POLICE VIOLENCE MOUNTS IN DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Santo Domingo
The discovery of a trussed-up corpse in a river, attempted murders, acts of violence, disturbances, protests, raids...It seems like the beginning of a mystery novel, but unfortunately this is not the case.
These are some of the notorious incidents which have occurred in less than a week's time while the president of this country -- who owes his post to fraudulent elections during the occupation of the country by United States troops -- was attending the conference in Uruguay [the conference of the presidents of American states at Punta del Este].
The discovery on March 10, a day before the opening of the conference of presidents, of a man's body in the Yuca River in Villa Mella, twelve kilometers north of the city caused a sensation here. ,
The evidence indicated that the man was killed somewhere else and later thrown into the river. He had a bullet in the head and showed lacerations around the neck, the mouth, and the eyes. He has still not been identified.
Other offences which aroused indignation were the violations of the parliamentary immunity of some deputies in the form of assaults and beatings.
Of these, the most scandalous episode was the beating administered by a soldier to Américo Pérez Mercedes, a deputy of the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano [the PRD, ex-President Bosch's party]. The attacker also abused the deputy with obscene language.
Pérez Mercedes had to be hospitalized as a result of the assault which, as the legislator explained, was inflicted merely because he belonged to an opposition party.
Both houses of the legislature unanimously condemned this act. Another PRD legislator, Senator Secundino Gil Morales also had run-ins with the police authorities.
In addition, on March 10 a military man who fought on the Constitutionalist side in 1965 was shot at by unknown persons. The attack against Captain Angel R. Marrero of the Dominican air force came from a moving car while he was returning to his home in Santo Domingo accompanied by his wife and three-year-old daughter, and resulted in minor injuries.
On March 13, three opposition dep-
uties declared that the repression "which
has reigned in this country for some time
has recently taken an upturn."
In line with this, they announced
that several PRD members, whose where-
abouts was still unknown, had been ar-
rested in Monte Plata, seventy kilometers
northeast of Santo Domingo.
The deputies, Jottin Cury -- who
was minister of foreign affairs in the
Caamafio government -- Enmanuel Espinal,
and Francisco A. Guerrero, declared that
"the leaders and members of our party are
victims of police persecution so extreme
that it makes it impossible for many of
them to live in their own neighborhoods
and go about their customary work."
On March 14, the secretary general
of the PRD denounced the persecution of
members of his party and acts of violence
against then.
On the afternoon of March 14, he
accused the police of "raiding the home
of former Constitutionalist Colonel
Manolo Bordas for the second time in less
than three days.
"Although neither of these raids
turned up anything, the authorities are
issuing provocative stories to the press
that the police found arms in Bordas'
home in the first raid.
"Likewise, during Doctor Balaguer's
absence, government agents surrounded
with evident hostile intent a house in
which former Constitutionalist Colonel
Gerardo Marte Hernandez was staying. The
car of a deputy had to be used to rescue
him from his pursuers."
Pea Gémez announced that "several
trade union leaders were arrested by the
police in La Romana [a sugar-producing
city 110 kilometers east of Santo Domingo]
in a new wave of terror against the work-
ing class in that locality. Yesterday
afternoon [March 13], Andrés Gonz4lez,
Tito Jiménez and his father, as well as
Comrade Julio Morales were still held in
jail. Military and police patrols are
moving provocatively in the city."
He added that "the recrudescence
of persecution and terror during Doctor
Balaguer's absence is nothing but part of
a political plan the aim of which is to
revive the Communist-anti-Communist
antithesis in order to have the country
revert back to the days of the civil war
and to open still wider the wounds which
hatred has left open in the hearts of
Dominicans."
Furthermore, on March 12 a young
lawyer, Doctor Rufino Paniagua, who was attorney general of the Constitutionalist regime during the April 1965 civil war, was seized in San Juan de la Manguana, 133 kilometers from Santo Domingo, and his head shaved in the army barracks. Paniagua lives in Santo Domingo and went to San Juan owing to the death of a relative.
The soldiers in the barracks threatened to shoot hin.
The afternoon daily paper El Nacional said the following in an editorial of March 14:
"Outrages continue to be the order of the day. The police and armed forces are no longer satisfied with assaulting civilians, now they are attacking deputies, and this to such an extent that the latter find themselves forced to suspend their sessions as a final way of protest-— ing.
"Nonetheless, the legislature must remain in recess until:
"(a) Ex-Corporal Tapia Tapia is handed over to the civil courts. [Ex- Corporal Tapia Tapia is accused of having killed a child and wounded several persons with a grenade which he threw last year. He is at the San Isidro Air Base, protected by several high officers who have refused to turn him over to the courts.]
"(b) Those who killed Guido Gil are tried. [Doctor Guido Gil, lawyer, trade unionist, and member of the Central Committee of the Movimiento Popular Dominicano (Dominican Peoples Movement), the pro- Chinese Communist party, was kidnapped and probably murdered by the police more than two months ago. ]
"(c) They arrest the ones who are machine-gunning unarmed persons without risk to themselves.
"(d) The commissions which are investigating the crimes produce results which can stop the murderers.
"Because the truth is that it is not worth the trouble to maintain the appearance of three separate powers when those in uniform do whatever suits them. It is better to stop pretending and admit that it is the military and the police who are in command."
DETROIT