Dominican Republic

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Dominica: The Caribbean’s Next “Terror Island”?

In 1983, while aboard a New York subway, I noticed someone reading that day’s issue of the New York Post. The front page headline screamed, “YANKS INVADE TERROR ISLAND.” It was early on in the Reagan administration and the U.S. had just militarily intervened in the Caribbean nation of Grenada, ending the island’s short-lived socialist experiment. The landing was based on the pretext that the Reagan administration had suspected that the new commercial airport—which Cuban laborers were aiding Grenada to construct on the island—actually would be used to transport Cuban troops to fight alongside African revolutionaries. Today, another Caribbean nation, Dominica, has been forging links with leftist Cuba and Venezuela. Authorities on that small Caribbean island had better watch out, or they may be presiding over this generation’s “Terror Island,” but this time the name of the island is Dominica.

A tiny nation of 133 square miles whose population could barely fill the Rose Bowl, Grenada had posed no strategic threat to the U.S. But Maurice Bishop of the leftist New Jewel Movement, which had ruled Grenada since 1979, had become positively irksome to Washington. Inspired at least as much by Bob Marley as by Karl Marx, Bishop, a young LSE graduate and an island intellectual and visionary, had embarked on an ambitious social and economic program aimed at diversifying agriculture, developing cooperatives, and creating an agro-industrial base that was leading to a reduction in food imports. Bishop also established a free health service and secondary education system, resulting in a markedly higher literacy rate on the island.

The Reagan administration sought to halt the New Jewel Movement in its tracks: economic assistance through the World Bank and the Caribbean Development Bank was mysteriously blocked, aid from the International Monetary Fund was restricted, and any participation in the Caribbean Basin Initiative was dismissed out of hand. Reagan even refused to meet with Bishop when the Grenadian Prime Minister visited Washington in June, 1983. According to the Washington Post, the CIA had been engaged all along in a campaign to destabilize Grenada both politically and economically.

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Pluralism Bursts into the Western Hemisphere

* While Russia, Europe and China are wooing Latin America and the Caribbean the Monroe Doctrine now becomes the "Putin, Zapatero and Chinese–Corollary"

*Iran's increased presence in the region may lead to bad press, but for now only shows increased investments

* The "Great Game" of political and economic influence is set to be played in the southern hemisphere

No one is arguing that Latin America and the Caribbean have become a priority matter for international diplomacy, save for the U.S., which has witnessed a massive retreat of Washington's vigilance for what it once insisted were its longtime national interests and influence in the hemisphere. Concentrating on its "War on Terror" has resulted in a detour of the U.S. military and diplomatic corps to a series of sorties, like Afghanistan, Iraq, and now, likely enough, to Iran. The 1823 Monroe Doctrine is no longer relevant as nations like Russia, the People's Republic of China as well as the European Union (and its individual members) increase their influence in the Western Hemisphere. This penetration is due to the fact that numerous hemispheric countries are themselves looking to diversify their pool of allies and trading partners by contracting ties to other nations besides the U.S., with Venezuela being at the core of this movement.

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The Dominican Republic Pursues Modernity and Rectitude

  • Fernández offer some macro success at the expense of high quality rule
  • Big obstacles along the way
  • CAFTA to thunder ahead as Arias' Costa Rica squeezes out a narrow pro-free trade victory

The Dominican Republic (DR) has been undergoing a profound transformation beginning at the end of the last century. With an increasingly prosperous economy, stable political institutions, and a booming tourism industry, it seems that the DR is well prepared to be perceived as one of the most successful modernizing countries in the early years of this century. However, the picture becomes more complicated upon analyzing the country's prevailing social and economic features. Issues ranging from a poor health system, a pattern of ill-treatment of Haitian refugees illegally in the country, energy shortages, and under-performing educational facilities blot its credentials; however, this is not to say that the current administration, headed by Leonel Fernández of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), has not fulfilled some of its objectives. Yet while economic indicators are favorable, he is losing popularity because he is being viewed by many as being indifferent to the plight of the poor and small farmers, and too allied with foreign multi-nationals, not to mention botching up his controversial metro project.

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