THREATENS ELECTION BOYCOTT
Santo Domingo
The pall of terror under which the Dominican people have lived since this country's invasion by U.S. forces on April 28, 1965, has deepened, the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano [PRD -- Dominican Revolutionary party], the party of Juan Bosch and the adversary of the government party in last year's elections, declared in a communiqué published September 21 in the conservative daily El Caribe.
"Despite the promises of peace and justice made by the president of the Republic and the chiefs of the armed forces, repression, crimes, and abuses of authority inspired by them continue to run ram pant throughout the length and breadth of the nation," said the statement.
The communiqué adds that, accepting the guarantees offered by the government, the party's National Executive Committee had set about reorganizing all party bodies with a view toward contesting the municipal elections, should political conditions prevailing in the country permit. "It was for this reason that we sent work teams all over the country with the aim of setting up plenary meetings of party leaders and carrying through the reorganization of the municipal committees. This work ran up against a wall of terror erected everywhere to obstruct the development of the democratic forces."
The communiqué cites the following incidents as examples of assaults on civil liberties and human rights committed by the government of Dr. Joaquin Balaguer:
Recently in San Pedro de Macoris, 75 kilometers east of Santo Domingo, "31 party members who had left a meeting held in the Placer Bonito section of the city" were arrested.
In Nagua, a town of some 7,000 inhabitants in the northeast of the country, five members of the PRD were jailed folto come what is discussed here will be the case of the philosopher, the writer and the political theoretician and the mission he took on himself to find and interview the legendary personality who, in the heat of passion, is indirectly being tried here ~- Ernesto "Che" Guevara. But perhaps we must take the moral of this story from the huge prison van which transports the accused back to their prison; it is a gift to Bolivia included in the American technical aid plan for the Latin-American countries.
IN RESPONSE TO RISING TERROR
lowing a regional party plenum, which was attended by members of the National Executive Committee.
In the towns of Valle and Sabana de la Mar in the interior, two recently slated meetings could not be held because the chiefs of the national police post there demanded that "our comrades get an authorization from the secretariat of the interior and the police, threatening to use any and 411 means to break up these functions if our leaders went ahead and held them "
In Monte Plata, 60 kilometers north of Santo Domingo, four members of the town PRD bureau were arrested on the order of an army lieutenant as they were getting ready to attend a plenum in the country.
The communiqué notes that the persecution and terror unleashed by the government show no respect for rank or position. Proof of this, it states, is the incident where a police sergeant threatened the mayor of Guaymate, which is near San Pedro Macoris, and two other party members with a gun "because, according to the policeman, it is forbidden in that town for more than three persons to walk together at night."
In the same locality, a PRD athletic club for young people was closed down on the pretext that it served as a center for political gatherings.
In Duvergé, in the western part of the country, a PRD town councilman was jailed because he tried to stop a policeman who was beating up a PRD member.
This Saturday in Jarabacoa, a summer resort located in the mountains in the central part of the country, a PRD member accused of being a Communist was jailed and beaten. In Santo Domingo, a local party member, Carlos Torres, was arrested and brutally beaten by police; "he is being kept under doctor's care in the Frank Diaz Clinic as a result of the wounds he suffered."
The communiqué declares that "the present wave of terror is also directed against the Constitutionalist officers; the government and its foreign allies want to keep on humiliating these officers to teach them such a painful lesson that they will not dare again in the future to lead another uprising like that of April 24.
"It is for this reason that Polonio Pierret, an ex-Constitutionalist sergeant and former member of Juan Bosch's guard, was imprisoned in Jimanfi last week. in Neiba former sergeant Nelson William Méndez Batista was jailed and assaulted, and here in Santo Domingo former corporal Santana Gonz4lez Garcia was picked up in the middle of Avenida Mella by two secret service agents and taken off to prison streaming blood."
"Thanks to the generosity displayed by the president of the Republic," says the communiqué, "to a member of his party on whom he bestowed the rank of major in the national police, Nagua has become the principal center of social unrest in our country. The repression being carried out in this town extends even to the Reformistas [Balaguer's party] thenselves. The following cases are authentic examples of this:
"A few days ago, Sefior Ofelia Hernéndez was shot and wounded three times by a policeman.
"On Saturday, September 2, national police patrolman Morris O'Neil shot and wounded Sefior Fulvio Monegro three