Recent information on political parties, dissident movements and political situation [DOM6750]

Please find attached copies of different documents which provide information on political groups and recent political events in the Dominican Republic.

Regarding dissident and rebel movements, please refer to the attached sections of Latin American Political Movements and Revolutionary and Dissident Movements. An attached news article ("U.S. clarifies remark on rebels") mentions that public remarks by then-President Ronald Reagan in 1986 indicated that Nicaragua aided extremists from the Dominican Republic and other countries, but the United States later clarified the statements telling Brazil and Argentina that it had no proof to back the allegations regarding those two countries. However, the article does not mention whether the initial statement was clarified for the case of the Dominican Republic, but is included because it is one of the few articles referring to rebel Dominican groups or individuals found among the sources currently available to the IRBDC.

The attached and various other sources report that Joaquín Balaguer was recently re-elected for a fifth term as President of the Dominican Republic among protests and allegations of fraud. Regarding the human rights situation in the Dominican Republic, the accusations most frequently reported among the sources currently available to the IRBDC (including Americas Watch reports, Amnesty International reports, the Caribbean Report and others) refer to slave labour or slave-like conditions in sugar-cane plantations which affect mostly Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent, as well as cases of police brutality and repression against opposition demonstrators.

The attached documents include:
-Revolutionary and Dissident Movements, (London: Longman Publishing Group, 1988), pp. 81-82;
-Latin American Political Movements, (London: Longman Publishing Group, 1986), pp. 91-99;
-Political Parties of the World, (London/Chicago: St. James Press, 1988), pp. 143-147;
-1989 International Yearbook on International Communist Affairs, (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1989), pp. 78-79;
-Critique: Review of the Department of State's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1988, (Washington: Human Rights Watch, July 1989), pp. 43-46 (a copy of the U.S. Department of State Country Reports for 1988 is included in the attached Information Package; if the more recent Country Reports for 1989 is not already available to you, a copy of its pertinent section can be provided by the IRBDC upon further request. The Critique for the latest Country Reports is not yet available to the IRBDC);
-from Latin America Weekly Report (London, Latin America Newsletters), backcovers (p. 12) of the following issues: 17 May 1990, 31 May 1990, 28 June 1990, 26 July 1990 and 2 August 1990;
-from Caribbean Report (London, Latin America Newsletters): 31 March 1988, p. 2; 7 December 1989, p. 3; 17 May 1990, p. 3;
-"Human Rights Profile: Dominican Republic under Balaguer", from Latinamerica Press (Lima, Noticias Aliadas), 31 May 1990, p. 6;
-from The Globe and Mail: "U.S. clarifies remark on rebels", 1 April 1986, p. A12; "3 killed during strike", 20 June 1989,
p. A14;
-Amnesty International, Urgent Action: 15 March 1988 (UA 67/88), "Legal Concern".
-Information Package on the Dominican Republic (Ottawa: IRBDC, January 1989).