ECONOMICS - LOOKING GLASS NEWS | |
Dominican Republic hit by general strike |
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by Emmanuel Santos Socialist Worker Online Entered into the database on Sunday, July 29th, 2007 @ 10:09:11 MST |
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The “First General Strike for the Right to Live” was organized
by the Alternative Social Forum (FSA), which is comprised of 200 grassroots,
leftist and trade union organizations. It demanded lower food and medicine prices;
an increase in salaries, including for members of the military and the police;
an end to housing evictions; plus more structural demands, such as a new hydrocarbon
law to quell rising gas prices. Schools and stores were mostly closed. The exception was malls and supermarkets
for the rich, zealously guarded by soldiers. But the chief of police failed
to convince other storeowners to open their doors. The FSA became the target of a propaganda campaign by the government, which
threatened prosecutions if any acts of vandalism broke out. A countrywide witch-hunt
against left-wing and labor activists resulted in the arrest of 50 people. When five youths blew themselves up while making homemade bombs, the government
tried to blame the FSA--which immediately repudiated any form of isolated, violent
attacks carried out in the name of the popular movement. The injured were members
of Struggle, Unity and Progress Front (FLUP), a small far-left organization. In the northwestern city of Navarrete, a former activist was murdered in what
seemed an attempt to provoke a violent reaction from a community that has seen
some of the most militant protests in the past--and where the left-wing autonomist
group, Broad Front of Popular Struggle (FALPO), is rooted. In the Santiago province, a women’s collective holding a meeting was
practically held hostage by heavily armed soldiers. Army units patrolled the streets of deserted major cities and poor neighborhoods
while helicopters hovered in the sky. But this didn’t deter peaceful marchers
in the Capotillo neighborhood in Santo Domingo, the capital. Chanting “Para qué avión, si hay hambre por montón!”
(“Why planes, when there’s plenty of hunger”)--a reference
to the recent purchase of nine Super Tucano planes from Brazil at a cost of
$40 million--the protesters remained united in defiance of the hundreds of soldiers
flanking their demonstration. FSA spokesperson Victor Jeronimo characterized the strike as a “resounding
popular referendum” that rejected the social and economic policies of
the regime. THE GENERAL strike came after a resurgence of protest in March--and a week
after a combative popular movement in the working class community of Pedro Brand
in Santo Domingo staged a two-day strike that paralyzed one of the most important
highways in the country to protest the lack of basic services, such as water
and electricity. Within days, the government removed the officers in charge of this operation
as a punishment for not firing on the demonstrators. But with business and tourist
activity between the capital and the Cibao region disrupted--and millions in
toll revenues going uncollected--the government sent out 80 trucks to distribute
water. The victory in Pedro Brand and the recent general strike illustrate the power
that ordinary people in the Dominican Republic still have. On July 28, the FSA will discuss the way forward. It is important for the movement
to broaden the resistance by linking up with organized labor as a whole, and
take up on the plight of undocumented Haitian immigrants, whose cheap wages
are justified to lower the living standards of everyone. |