Paper on Corruption in the Dominican Republic , Political Science
malta
CopyofDRTopics.pdf
Agenda Items Finalize Topic Order
a) Corruption b) Drug Trafficking c) Poverty d) Lack of Public Funding for Education e) Haiti f) Gender Violence and Discrimination towards both Haitian immigrants and native
Dominicans
1) Drug Trafficking
“The expansion of coca production in Colombia and the cooptation of the Venezuelan state by criminal elements have increased the volume of drugs passing through the Dominican Republic. Drug intercepts by Dominican authorities have increased from 10 tons in 2014, to 13 tons in 2015 to 20 tons in 2016" “With respect to drugs, the Dominican Republic is primarily a transit country for cocaine and other substances originating in Colombia, sometimes passing through Venezuela, and bound for the United States and Europe, with some temporary storage of drugs in the country as well. Nonetheless, a number of laboratories have also been discovered in the south of the country, including a large facility found in San Cristobal in 2013, and, in May 2017, the discovery of three laboratories in the north for the production of synthetic drugs, in Santiago and Puerto Plata." https://theglobalamericans.org/2017/07/dominican-republic-security-challenges-government-resp onses-recommendations-u-s/
2) Lack of public funding for education Broad swaths of youth are involved in crime as lacking economic opportunity forces many to go through illegal means.
● Lack of job opportunities/ unemployment ● Problems with Education System/Education Reform in the DR
○ Dominican law mandates that four percent of the GDP must be spent on education, but only about two percent of the GDP is invested in education in the Dominican Republic.
○ These reforms are beginning to occur, with the World Bank announcing in September of 2015 that the global financial institution will invest $50 million over five years to assist the Dominican Republic government’s education reforms.
○ No compulsory secondary education in the DR
3) Corruption
International indicators of the DR’s competitiveness and transparency continue to erode. Foreign investors cite a lack of clear, standardized rules by which to compete and a lack of enforcement of existing rules. Complaints include allegations of widespread corruption, requests for bribes, delays in government payments, weak intellectual property rights enforcement, bureaucratic hurdles, slow and sometimes biased judicial processes, non-standard procedures in customs valuation of imported goods, as well as product misclassification as a means of negating CAFTA-DR benefits and increasing customs revenues. Weak land tenure laws and government expropriations continue to be a problem. (Trade) Political Corruption in DR:
● The Dominican Republic has a poor record on corruption, ranking 137th out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s corruption index
○ https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/7/4/dominican-republic-vote-to-go-ahead-d espite-coronavirus-threat
● Look into Trujillo and the corruption during his dictatorship ● Salvador Jorge Blanco - first Dominican president to be prospected of corruption
○ “Jorge Blanco's administration promised much in the way of integrity and economic redistribution, but delivered neither. Almost as soon as he entered the presidential palace, world sugar prices collapsed, the Dominican economy nosedived, and government spending exceeded dwindling export revenues.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/27/salvador-jorge-blanco-obituary
○ “As economic conditions worsened, it was alleged that Blanco and his allies were tempted by the self-enrichment offered by corrupt arms contracts.” https://www.smh.com.au/national/first-president-to-be-prosecuted-for-corruption- in-a-country-famous-for-it-20110107-19iv0.html
○ “Jorge Blanco was tried in absentia – and again on television – in November 1988, and condemned to 23 years' imprisonment and a large fine. A long series of appeals and legal manoeuvres ensued, which meant that he spent only two months in jail, until in 2001 the supreme court ruled the initial verdict null and void.” (The Guardian)
https://www.trade.gov/knowledge-product/dominican-republic-market-challenges
OUTLINE
- DR Corruption Perceptions Index - Trujillo and Salvador Jorge Blanco - Lack of credibility within Criminal Justice system - Widespread impunity for high ranking officials and elites - Corruption in el Partido de la Liberación Dominicana or PLD - Case samples:
- Odebrecht Scandal - Senator Felix Bautista
- How the justice system has handled corruption cases - Looking ahead: what the government is doing now concerning corruption and
how the new President Luis Abinader is handling anti-corruption
4) Haiti ● “For many Dominicans, Haiti continues to be, directly or indirectly, the nations’ principal
security challenge. Although international press coverage of the Dominican Republic’s treatment of Haitian immigrants has been strongly negative, many Dominicans feel that the international community does not adequately acknowledge how the sustained humanitarian crisis, criminality and weak governance in Haiti has burdened the Dominican Republic.” https://theglobalamericans.org/2017/07/dominican-republic-security-challenges-governm ent-responses-recommendations-u-s/
Systemic racism/Xenophobia/Refugees and Asylum-seekers ● Not sure if this should be part of or separate from topic of Haiti ● Antihaitianismo and hate crimes against Haitians ● Stateless people - Requiring Dominicans of Haitian descent to carry a cédula
○ Since 2015, Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent have been “voluntarily deporting” themselves out of fear of being forcibly removed
● Trujillo’s legacy ● https://www.coha.org/antihaitianismo-systemic-xenophobia-and-racism-in-the-dominican
-republic/#_edn32 ● “By October 2019, there were 30,000 Venezuelan migrants and refugees in the
Dominican Republic, of whom 184 had lodged claims for asylum,” very few people have been granted asylum
○ Lack of international protection for Venezuelan refugees ○ https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/americas/dominican-republic/report-domin
ican-republic/
5) Gender Violence and Discrimination towards both Haitian immigrants and native
Dominicans Violence against women, specifically domestic violence is a prominant issue in DR.
● “Nadie se mete entre problemas de marido y mujer.” ● The Dominican Republic has seen a rise in violence against women amid the pandemic.
○ “In the Dominican Republic, the violence service of the Ministry of Women's Affairs, Línea Mujer, received 619 calls during the first 25 days of quarantine.”
■ https://reliefweb.int/report/world/surge-violence-against-girls-and-women-latin-a merica-and-caribbean
● “I hate to say the following, but it makes sense that we have that amount of femicides in the Dominican Republic when you see that we have a culture that objectifies women, where violence is uber normalized in romantic relationships, and you see in the nuclear family, machismo is upheld,” Goico said. “It makes sense, and of course we’re going to have crazy murder rates and femicides in a country where being a woman is a second-class citizen, and if you’re a Black woman, if you’re a trans woman, odds are against you.”
○ https://www.latinousa.org/2019/11/25/marchofbutterflies/ ● Murder of Anibel Gonzalez in September 2019 reignited protests calling for a response to
gender-based violence ○ https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/americas/dominican-republic/report-dominican-re
public/ ● Violence against cisgender and transgender women sex workers
○ Structural barriers for reporting violence committed by the police ○ https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/americas/dominican-republic/report-dominican-re
public/ Strict Abortion Laws The Dominican Republic has a deeply machismo culture and is one of the few countries in the world which has a complete ban on abortion. The procedure is illegal in all cases, including when the life of the woman or girl is at risk. (Independent)
● “In late 2014, the Dominican Republic decriminalized abortion in cases of rape, incest, certain fetal malformations, and when the pregnancy threatens the life of the woman. In December, the high court ruled that the reform was unconstitutional and reinstated an absolute criminal prohibition on abortion dating from the 19th century.”
○ https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2016/country-chapters/dominican-republic
6) Crime/Poverty (these could be separated) (Faith) (Martha)
- Martha’s notes on Poverty are in a separate doc for now until complete -
