from: jclancy@peg.apc.org
subject: Dominican Republic, IMF? UN?


          Neither Noam Chomsky nor Eduardo Galeano have a kind
          word
to say about US invasion and continued repression of this section
of the Caribbean, "which with PuertoRico, Haiti, Barbados,
Leewards and others of the 'Sugar islands' were incorporated one
by one into the world market and condemned to sugar until the
present. Grown on a grand scale, sugar spreads its blight on a
grand scale, and today unemployment and poverty are its permanent
guests", states Eduardo.

    With a history of claiming hegemony over all of South America,
interference in Dominican affairs only increased when uprisings
against Spanish genocides of indigenous inhabitants occurred, or
US repression became unbearable. In 1916, Marine Corps General
Smedley boasted, "I brought light to Dominican Republic for
American sugar interests". In 1965 the last US invasion began with
40,000 Marines, CO General Palmer, who counted 4000 enemy dead and
who "intended to stay indefintely in view of the reigning
confusion". Actually the confusion was the poverty occasioned by
the steep drop in sugar prices on the world markets, aided by the
repression and injustices by the US approved govt, combined with
the US fear of another Cuba- type uprising whereby people fight
for the return of their US- stolen property.  (most from Ed
Galeano).

     Noam adds more enlightenment with, "Bloodbaths carried out by
counterrevolutionaries are regarded favorably, as they are in the
interests of passive population stabilising of the Third World.
But US govt and media tend to hide the killings, torture and
terror inflicted on the dissidents. This is described as
readjustments, or lately, bundled under the term 'structural
adjustments', and is true whether the bloodbath destroys the full
organisational apparatus of the population base of radical
movements -as in Indonesia- or kills more modestly to permit
rightist totalitarian rule as in the Dominican Republic.

     From 1965, there has been a total, extensive and systematic
terror-control by the US in a client-fascist, death squad State
system of control of the Dominican people. Their El Nacional
newspaper on Dec 30 reported 186 political murders and 30 dis-
appearances for the year, -a media understatement when compared
with such deaths in Brazil, Guatemala and many other US clients.

     Under the imposed structural adjustment programs, peasants
(like those of Guatemala Brazil etc) who had no registered deeds
to land had the ownership thereof transferred to the usual wealthy
oligarchy families, or to US corporations. When the huge supplies
of sugar, coffee, tobacco, beef cash crops arrived on the US
markets the sale price always collapsed, as planned by imperialist
agencies, leaving the peasants destitute. After the unsustainable
land degradation policies destroyed the land's ability to produce,
the peasants returned to their previous small holdings and tried
to repair and renew for a time, before growing sustenance
vegetables.

     This led to them being jailed, or charged an exhorbitant
rent, or forced to work as slaves, prisoners on their own land.
They live in barrios, groups of shacks, with open sewer canals.
For light or power they have to climb a pole and illegally hook on
to power, which was and is very scarce for all workers -not for
the wealthy.  There is a huge unemployment number, no running
water, no social security, very high food costs. A litre of milk
in 1970 cost 10 pesos, now 350 pesos. Some obtain a permit to pan
for gold which no doubt belongs to the USA.

    The IMF and World Bank push money at the pliant US Dictators.
They in turn send a large proportion of it (like Marcos in the
Phillipines) to Swiss Bank accounts; (when will these be closed?)
or to pay their large policeforce and protective armies. Farmland
is full of US chemicals. Trees are dying, or being washed away in
mudslides down the denuded hillsides. Coca and heroin pay off if
lucky, but police adopt US repression orders. Main 'food source'
is the US profitable coca-cola "7 up"-very sustaining ? (cont) JC