November, 1997
Movement in Support of the General Strike
The general strike called for November 11 and 12 by various popular sectors is the culmination of a series of neighborhood and regional protests which have been taking place in various places in the country for the demands of importance to a majority of the Dominican people.
The general strike is justified by the fact that the situation of uncertainty and hunger which affects the people is getting worse. Under the PLD [Party of Dominican Liberation] government the poverty level has grown from 56% to 60%, wages and salaries do not even cover 50% of the necessities for the majority of the population. Every day the cost of living for an average family increases, the blackouts are more prolonged and unemployment and misery continue to grow.The general strike is justified because the government has not offered any practicable solution to the national problems. On the contrary, the neo-liberal program of the government, which is planning the privatization of state enterprises and other means which only serve to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, can only lead to greater unemployment and poverty for the great majority of the country.
The strike is justified because the government has only made promises which it has not fulfilled. It is not true that the problems will be resolved if the government is given more time, as some claim. If anything has been proven in our country, it is that the more time that goes by, the greater the problems become. The blackouts used to last from 10 to 15 hours; with this government they last from 20 to 22 hours. If before food was expensive, now it is very expensive. Therefore there is no reason to give more time to a government which only benefits a minority of the very rich and which only tries with its demagogy to gain more time to impose anti-popular measures without any resistance.
We support the general strike as a just and adequate method to force the government to change its economic policies and to heed the needs of the people. We condemn the repression unleashed by the government and its armed forces and police in the last few days. We especially condemn thee paramilitary role which members of the PLD are playing in facilitating the repression of the state organs.
We call upon the whole Dominican community and the Latin American community in general to respond to the just struggle of our people and to demand that the government immediately cease its repression against the popular and progressive movement.
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