Office of the Historian

347. Airgram A–24 From the Embassy in the Dominican Republic to the Department of State1

Santo Domingo, March 8, 1975.

SUBJECT

  • Human Rights Reporting: The Dominican Republic

REF

  • State 12320

Structure

The Constitution of the Dominican Republic fully enunciates broad individual and social rights. Under the principle of “individual liberties and social justice” the Constitution sets forth the right to life and security and the inviolability of person and of domicile. It guarantees freedom of speech, assembly, movement and association, and protects citizens against abuses by authorities. It specifically enunciates the principle of habeas corpus.

The court system includes justices of the peace, courts of first instance, courts of appeals and the Supreme Court. All judges are named by the popularly-elected Senate. Administrative and physical access to courts is relatively easy.

The principal law enforcement agency is the national police, but security operations occasionally involve personnel of the armed forces as well.

Rights and Freedoms: The Positive Side

The Dominican Republic offers a great measure of political, personal and group freedom to its citizens.

A vigorous, uncensored press is a primary feature of the country and includes newspapers and correspondents highly critical of the regime. Some of these, writing freely in the press, are leaders of outlawed extremist political parties, including several Marxist groups. There are [Page 915] over a hundred radio stations in operation, many in open and vigorous opposition to the regime. Programming is generally unrestricted.

Personal and group movements and associations are generally free. The University of Santo Domingo, a hotbed of leftist activity, is legally autonomous and inviolate. Student, faculty and administration demonstrations take place regularly and if confined to campus have been, with one exception in recent years, undisturbed by security forces. The government has a generally good record of respect for individual rights. Political parties proliferate and there are many small political groupings which include extremists operating on the fringe of the law or sometimes through outright terrorism and clandestine action.

Property rights are highly respected. Seizures or expropriations are rare except in the course of police investigations of extremist political activists. There is complete freedom of religion despite the 1954 Concordat which established Roman Catholicism as the state religion. Protestant missions exist throughout the country and proselytizing is done openly.

Exceptions in the Government’s Performance

The government on occasion deprives individuals and groups of their constitutional rights by permitting harassment of political opponents. When the political climate gets hot, as during the last general election campaign, security forces sometimes take initiatives to make campaigning more difficult for the opposition. The government itself has banned a few radio and television programs and now prohibits the two principal spokesmen of the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano, the leading opposition party, from the use of these two media.

A small, violence-prone extreme Left maneuvers constantly on the fringes of society to harass the regime. Assassination, kidnapping and robbery are the essential elements of its program. All such groupings are illegal, including the Marxist and Maoist parties. The government tolerates those parties and their non-violent activities, but is engaged in an endless pursuit of activists plotting or perpetrating terrorism. In efforts to suppress political violence, the security forces search, arrest, intimidate and occasionally kill persons suspected of being extremists, in violation of their civil rights.

Conclusion

Measured against absolute standards, the Dominican Government, like all governments, falls short of the ideal in the protection of human rights. Against the background of a sordid and turbulent political history, however, and in view of the fact that Trujillo, one of Latin America’s most brutal dictators, was removed from the scene only 14 [Page 916] years ago, the Dominican Republic protects human rights and fundamental freedoms to a remarkable extent.

Hurwitch

  1. Summary: The Embassy provided an assessment of the human rights situation in the Dominican Republic, concluding that the country’s performance was generally good despite occasional official harassment of the opposition.

    Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, P750045–1214. Confidential. Drafted by Political Officer Leonardo Neher; cleared by Economic Officer A. Dane Bowen, Maj. MacCoy in DAO, Michael Stack in AID, Thomas Clayton of BIO, Administrative Officer Jack Thrower, Col. Donabedian in MAAG, Barbara Hutchison in USIS, Consular Officer Vernon McAninch, and Deputy Chief of Mission Philip Axelrod; and approved by Hurwitch. Telegram 12320 to all diplomatic posts is dated January 17. (Ibid., D750020–0520)

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