From:         "(NY Transfer News)" <nyt%nyxfer@igc.apc.org>
Subject:      Anti-Columbus protests continue despite killings /ww

anti-Columbus protests continue despite killings

By Charles Knight

Columbus was a curse to the Dominican Republic, popular legend
says. And everything that bears his name carries the curse. A
Sept. 24 New York Times report blamed this curse for the mass
anger against a mammoth lighthouse project with a $70 million
price tag that was set to be "dedicated" to the invader on Oct.
12.

But when protesters hit the streets against the lighthouse
dedication Sept. 20, their concerns were more down to earth: It
wasn't the "bad spirit" of Columbus that fired their anger. The
plunder, genocide and racism of a five-century occupation are too
recent--and continue today under the flag of the almighty dollar.
The current government of Joaquin Balaguer was installed after
the U.S. Marines landed in 1965. His "re-election" in 1990 was
marked by widespread fraud. His real base of power is the U.S.
embassy.

Few can forget what happened in the invasion, even if it was 500
years ago. The invaders massacred all those who refused to be
slaves or failed to either escape or kill themselves. Many
perished from the brutal slavery, with its whips, chains, rape,
disease and misery.

Officially, slavery is supposedly over today in the Dominican
Republic. But thousands of people languish as virtual indentured
servants on sugar plantations near the border with Haiti. And
unemployment hovers near 40 percent in the country as a whole.
Teachers and social workers earn $60 a month if they're lucky.
Food prices, however, are not much different from those in the
U.S.

The 40 percent unemployment rate does not include the 10 percent
to 15 percent of the population who've managed to leave. Many
risk their lives on rafts headed for Puerto Rico, hoping to
smuggle themselves into the land of the Yankee dollar.

The government blowing $70 million to "celebrate" how good
everything has been did not strike the protesters as a spiritual
act. Burning millions of megawatts of electrical current for the
lighthouse while most homes on the island are without electricity
most of the time just made people mad. Many small stores and bars
have gone under because of the lack of electricity, on top of all
the other effects of the deep economic depression the country is
suffering.

PROTESTERS KILLED

President Joaquin Balaguer's police weren't exactly spiritual
when they killed one of the protesters. Then they killed another
almost a week later in one of several rebellions that spread
across the nation in the wake of the first killing.

The gigantic festivities planned to celebrate the "meeting of two
worlds" have suddenly gone sour in Santo Domingo. Now government
censors are shutting down radio news programs to try and chill
the protest. In Santiago, the country's second-largest city,
authorities even banned a proposed "stations of the cross"
ceremony, a Christian religious commemoration, because the
sponsors expressed their opposition to the 500th anniversary
celebrations.

The armed forces minister, Lt. Gen. Hector Garcia Tejada, warned
Sept. 15 that protesters could expect more killings if they "dare
to disturb the peace" during the 500th anniversary celebrations,
especially during the upcoming visit of Pope John Paul II.

"His Holiness" had to cancel the high mass planned for Oct. 12 at
the lighthouse dedication. Now there will be a quiet ceremony on
Oct. 6. The pope will be carried around in a bullet-proof
"pope-mobile" whenever it's not possible to bring him to events
by helicopter. That way the danger of contact with people will be
kept to a minimum.

The Dominican Republic is a Catholic country, and many leaders
had hoped people would want to celebrate the arrival of
Christianity 500 years ago. But too many are asking "how"--how
did they bring this new religion? "They even changed people's
names," commented Consuelo Pea. "They didn't try to speak the
native language," she said. Only the colonizer's language could
be used.

The fact that people are speaking up now--even 500 years
later--has the authorities worried. And despite the significant
symbolism, the worry isn't really "spiritual" either. The
rebellions have awakened a widespread consciousness in the
Dominican Republic that the government's repression can't stop
the people when they decide to fight back.

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted
if source is cited. For more info contact Workers World,46 W. 21
St., New York, NY 10010; "workers@mcimail.com".)


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