UNEASY REPUBLIC CONFUSION REIGNS BEHIND THE LULL IN SANTO DOMINGO

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30892, 27 October 1965, Page 16

UNEASY REPUBLIC CONFUSION REIGNS BEHIND THE LULL IN SANTO DOMINGO

(By

JEREMY WOLFENDEN

of the "Daily Telegraph." London, writing from Santo Domingo.)

(Reprinted from the “Daily Telegraph" by arrangement./

The walls of the Presidential palace in Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic, still show the marks of the rifle bullets which hit them during the revolution more than five months ago. Although it is more than a month since the provisional President, Dr. Hector Garcia Godoy, was installed, no one has filled in the shell holes where the Navy opened fire on his predecessor, Mr Cabral, last April.

In the crowded streets and alleys of the working-class area of the city there is the same atmosphere of improvisation, of a crisis that has not been solved, only postponed. The shops are open, but there are iron shutters over the windows. When the Provisional Government was installed on September 3, many people outside the country and some officials of the Organisation of American States happily assumed that another sticky Latin-American crisis was over. But in fact it may break out again at any moment. This is not the fault of Dr. Garcia Godoy himself. He is one of the best possible choices as provisional President, since he is acceptable to the i-lo-cals of Mr Juan Bosch’s party, and at least tolerable to the Right-wing landowners and military men. Walking a Tightrope But during the last month he has found himself walking a tightrope. Since he governs under the guns of the 0.A.5., of the Dominican Army based on San Isidro just outside the capital, and of the armed rebels (or "Constitutionalists”) who have ben controlling the centre of the city, he has little room for initiative. He has not even been able! in practice to carry out the “Act of Reconciliation,” the formal document by which both the Right-wing Army officers and the rebels in the centre of the city agreed to accept his authority. The whole timetable for restoring democratic government to Santo Domingo and withdrawing the inter-American peace force is falling further and further behind. For instance, he has not so far succeeded in inducing the rebels to hand over their arms. Some are piled, with a derelict tank, at one of the rebel headquarters, and are. the subject of continual nego-l liation, but the majority of I the hand weapons have found' their way into the possession of the “Tigres,” the local toughs. He has succeeded, however, in inducing the rebel forces to abandon their strong points in the working-class area of the city and to move to an abandoned military camp across the river to the east. But the 1200 soldiers—a number neatly between the rebels’ own inflated claims and the i minimised estimates of the junta leaders—still do not know when they will be reintegrated into the Dominican Army.

I With the refusal of the generals and colonels who fought I the revolt to accept the "reintegration” of rebel officers. 1 the inter-American peace force of the O.A.S. is as necessary as ever. There are still more than 10.000 troops stai tioned in and around Santo 1 Domingo. I Of these troops, 8500 are i still the Americans of the 82nd Airborne Division who flew in during the revolution. But they are being kept very much out’of sight these days, in def-1 erence to Latin-American susceptibilities, and most of the check-point duty is carried out by the Brazilians, who have earned themselves a tough reputation. Insurance to Regime The Americans, however, remain as the insurance for the provisional regime against any attempt to overthrow it by yet another coup d'etat. The chief nesting ground for the plot seems to have been the military and air base at San Isidro, where the Rightwing military junta had its 1 headquarters. While General Wessin was in command there, I they were a threat to any liberal regime that could only be countered by the presence: of the O.A.S. force. But now General Wessin has been removed apparently by one of the less-publicised United States agencies, and the military men are describ-1 ed by one observer as "running around like a chicken with its head cut off.” Last week they are said to have demanded a showdown with Dr. Garcia Godoy, but the President dealt with them firmly.

They continue to hold enough power to retain one of their number, Francisco Rivera Caminero, as C-in-C of the Army in spite of continual protests by the supporters of Juan Bosch. But they have failed in their attempt to block the transfer of the police from military command to that of the civilian Government.

To his Left, President Carcia Godoy inevitably finds his position undermined by the presence in the country of his former leader, Juan Bosch. As the last freely elected President of the Dominican Republic, and as a figure with a reputation and the rhetoric to go with it. Bosch is bound to dominate politics here. But he is behaving in a strangely indecisive way. His supporters have been clamouring around him, but he has still not made it clear to them, or to anyone else, whether he will stand for elec-

tion as President when elections are finally held in “six to nine months' time”—as the O.A.S. still officially hopes.

Part of the trouble is that the Americans remain opposed to a Bosch Government. They took up this hostile attitude when the fighting started in April and the rebels claimed that their aim was to reinstate a constitutional government in Bosch’s name. He was unable then to return to Santo

, Domingo, and although he is 'now back in the city, no one is sure how much scope the : Americans would be prepared to allow him. Insistence On Fine He has not helped his cause by his insistence that the United States should pay a fine of £357 million for its intervention. But there is clearly disagreement among American policy makers about how much they can put up with from Bosch. On the one hand the United States is said to be prepared to give any Dominican Government economic assistance. On the other. Mr Thomas Mann, now Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs, has claimed that the United States intervention was entirely justified because of the danger of communism If Mr Bosch does not decide to represent the Domini can radicals, the obvious choice would be Colonel Caa mano Deno. who led the re volt from the beginning, and is personally influential among the former rebels. There remains the Communist Party—or rather parties, since there are three of them. In theory they should be President Garcia Godoy s biggest problem, since it was the threat of a communist take-over that allegedly compelled the United States to land 30,000 troops in the island. But in practice they seem to be as helpless as they are vociferous.

For years the underemployed peasants of the Dominican Republic have been drifting into the city. In the absence of any serious attempt at land reform, there was no other way in which the surplus population of the countryside could hope to earn a living. Each fall in the world price of sugar drove more plantation workers to the towns.

The result was a situation similar to that which caused riots recently in Negro quarters of Los Angeles. First generation city-dwellers, unemployed or under-employed, rose against the system which could not even afford them a subsistence wage.

The Dominican Republic now needs not only money—though it needs that badly, both in the short run to pay its civil servants, and in the long run to start capital projects—it also needs an economic plan to use that money usefully.

This in turn may mean land reform on a much larger scale than has been attempted up to this time. In the past there has been a tacit alliance between the aristocratic landowning classes and the relatively parvenu caste of Army officers who held the reins of power.

Army Subdued

But now at last this alliance may have been overthrown. The Army has been subdued, partly by the American intervention—though this was certainly not the result the Americans intended it to have —and partly by its own demonstrated inability to put down the revolt in the city. Above all, more than 100 of the younger officers showed their views by joining Colonel Caamano. The chief obstacle to reform has therefore been shifted, if not entirely removed. Whether reforms will in fact take place, or whether the country will return to its old alternation of liberal anarchy and rule by military junta depends on two sets of people. The first are the politicians and public figures of the Dominican Republic. They must unite to make the proposed elections possible. Then whoever is elected must be tougher in his dealing with his allies and rivals than in the past. Second, it depends on the policymakers in the United States. If all they are concerned about is to preserve Santo Domingo from the dangers of Socialism, then they can support the military caste as they have in the past. But |if they are anxious to see it 'a self-supporting free society, then it will need not only massive economic aid, but more American sympathy than it has yet received in its attempts at democracy.

Air Traffic Record

Labour week-end air traffic through Christchurch created another record for the National Airways Corporation. In the five-day period from last Thursday to Monday (both days inclusive) there were 228 aircraft movements through the airport, compared with 213 for the same period last year. There were 50 special flights out of the city in addition to scheduled services. A total of 8658 passengers was handled. last year the total was 6922. The fact that more travellers began moving out of the city by air on Thursday is thought to have contriIbuted to the significant in- ! crease over the holidav weekwt