ASSESSES BALAGUER'S FIRST YEAR
By Antonio Valdés
An analysis of the first year of the Balaguer regime recently published by the Dominican Communist party [PCD] is of interest, both for what it says about the Dominican situation and for the healthy development it indicates within the PCD itself.
The analysis, entitled "A Year of Hunger, Repression, and Giving Away of the Nation's Wealth," was published as a paid ad in the July 2 issue of El Nacional, a bourgeois liberal newspaper with a large circulation.
It is from this source that the following excerpts have been translated.
The analysis begins by pointing out that in its first year the Balaguer regime has "tried to trick the people in order to disarm them; applied practical measures aimed at liquidating the state sector [the former Trujillo properties]; increased the country's military and economic dependence on imperialism; engaged in repression of democratic fighters, es~ pecially the constitutionalist military men; restricted the liberties of the working class and tried to shift the burden of economic crisis onto its shoulders by throwing thousands of unemployed onto the streets."
Pointing to the state of misery of the masses, the PCD declares that "hunger has reached alarming levels, filling Dominican homes with anguish. The enormous number of those already unemployed has increased by the mass of over 40,000 workers laid off by the government."
The alarming sight of a man who has died of hunger in one of the main streets appears in an accompanying photo.
In the trade-union sphere, the PCD states, the bosses have taken advantage of the reactionary government's policies to violate all trade-union agreements. "Te government has decreed the freezing of wages at the very moment when prices are rising and the cost of living has become the most expensive."
Elsewhere, “there is a constant eviction of families....The poor peasants are ruined by the great latifundists and are systematically threatened with being thrown off their land. In the regions of Los Caobos, Las Cabiyas, and Las Paredes attempts to remove peasants have been supported by government troops."
While increasing misery is the lot of the masses, U.S.-owned firms continue their plunder of the national wealth. The document cites a number of cases in which the regime has increased the booty for U.S. investors.
It also cites the total complicity of the government with U.S. imperialist foreign policy, especially as directed against revolutionary Cuba through the
Meanwhile, the Dominican economy continues to falter, showing a trade deficit of $30 million in the year of Balaguer's rule.
These social and economic policies have been accompanied by harsh repression. According to the report of the Dominican Association for Human Rights, the first five months of 1967 have seen "47 deaths for political causes, 9 kidnappings, 21 cases of harassment, 24 assassination attempts, 378 jailings, 49 beatings, 30 persons wounded, and 41 raids."
To this is added "the limitation of the rights of association and assembly, the prohibition of strikes and mass demonstrations, and the government's refusal to recognize the leaderships of a great many democratic trade unions."
Concluding the article, the PCD states: "Our party publicizes all cases of repression in order to demonstrate that within the framework of ‘representative democracy' there is no possibility of resolving the crisis between the people and the ruling class, that it is not feasible to arrive at a solution in the interests of the people or to solve the problem of the dependency of our economy on the inmperialist market. We do this to demonstrate that the only road is the STRUGGLE FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF WORKERS AND PEASANTS POWER.
The call for "workers and peasants power" is a healthy change in the PCD position. The previous policy, publicized by Moscow, was the call for "the establishment of a government similar to that of April 24," based on the parliamentary principles of the 1963 constitution.
This was replaced by a call for an anti-imperialist united front, still leaving open the possibility of a "concrete alliance" with the liberal bourgeoisie. (See World Outlook, May 12, 1967.]
The shift must be understood in the context of the general ferment and flux within the Dominican left since the April 1965 uprising.
After the experience with Bosch,
the rejection of the "alliance with the national bourgeoisie" has become practically universal on the left. Thus the inpact of the worldwide context of revolutionary realignment is sensitively reflected.
For example, the 14th of June movement, over a period of less than a year, evolved from an independent revolutionary grouping with healthy Marxist leanings into a sect that is now more Maoist than the traditionally Maoist Movimiento Popular Dominicano [MPD].
In the recent period the strongly pro-Soviet coloring of the PCD has receded before a Fidelista shade, a trend similar to that taken earlier by the Guatemalan CP.
The PCD, for example, supported Castro's attack on the Venezuelan CP's rightist leadership, then reprinted the full text of Guevara's statement to the Tricontinental Organization, and most recently took a position on the Mideast crisis close to that of the Cubans and strongly critical of the Soviet leadership. (See World Outlook, July 28, 1967.]
Developments around the OLAS conference in Havana should reveal just how deep and lasting this positive evolution of the PCD is going to be.
IS GUILLERMO LOBATON STILL ALIVE?
Jacqueline Elau, wife of the Peruvian guerrilla leader Guillermo Lobatén, reportedly killed by Peruvian government forces, has declared that she believes her husband is