Documento(s) 7 de 13

César Pérez

This chapter is a summary of the principal findings of research into the popular organizations that led a massive community-based protest movement, local and national, in the Dominican Republic between 1986 and 1990. It attempts to show how contemporary Dominican political culture, forged since the 1960s, shaped the organizational structure of the protest movement, the way it conceived action, and the manner in which it related to political life. Some of the most active groups in the protest movement, those which have had the most influence and impact on the political system, are broadly described. Special emphasis is placed on Neighborhood Councils, the type of organization most commonly found in poor districts; a case study of one particular council shows some of the possibilities, prospects, and limitations of this type of organization, which is gaining considerable importance in the Dominican Republic.

The methodology employed in the study entailed combining several different quantitative and qualitative approaches, including surveys, various forms of interview, participant observation and workshops, as well as a review of primary documents and the daily press. We were able to participate directly in several congresses and task forces in at least three of the groups under study.¹

Some Background on the Organizations

A wide variety of popular organizations exists in poor Dominican neighborhoods and shanty towns. Although many of the most relevant groups were formed during the early 1980s, others, including the Neighborhood Rights Defense Committee (Comité para la Defensa de los Derechos Barriales, COPADEBA) and many of the Christian Base Communities, have existed since the 1970s.

The predecessors of these groups were the Cultural Clubs, social action groups that operated in neighborhoods and parishes throughout the country. The Clubs reached their height during the 1960s, following the death of dictator Rafael Trujillo, who, during his rule from 1930 to 1961, had repressed all cultural, social, and political organizations of an oppositional nature. The Clubs, especially those in urban areas, were the first organizations to be joined by large groups of Dominican youth who sought new political, cultural, and ideological orientations during the post-dictatorship period of the 1960s.

The events of that decade had a strong impact on Dominican society. The 1960s witnessed the transition from 31 years of dictatorship to more democratic forms of government, although this process was interrupted by the US military invasion of 1965, which prevented a broad spectrum of progressive political forces from taking control of the country.² This profoundly disruptive period created a climate that tended to politicize all action by cultural, religious, professional, and labor organizations. As the predominant tendency in Dominican society was to look to these organizations as political and ideological reference points, the Cultural Clubs became the focus of significant power struggles among the various political and ideological currents prevalent in Dominican society at the time. Perhaps most significantly for our own analysis, this political emphasis was expressed in the propensity to link action immediately to an overall political line, without working towards raising local issues in a way that would involve the population in solving its own problems.

Although largely subordinated to the logic of centrist and left-wing political parties, and under the effects of the heavy repression that characterized this period, the Clubs played a very important role in organizing protests and social and political struggles during the 12-year right-wing Reformist Party government of Joaquín Balaguer between 1966 and 1978.

In 1978, the centrist Revolutionary Dominican Party (PRD) won the elections, opening up a new political situation. The PRD managed to win over several groups that had been important agents of social change, in particular the Clubs and labor unions, with their base among the poor and marginal sectors, and turned them into loyal supporters of the system and the government. The unity of the opposition was broken. Because of the fragmentation of the opposition and because of a pact with the ruling economic sector, which had been important for the PRD’s accession to power, during the party’s two terms (1978–86) government policies ignored popular demands and repression of protest was frequent.

A turning point in popular mobilization began to occur in 1983 with government cut-backs on social spending as part of an agreement with the

International Monetary Fund (IMF). This intensified the economic and political crisis and increased social inequality and spatial segregation, which in turn rekindled organizational efforts in the neighborhoods. The popular sector began to raise certain demands, this time without help from the large parties in the system. The tendency to raise demands outside a party framework was significantly furthered by the crisis in the left (the traditional, strong standard-bearer of protest in the country). It was also furthered by the hesitancy of other opposition parties, including the center-left Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) headed by former President Juan Bosch, which lacked a tradition of mobilization and ties to the popular sectors. Such a situation heightened the inclination for grievances to be channeled independently of the parties rather than through them, as had happened in previous decades, and eventually to replace party loyalty by developing new means of struggle.

The result was to stimulate the creation of popular organizations which had different attitudes from those of earlier years. By the early 1980s several new efforts at organization had cropped up in the neighborhoods. These were encouraged by youth in Christian Base Communities, exactivists and members of left-wing organizations, and members of the PRD rank and file who favored formation of Neighborhood Councils to raise specific demands.

The Eruption of Neighborhood Protest and the Emergence of Neighborhood Councils

Massive protests by slum dwellers and neighborhood and community organizations began during the first term in office (1978–82) of the centrist Revolutionary Dominican Party (PRD). Protest appeared in a moment of transition from a repressive regime to a government that would allow room for more democratic forms of participation. This factor was especially important in the subsequent growth of these organizations.

The new regime declared an amnesty and released all the political prisoners of the former Balaguer government. As part of a policy of induced demand, more currency was printed, public sector employment was doubled, and domestic market incentives were provided. These measures led to renewed expectations of social participation and to the channeling of popular grievances within the framework of the regime, which was perceived to be the opposite of its predecessor. One example was a reactivation of the labor movement following a Labor Department resolution recognizing the right to unionize — between 1978 and 1982, 384 new unions were registered with the department.

During this period, the City Council of the central part of Santo Domingo (Ayuntamiento del Distrito Nacional) promoted the creation of Neighborhood Councils (Juntas de Vecinos) as grassroots organizations intended to help implement and promote social programmes and other City Council-sponsored activities. These Neighborhood Councils were able to involve many neighborhood residents in such local improvement initiatives as solid-waste disposal, construction of parks and recreational facilities, erection of street signs, tree planting, organization of crime watch groups, construction of sports installations, and other community activities conducted with municipal government assistance and with the self-management and self-help of the residents.

Although in many ways a positive and novel development, Neighborhood Councils were also perceived as client organizations allied to the governing party, whose internal wrangling and power struggles for control of executive, legislative and municipal office in the next electoral term they mirrored. The Councils were in fact consumed and weakened by party politics — that is, they were manipulated by the PRD — which eventually prevented them from fulfilling their assigned role. In the mid- 1980s, however, this resulted in a breakdown in relations with the PRD, which led most of them to continue to function autonomously. Some maintained weak ties with City Hall, but the majority gradually acquired a clear autonomy.

Economic Reorganization and Social Protest

Owing to a variety of internal and external factors, toward the beginning of the 1980s it became clear that the import-substitution model in vogue for the preceding two decades had broken down. The government responded by reversing and reshaping its economic and social policies, changes soon evident in drastic monetary and fiscal spending restrictions, increased unemployment, inflation, loss of buying power, and in a return to government, police, and private sector intolerance. The new rules of the game excluded the poor, who responded with major protest movements. These were led especially by labor, and to a lesser degree by nascent neighborhood or community groups in such municipalities as Bayaguana, Salcedo and Cotuí.

In general, these initial neighborhood protest rallies were in solidarity with labor grievances; later on, they took up such consumer issues as demanding price cuts for food and medicine. As the organizations grew, specific local and territorial demands were incorporated, including improvement of streets and sidewalks, power and water supply, construction of sewers and drains, and complaints about police brutality.

Community and territorial movements in South and Central America were part of the struggle against military dictatorships or their remnants. In the Dominican Republic, however, most movements emerged under governments that were more tolerant of political rights. As a result, actions didn’t have to be as restrained or limited to civil rights, but often became focused on broader economic issues. Also, a variety of social and political actors, including labor and professional organizations, took part in these neighborhood movements and organizations. Their initial calls to action were spontaneous and without co-ordination between one zone and another.

The most violent national protests, which included rock-throwing, tire-burning, firebombing, and looting, took place in April 1984, reaching their peak between April 23 and 25. Such protests, which focused on salaries, inflation, and the cost of living, continued throughout the 1980s and included five national shutdowns or strikes. Following these incidents, the need for and possibility of co-ordinating a movement at the local, zone, territorial and national levels were posed. The protest had been put down in a virtual bloodbath; according to press reports, more than 100 people were killed by army bullets.

In social and popular imagery, the April 1984 street uprising became a symbol of revolt which deepened the tendency of Dominican political culture and practice to politicize social issues. To left-wing organizations, whatever legitimacy the state and the traditional parties had ever had was lost in these events. They regarded their aftermath as an auspicious moment to bring about the breakdown of the system through the work of neighborhood organizations, and set out to push this understanding within the protest movement. This led the Dominican Left Front (FID, comprising several small left-wing parties) to call for ‘forming Popular Struggle Committees the length and breadth of the country, for all the exploited to join the mobilization, from the bottom up, and to co-ordinate all sectors that make up the power base and the popular forces that can defeat official intolerance and the power of the dominant minority.’³

The Communist Workers’ Party (PCT — Partido Comunista del Trabajo, a pro-Albanian organization), which did not belong to the FID, also called for the formation of Popular Struggle Committees, because ‘they are the conveyor belts between the party and the masses, and in them the close union of the party and the people will become effective.’

The labor movement, weakened by division into numerous federations, low worker affiliation and the massive layoffs caused by harsh fiscal policy, also regarded the territorial and community stage as a place to organize for advancing class grievances, something that was becoming increasingly harder to do on the shop floor.

The Neighborhood Organizations⁴

The first of the neighborhood organizations to emerge was the Neighborhood Rights Defense Committee (COPADEBA — Comité para la Defensa de los Derechos Barriales), which in 1979 brought together clubs, Neighborhood Councils and, in particular, Christian Base Communities from several northern Santo Domingo neighborhoods. Initially, there was strong influence from supporters of the PRD, an influence that would undermine its work and lead to significant changes later on, including a reduction of all party influence. COPADEBA’s immediate goal was the defense of residents threatened with eviction from the land where they had built their homes. Although limited to neighborhoods in the Northern Zone, Sabana Perdida and the Alcarrizos — two communities on the outskirts of Santo Domingo — COPADEBA was a well-structured, consolidated organization.

During the protests of 1984, neighborhood dwellers from various political backgrounds reformed Popular Struggle Committees (CLP — Comités de Lucha Popular), which had a presence that was geographically broader than COPADEBA.⁵ The CLPs served as vehicles for a vast outpouring of protest and demands among the poor, and sprang up rapidly and spontaneously across the country. However, they were also the form of neighborhood and territorial organization to which the different components of the left laid claim. This had a number of negative effects, including their fragmentation relative to that of the left, which led to their eventual demise, the victims of ideological and tactical differences within the Marxist groups.

The Popular Unity Council (CUP — Consejo de Unidad Popular) was founded in May and June 1984 from these fragments. This organization did not emerge from the grievances of specific neighborhoods (such as a demand for parkland or for empty land to be used for housing). Rather, it came into existence out of the political or tactical debates that its members had with the CLPs. Specifically, while it was interested in organizing and building popular protest within the neighborhoods where protest was occurring, CUP’s political and ideological view was that neighborhood demands needed to be linked to demands for political reform of the state. The main political force in initiating the CUP was the Communist Workers’ Party (PCT, the pro-Albanian party mentioned above), although many CUP militants were not PCT members. CUP remained one of the leading neighborhood organizations and was headed by Virtudez Alvarez, a woman who has achieved national renown for her leadership, something recognized even by the President of the Republic.

Somewhat later, in 1985, the Broad Front for Popular Struggle (FALPO — Frente Amplio de Lucha Popular) was founded to co-ordinate the CLPs, as well as the Housewives’ Committees, the Student Movement and the class-based labor movement. Although not a neighborhood organization per se, it served as a co-ordinating body between such organizations and other groups. FALPO had neither the institutional structure nor the clout of COPADEBA or CUP, but in several towns and cities its grass roots organizations have strong local influence.

The last of the organizations with national scope was the Popular Organizations’ Collective (Colectivo de Organizaciones Populares). Formed in 1989, it defines itself as a co-ordinating body where popular groups can converge to organize specific protest activities. Initially, the Colectivo included COPADEBA, FALPO, the CUP, several labor and professional organizations, and local, municipal and provincial organizations. This gave it the capacity for mass mobilization, and its principal leader gained national standing. However, in the period that followed, the Colectivo adopted the positions of the most radicalized sectors of the left. This, combined with several failed calls for a national strike, led its most important member groups to walk out.

All these organizations had their heyday between the mid-1980s and the early 1990s. There also existed other community organizations with varying degrees of local influence in various cities, but no others achieved the national or territorial prominence of those described here. Many of these smaller groups occasionally worked with each other both locally and nationally. In addition, there have been several community research and action centers, and certain NGOs which work in a limited but systematic way with the people.

In Search of ‘The Subject’

Increased media access was one element that significantly affected the emergence and the ultimately political nature of the neighborhood and community movement. Coverage by the huge number of new local and national publications, television channels and radio outlets spread the debate and brought demands for new democratic participation opportunities to a wider segment of the population.

Through these media, community leaders gained access to a permanent and rapid means of communicating with the rank and file and with the population at large. Although this enormously increased their potential ability to mobilize people, the sudden attention also had the effect of confusing some leaders, who for a time overestimated their actual capacity to bring about changes in the system.

The numerous broad-minded media also facilitated the spread of ideas and concepts being discussed in Europe and South America about urban territorial movements. As leaders and activists in community organizations became aware of them, many began to see their organizations as the building blocks of a larger movement, one capable of channeling social demands to the point of becoming an alternative to the existing political system. They were similarly influenced by a number of social sectors and political activists who had formed popular education centers for social action.

As the movement became more politically oriented, it was generally believed that it would lead to a confrontation with the state, which could force concessions in the way the country was run, and could eventually be the spark of a broader social revolution. Step by step, measures were taken in the neighborhood and community organizations toward political action that sought to replace the left-wing parties, which were not playing a major role in the co-ordination of protest actions during these years,

1984—91, partly because of a lack of capacity to do so, partly because of a lack of will. At the same time, the cost to the popular organizations of playing this role, was, ironically, a diminution in the opportunity to shape an identity of their own. They weren’t particularly clear about their objectives; they tended to believe that their actions would stimulate the development of a new revolutionary subject which would lead to the fall of the government. They were trying to voice local demands and link up with local struggles, but these demands (and presumably their solutions) were always put into the context of national politics; that is, they were subordinated to national demands. The struggle was conceived as progressing hierarchically from local mobilization to marches, to work stoppages, and to national strikes. Although these strikes were held along territorial rather than labor-related lines, they did put forward both local and territorial grievances.

This logic prevailed above all because the mass of the population generally tends to develop a common-sense view of its actions, which almost always comes from the political traditions of the social and political sectors influencing them. However, the political tradition and practice of Dominican parties obscured the possibility of making a connection between local and larger issues. Distinction between the demands of each of the social sectors for purposes other than action was not made, and thus preservation of their identity and that of their movement was made more difficult.

These popular organizations were the foundation of a broad urban movement which was at times the main focus of social and political struggle in the Dominican Republic. The movement is significant because it

became a disruptive element in the political system. Their importance lay in their capacity to mobilize the population in a struggle for demands aimed at the state. The truth is that these struggles did not obtain tangible results; nevertheless neighborhood, regional and national strikes and protests had an impact on politicians as well as on the business sector, which demanded, on several occasions, that the government listen to the popular concerns. The actions of COPADEBA, for example in 1992, stopped a massive eviction of residents in La Ciénaga barrio in the capital, where the government wanted to build a tourist complex. As a result of this type of work, and in particular the role of national strikes in Dominican politics in recent years, these organizations have played a significant role. And yet, the lack of well-defined internal organizational structures and institutional mechanisms made the actions of the urban movement reactive and short-lived. This eventually rendered it incapable of decisively confronting the system, and even jeopardized its continuation.

The popular organizations that first emerged around local problems were led by a combination of militants and ex-militants of left-wing parties and Catholic militants influenced by the theories of liberation theology. Their ideas of action were very much a product of the left, with its stress on the party as the historical vehicle of change, its millenarian stance, and so forth. Their conceptions led them to politicize each action in the sense of casting demands at the level of national politics. This, in turn, impeded the development of community-based organization focused on concrete problems, and of a solid consciousness of local problems and how they might be solved. Focused action, based on the mobilization of communities around concrete objectives, would have been a more successful way of actually forcing the government to help find solutions to problems and to bring tangible results.

Rather than taking such an approach, the popular organizations tended to focus on the plane of national political and economic policy without reference to the immediate needs of a community, or at least to matters that could be conceived of as obtainable goals of struggle. Because local matters and actions were quickly taken beyond the community before struggles and consciousness of the struggle could mature, and because of organizational weaknesses, the protests in these years had an episodic character.

A Case Study of the Máximo Gómez Neighborhood Council

At the same time as these movements were developing, the Neighborhood Councils continued to evolve. Despite their origins as a government effort, these smaller and less dramatic organizations were dedicated to fighting for

local issues in a way that put them in a special relationship with the population.

Although recourse to negotiation with the government has not attained the rank and permanence that would be desirable, given the level and frequency of territorial grievances, community organizations have developed a logic of negotiation with sectors of the system and the state. This process is sometimes mediated by government bodies, most often by the institutions of civil society. None has yet been capable, however, of creating permanent mechanisms for maintaining dialogue.

Among community organizations in the country, Neighborhood Councils have been noted for a tendency to foster a more permanent and stable relationship of dialogue and negotiation with the Government. There are two reasons for the permanence of this relationship: first, their actual creation was directly encouraged by local governments; second, they were the least ideological of all community organizations, perhaps because left-wing and liberation theology activists considered them to be pro-government and tended to keep their distance. As noted, they were founded on the initiative of municipal authorities during the 1978–82 presidential term. However, only a few were actually controlled and manipulated by the Revolutionary Dominican Party when it was in power. Their gestation, formation and development was fairly spontaneous and free of political-ideological manipulation from any party. By definition and objectives, Neighborhood Councils have remained local in scope. Their protests and grievances are specific and well within the framework of neighborhood issues, which makes them an acceptable form of organization even in middle- and upper-income areas.

The Máximo Gómez Neighborhood Council is a good example for study. The neighborhood, where some 1,200 families live, is one of many housing developments built by private developers for working-class and middle-income families on urban land made more valuable by the government through construction of wide thoroughfares.

But the middle-income moniker is deceptive. Neglect by the National District City Government and the Public Works, Public Health and Police Departments deprived Máximo Gómez of refuse collection, street signs, and the ability to stop a ravine running through the community from being used as a waste dump and contaminated by a nearby meat-packing plant. The neighborhood had neither green areas nor facilities for sports or recreation. Residents requiring medical care had to travel several kilometers to reach a private medical center. Of all the services Máximo Gómez did not have, the most urgently needed were refuse collection and running water. Although water mains were installed in the area, they were not connected to the supply network. Refuse was never picked up because the

neighborhood was too out of the way. Although residents publicized their grievances, there was never an official response, and so each family found its own way round these problems. At first, one group of 30 neighbors pooled their money to pay for garbage collection and kept a watch to prevent others from throwing their garbage into their dump. But this solution was limited and temporary, and the garbage dump kept filling up.

However, the fact that they had joined together had an effect. It created friendships, solidarity, and a growing awareness of the neighborhood as the place in which the most important moments and activities of life took place: home, entertainment, rest, study, and, more and more often, productive work, as a consequence of the expanding informal labor market. Three months after neighborhood leaders Juan Ureña and Carmen Payano first put forward the idea, the Committee for a Máximo Gómez Neighborhood Council was formed. The Council was formally installed in May 1986.

Over the next six years, five different Boards of Directors were elected, and three males and two females served as President. Article 4 of its by-laws defines its objectives: ‘Through the collective integration of area residents, to organize and implement development programmes in coordination with public and private institutions, in order to encourage and improve living conditions for all residents [of the neighborhood).’ The Council identified ten basic problems requiring solution: inadequate water supply; biological and chemical contamination by the Torito Dominicano meat-packing plant; broken and unpaved streets; faulty housing construction; cracked walls, leaky roofs; numerous garbage dumps throughout the neighborhood; lack of home collection of garbage; collapse of one of the neighborhood access streets; no sports facilities; lack of green areas; recurrent crime.

Once constituted, the Council established formal relations with City Hall and sought recognition as a non-governmental organization. It also launched a programme to fight to solve all of these issues, beginning with access to running water. Five months later, in October 1986, the Council organized a vigil and picket line outside the People’s Savings and Loan Association, the private banking institution which had made the real-estate investment. Five hundred residents took part. This pressure forced the bank management to agree to talk to a commission and start negotiations, which culminated in the bank’s agreeing to solve the construction problems and pave the unfinished streets. The bank also issued a cheque to the Santo Domingo Water and Sewage Corporation (CAASD) for 25,000 pesos, which covered the cost of linking the neighborhood to the water distribution network. With responsibility for the water issue now in the

hands of the CAASD, the struggle took on another dimension. Now the fight was against a government institution.

The vigils and the picket line were transferred from the bank to the CAASD office. However, there was no response. The Council then organized a series of marches and night-time rallies around the neighborhood for 15 consecutive days. On the last day, pickets — mainly women, but also some men and children — blocked traffic on Avenida Principal, which links the entire area with downtown Santo Domingo. It was a Monday morning during rush hour, when thousands of people were commuting to work. With traffic stopped and emotions running high, a Colonel from the National Police (who was heading the detachment assigned to keep order) volunteered to mediate between the Council and the CAASD. The Colonel contacted the CAASD Director and asked him to meet the Neighborhood Council. Thanks to his intervention, the protest remained peaceful; dialogue and negotiations began between the Neighborhood Council and the Director of the Water and Sewage Corporation. Eventually the water problem at Máximo Gómez was solved.

The Máximo Gómez Neighborhood Council also carried out a lengthy battle against pollution of the ravine by the Torito Dominicano meat-packing plant. This was a three-way fight involving Torito, the Public Health Department and the Environmental Cleanup Commission. As a result of pressure by the Neighborhood Council, Torito Dominicano was forced to sign four agreements in which it made a commitment to find a solution to the problem. Subsequently, since both the company and the Public Health Department failed to honor these agreements, the Neighborhood Council went to the Environmental Cleanup Commission. The Commission, originally created by presidential decree, was headed by Pedro Candelier, an army colonel with a reputation for being resolute in fulfilling his orders.

At the request of the Neighborhood Council, Col. Candelier shut down the packing plant until the company built the installations needed to stop contamination of the ravine. Although the plant could not be kept closed until all work was completed, the Council did manage to force Torito to follow through and put an end to contamination. According to a local activist, this was the result of more than five years of fighting for the right to a healthy environment.⁶

The Máximo Gómez Neighborhood Council has been at its most persistent, however, in its relationship with City Hall, a relationship described by community leader Juan Urena as one of confrontation, dialogue and negotiation. He explains that the confrontational component consists of organizing demonstrations, vigils and picket lines, and getting the news media to speak, for example, of the need for city garbage

collection to prevent the proliferation of garbage dumps on every corner. Dialogue, for its part, involves attending City Council meetings to explain the problems and submit demands and petitions. Negotiation is the whole process, including discussions to influence city employees with whom the Council has a close relationship.

In 1990, at the time of new Council elections, the outgoing officers’ report summarized the following achievements: eradication of all garbage dumps in the neighborhood; regular garbage collection by City Hall; construction of a retaining wall to prevent a street from caving in; construction by residents of a volleyball and basketball court with assistance from City Hall; installation of traffic signals and street signs; installation of running water; reclamation of vacant green areas; construction of tanks and filters by Torito Dominicano to stop contamination of the ravine running through the neighborhood.

In addition, the Council sponsored numerous recreational activities, games, ceremonies and artistic events. These, according to former Council President Carmen Payano, help integrate families into the defense of their neighborhood and the preservation of its identity. The Máximo Gómez Neighborhood Council holds a Cultural Week on the anniversary of Máximo Gómez’s birth. (Gómez was a Dominican hero who fought with Jose Martí in the War of Cuban Independence.) During Cultural Week, there are block parties, student parades, sports tournaments, family marathons, and other activities. At other times of the year, the Council organizes a Corn Fair, an Arepa Festival, Christmas parties and a Kermesse. Although these activities get both young people and adults involved in the Council, most regular participants are adults. Only one of the nine current officers is under 30. Carmen Payano points out that young people are in a very special situation. Although they are not part of the Council’s structure, and not particularly interested in the actual Council, they participate in assemblies, in the rallies and protests, and in all the self-help and self-management activities promoted by the Council.

The participation of women is striking. Women are the most enthusiastic about the work, arrive first and in greater numbers for protest rallies, and are the first to show up for meetings and neighborhood assemblies (which attract 100 or more people.) This may explain why in a previous election an all-female Board was elected. Gender representation evened out in the last elections, however, and the current Board is made up of five women and four men. All positions are voluntary and without remuneration; members can be re-elected for more than one term. In addition, there are commissions which have responsibility for particular problems or issues.

Does the Neighborhood Council truly represent the interests and grievances of the people in the neighborhood? The current Board of

Directors claims that the Council is a recognized neighborhood force, which has real authority to make important decisions about local issues. For example, if someone wants to set up a sidewalk stand, he or she requests authorization from the Council. Whenever someone has a dispute with the Real Estate Bank over housing, he or she goes to the Neighborhood Council first; if someone breaks the rules of neighborly life, those affected report the misconduct to the Council and ask that the offender be reprimanded for violating the Neighborhood Social Code.

Carmen Payano says that this works because the Neighborhood Council does not make decisions without the consent of residents at General Meetings, in home visits made by the Board of Directors, and in opinion polls. However, well-known leader Miguel Uribe thinks that the Council’s strength is only relative. Government and municipal authorities make many decisions affecting the neighborhood without the slightest consideration for the Council, sometimes as if it did not even exist. In any case, the Máximo Gómez Neighborhood Council is an example of what a community organization can mean and accomplish for a neighborhood. According to Juan Urena, everything has been possible because the Council has a stable core of active participants, has become a consolidated organization, follows up on plans, defines clear and attainable objectives from the start, is not involved in the ideological struggles of political parties, provides honest management of resources obtained, and has permanent ties with the community. Part of its success lies in its political independence. The Máximo Gómez Council has turned down offers from the city council for modest financial help that it has extended to some Neighborhood Councils. The rationale is that the Council has been able to sustain permanent activity precisely because of its financial independence from the local government. The Council also eschews party politics as potentially manipulative. Although two of its main leaders are members of political parties, they function at arm’s length from their organizations. The Council does believe, however, that councils should transcend the limits of purely local struggles and should even try to forge electoral pacts with political parties if it helps in the fight to solve their problems.

New Neighborhood Councils with broader agendas are being created all the time in other communities — in all, some 50 or 60 have been set up. Most manage to get off the ground and attain a certain degree of recognition in their home areas. But they have their limitations: they may be reluctant to engage in political action, they may not be overly certain as to their objectives, and they may have few tangible achievements. But to the urban population of Santo Domingo they remain the chief reference point for raising local issues.

This is borne out by a survey we conducted in the three Santo Domingo neighborhoods which were the main focus of the 1984 protest rallies — Capotillo, Simón Bolivar and Las Cañitas, with a total population of 115,000. In the survey, while 65 per cent of the population said that they knew about the Neighborhood Councils, only 27 per cent knew the major popular organizations mentioned in the first part of this chapter. There is a perception in these communities that by joining together, residents can solve problems on their own. When asked about the best way to confront neighborhood issues, 59 per cent said it was by uniting the people in the neighborhood, 37 per cent said with government help, and only 6 per cent said with the help of the political parties. Again, this shows the degree of distrust that exists toward these organizations. This survey also demonstrates the crisis of legitimacy facing parties, as well as the suspicion of mediation between the people and the government: only slightly more than one-third believe that such mediation can lead to the solving of community problems.

Other data indicate that people in these areas are mainly concerned with immediate issues (as opposed to the desire to change the government, which some organizations had felt would be their ultimate concern). And so, for example, 74 per cent of those surveyed saw garbage and the high cost of living as their main problems, while 68 per cent also emphasized concern about crime. About 40 per cent considered housing their principal problem — which perhaps isn’t surprising since the other 60 per cent owned their houses in these areas (although they do not own the lots on which they are built). This concern with immediate problems helps explain the tendency to organize around fairly concrete questions and the lack of interest in the larger issues advanced by popular organizations linked to projects which are national in scope.

Conclusions

It is indicative of their limitations that the larger national popular organizations which had the greatest influence in Dominican politics since the period between 1984 and the early 1990s ended up facing a marked loss of influence and diminished growth and objective achievement prospects. Between 1991 and the mid-1990s, the number of their activities, their influence, and their impact all diminished. Many of the tasks they undertook remain unfinished, and efforts to complete others produced mediocre results. This is not only the conclusion of this research but also the assessment presented by the head of the Popular Organizations Colectivo in a report to the ninth General Assembly in February 1992.

It now seems evident that it will be impossible for these organizations to achieve their objective of articulating an alternative to the crisis facing Dominican society. These organizations have stuck with their tendency to orient their actions towards violent confrontation with the state, which makes it impossible to articulate local demands in a way that would allow effective negotiation. Even more importantly, this orientation tends to prevent community members from actually organizing to find solutions to their problems as opposed to focusing all attention on the state. Change in this approach is unlikely until, or unless, the political parties of the left working within the Colectivo and other organizations change their own orientation.

It is equally evident that more focused local organizations, unencumbered by the messianic vision of more ideological and political popular organizations, are now emerging to continue the fight for social change. Neighborhood Councils, such as the one in Máximo Gómez, stand out among these new forms of social organization. Although this particular experience is different in many ways from other local efforts, our observations indicate that these councils have acquired greater prominence in organizing and promoting popular protest.

This makes it clear that the leaders of the groups that led the recurrent protests between 1984 and 1990 were unable to interpret correctly the demands of the Dominican people in general, and those of the urban poor in the capital and the city of Santiago in particular. A review of the grievances raised in the last few years shows them to be quite varied, with local demands for improved living conditions thrown together with others of a political or wage-related nature. In general, however, most demands of the popular organizations, as opposed to those of the neighborhood councils, dealt with the fight for civil rights and consolidation of democratic gains made in the political arena, which, it was thought, would lead to the replacement of the current government and state by an alternative power. What the groups did not understand was that popular demands weren’t yet focused on a change in government or state, but rather on redressing wretched living conditions.

Some of the factors behind the sometimes violent protests included the lack of opportunities for democratic political participation, as well as an awareness of the right of access to the material goods the system offers but seldom delivers. The ever-more apparent debility of the institutions in Dominican society impedes the participation of popular social forces, and has even taken away traditional representation in the formal mechanisms of the system. Disenfranchisement is compounded by the fact that Dominican political parties have become almost exclusively electoral machines, which come alive only every four years, at election time. This creates a political

vacuum which is occasionally filled by local protest movements. This, in turn, politicizes these movements and lines them up against the state, even when their position is merely defensive or even supportive. Demands of a political nature have certainly been made by the population, including calls for a change in economic policy and abrogation of the agreements made with the IMF, which crop up in the grievance list of every national strike. The mass of the population has never, however, called for changes in the system or the state.

The leaders and activists in the national organizations studied and whom we interviewed, as well as many leaders in left-wing groups, see the protests and the neighborhood movement as the setting in which a new social subject will emerge, a subject capable of making much-needed economic and political transformations. This wishful and, it seems to me, rather flawed interpretation of the role that Dominican popular organizations can and should play has been a determining factor in bringing about the current state of paralysis in which they find themselves. Such, too, is the criticism by a leader of the Máximo Gómez Neighborhood Council who suggested to us that the positions taken by popular organizations have not contributed to the battles fought by Neighborhood Councils to solve local problems. Simply put, the national popular organizations have not adequately understood the struggle of the neighborhood councils and the struggles at the neighborhood level.

Finally, we have noted the weakening of the larger organizations such as the Popular Unity Council (CUP), the Broad Front for Popular Struggle (FALPO), the Popular Organizations Colectivo, and the Neighborhood Rights Defense Committee (COPADEBA). This is due primarily to the fact that these groups used work stoppages and national strikes as almost their sole form of struggle, and neglected the fight for local issues, including mobilizing people to solve their own problems. Organizational weakness severely hampers the chances of creating an identity as a community movement and makes it harder for leaders and groups to maintain links with the grassroots. This is probably why current trends in the protest movement point to greater difficulty in organizing and maintaining links with the masses.

Most importantly, however, the struggle of the members of the Dominican neighborhood and community movement reflects the need to entrench respect for their rights as citizens. It also reflects their desire for social integration on the basis of awareness of these rights and of the need to phase out the old forms of participation and representation that focus more or less exclusively on labor unions and political parties.

The legacy of these struggles in Dominican society is strong. Although poorly channeled at present, they helped make the political class aware of

the need to take the people’s grievances into account. Although the parties in which the political class is organized have not yet incorporated popular demands into their platforms, at least some are beginning to refer to the issues raised by the broad-based protest movement of the past six years. The fight has been continued by a variety of neighborhood organizations, which have taken up the legacy left by the struggles of the 1980s. The passing on of this torch is one of the most relevant factors in the deepening of democratization in Dominican society.

Notes

1. This study was financed by the Ford Foundation and was carried out with the assistance of José Leopoldo Artiles, research associate, and Pedro Hernández, research assistant.

2. The progressive forces were headed by the Revolutionary Dominican Party (PRD), a centrist, populist party and the leading coalition member, by the Social-Christian Revolutionary Party (PRSC), and by the pro-Cuba July 14 Revolutionary Movement.

3. FID manifesto, quoted in César Pérez and Leopoldo Artiles, Movimientos Sociales Dominicanos (Santo Domingo: Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo, 1992), pp. 100–101.

4. This discussion of the various organizations is greatly abbreviated from our analysis in Pérez and Artiles, Movimientos Sociales Dominicanos.

5. The first CLP actually started a year earlier as committees in solidarity with union leaders fired by CODETEL, the telephone company. These committees got off the ground in a number of barrios.

6. Although the role of Colonel Pedro Candelier might seem unusual, it is not so unusual in the Dominican Republic to establish a working relationship between an individual in authority, some community organizations, and those they are in conflict with. This was successfully done in several parts of the country.

Documento(s) 7 de 13