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TENSIONS REMAIN IN DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
_ {The following is part of an article by Norman Gall which appeared in the July 1 New Statesman under the title, "Why Bosch Lost." The author reports on a visit to the small municipality of Salcedo in the northern region of the Cibao. The town was one of the most .conspicuous centers of resistance to Trujillo. In the 1962 elections 13,000 of. the province's 25,000 votes went to Bosch. In phe recent election, Bosch won. barely’ a ‘quarter of the votes © there .
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— Two Canadian reporters and I came to Salcedo to look into confusing reports of fraud and repression in the Dominican interior which had been circulating in the capital after the 1 June election. Here we met Lieutenant Francisco Antonio Vega, a tall, tough man with muscular arms and shoulders and a bulging belly, who before the election was assigned here from the élite tank and infantry units (known by the initials CEFA) of the San Isidro air force base outside Santo Domingo, to command this tiny town's army post. | The .CEFA units have formed the hard core of the apparatus of repression of the Trujillo and post-Trujillo periods and have figured critically in every attempted coup Since Trujillo's death. CEFA was commanded until last year by Brigadier General Elias © Wessin y Wessin, who directed the’ bombing of Santo Domingo to stop the 1965 pro-Bosch revolution - and was rescued by US military intervention.
According to witnesses, Lt Vega \ went with a detachnent of soldiers among the rural polling centres of Salcedo during the 1 June voting. When. they reached.-poll No 27. in the rural barrio of Las Cuevas, Vega. pointed his machine-gun at the line of voters | and shouted: Viva la democracia!' Ironically, this slogan was one — of the rallying cries of the Trujillo dictatorship. The army and police and Spanish- born parish priests had been telling peasants during the campaign that the main issue was 'communism' (embodied by Bosch) versus 'democracy' (Balaguer).’'Do you believe in God?! © the unlettered and deeply religious peasantry was asked. 'Then , vote for Balaguer.'
Leaders” in Salcedo of, ‘Bosch! ‘s Partido ‘Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD), the Social Christians and the 14 June Movement ~~: told me the town's two parish priests, responsible for distributing’ US: Food for. Peace in the area, handed the food over to the army for distribution during the campaign. In the days before the © election, P-15 fighter planes from. the Santiago air force base buzzed low over several towns of the Cibao* region where Salcedo liés.
On Sunday 15 May at 8 p.m. in the nearby town of LIuperon, luz Santos Reynoso -- mother of six children -- was shot dead by
police when she shouted 'Viva Juan Bosch.' The policemen were never punished. On election eve in the Barrio Ranchito de las .- Vargas, in the nearby province of Puerto Plata, five soldiers: appeared to warn the peasants of the pro-Bosch community that if Juan Bosch won’ there no one would remain alive -the following: day. The five soldiers ‘stayed to Supervise the voting | until the Polls closed. a oe, ; '
Before Lt Vega. left the polling booths at Barrio Las, Cuevas of Salcedo he chased away poll-watchers of the competing. parties as well as election board officials and left the ballots -to be counted by a soldier and a policeman. In Salcedo's urban zone, ‘the votes from three of the seven polling places, once in the hands of the army and police, took 22 hours after the closing of the polls to reach the electoral board office three blocks away.
‘We knew we were strong in some places and that Balaguer was strong in others,' said a PRD leader from the area. 'The trouble was that our votes never appeared. Our party was disorganised and afraid and Balaguer's people were well-financed. We never even got the tally sheets from many of the polls in rural. areas. Either the electoral officials and the soldiers refused to. provide them or our PRD poll-watchers, mostly peasants, did not: dare to demand them, . ‘Since all Deminican peasants are terrified: of the armed forces. ok tad oe
Many observers, including myself, believe Balaguer could win an honest count of ballots under existing conditions. First, Bosch did not campaign in the countryside because more than 200 of his followers had been:killed since last September and his home had been attacked.on more than-.one occasion. Second, some key aides had left the Bosch camp, mainly because of personality- clashes. Third, while.in.1962 Bosch enjoyed financial and electoral | support ' from some of Trujillo's old retainers, this year the Trujillistos had their own candidate in Balaguer. Fourth, Balaguer endeared himself to the poor by lowering the prices of rice and cooking oil when he was Trujillo's last puppet president during the seven _ months following the dictator’ Ss assassination. . ae
Both Bosch and. Balaguer come . from. the ‘provincial lower= middle class -~ which advanced dramatically in’ the Trujillo days-== and are both literary men who have maintained very cordial relations over the years. Though they collaborated politically in the past °<=+ notably after Trujillo' s death -- it has to be seen whether they will collaborate again. Balaguer.said in’an interview with the AP _ printed on 20 June that he. will continué ‘with | the austerity pro-* gramme which the US imposed on the provisional, regime of Donald” Reid Cabral after the country had been brought: to its knees’ ee economically by wild corruption, military. contraband operations ” and sharp drops in commodity production and world prices for its’ exports. And the US does not seem to have veered from its policy, adopted since the Kennedy assassination, of reliance on the Dominican military as a bulwark of ‘anti-communism' and of antagonism toward Juan Bosch.
Nor is it certain whether Balaguer can control the military. enough to keep peace with the PRD and the slum-dwellers of Santo -- Domingo.' When he visited the towns of Bonao and La Vega after. midnight on our: post-election tour, soldiers in combat. uniform. were manning machine-guns at strong points set up in key places. In Puerto Plata there: was a power failure while the ballots were being counted on election night, although the town had just installed a new power plant. Throughout the area PRD leaders were in hiding or flight. On 19.Jdune the PRD party president and general secretary were detained.at.the local army barracks..On the same day, in the town of San Jose de las Matas, a PRD Congressional candidate was.stabbed to death. Hatreds in the Dominican Republic 4 remain . very strong.
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