the situation is tense, above all in the northern region. The entire country continues to be heavily patrolled by soldiers and police carrying high-caliber weapons, many of them with their faces covered with camouflage paint. In many towns and neighborhoods, mass mobilizations have been organized, while dozens of people have been arrested.”

In an article distributed by the list-serve operated by Ernesto Herrera, former director of the Fourth International internet news service, a leader of the Dominican Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth), H. Galvan, wrote: “In this strike sectors traditionally distant from each other united to say ‘no’ to the neoliberal policy and arrogance of President Hipolito Mejia.”

The strike, said Galvan, “expressed all the social discontent accumulated in years of the misrule of the conservative government of the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano and the preceding governments presided over by the Partido de la Liberacion Dominicana and the Partido Reformista Social Cristiano, all of which were case-hardened defenders of the oligarchy and U.S. colonial policies.”

Galvan gave the following description of the movement in the country’s capital and major city: “In the slums of Santo Domingo, the battle was fought street to street. Defying death, like the Palestinians, the people fought back against the army, the police, and the mercenary gangs.

“From the early hours of the night of Jan. 27, youths armed with stones, sticks, rubber clubs, gasoline, and other home-made weapons began to come onto the streets. They were responding to the daily violence of hunger, desperation, and marginalization. They came out onto the streets despite the fact that there was an army contingent on every corner armed with heavy weapons.”

The Rebel Youth leader pointed out that after a period of retreat under the blows of former president Balaquer’s repression in the 1970s, the mass movement rebounded with a new fury and power against the Mejia government’s attempts to follow the recipes of the IMF.

This is another warning for the Latin American governments that are trying to follow the dictates of their more and more greedy and ruthless imperialist masters.