Dominican leader calls for calm

Press, 27 April 1984, Page 6

Dominican leader calls for calm

NZPA-AP Santo Domingo Violence erupted anew in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic’s capital, late yesterday, shortly after the President, Dr Salvador Jorge Blanco, urged his countrymen to show confidence in the Government by maintaining the calm that had prevailed most of the day. Reporters on the street said that soldiers fired automatic weapons into a crowd of stone-throwing youths, leaving several lying on the ground. There were also

reports of more violence in Santiago, the nation’s second-biggest city, 160 km north-west of the capital. After two killings early yesterday, which raised the three-day riot toll to at least 39, the rioting had ebbed. Dr Jorge Blanco, in a 40minute address to the nation, had urged “confidence in our Government” and the end to violence. He said that at stake was the democracy he and others had fought for in the 1965 civil war.

“I fought for the order on April 24, 1965, the day our civil revolt erupted, and today the struggle for democracy and the Constitution returns to me in this way. Oh, the paradox of our historical destiny!” Dr Jorge Blanco said in a speech from the National Palace broadcast live on radio and television. He said that 37 had been killed in the rioting. His total apparently did not include a man and a woman shot and killed earlier yesterday, and only reported

deaths in the aftermath of the nation’s bloodiest day since the civil war. Union leaders in the republic held talks with the governing party earlier yesterday. Labour leaders, who threatened to call a national strike unless Dr Jorge Blanco revoked the food price rises, met members of the Dominican Revolutionary Party to discuss their demands. Official sources said that the party would report back to the President.