Weekly Report - 15 July 2003

At first, placing the police and the military on full alert to cope with an expected anti-IMF 'social explosion' (WR-03-24) looked like overkill. Indeed, it had seemed to descend into farce in early July, when the police ended up arresting donkeys used by a few hundred protesters rallied by Catholic priest Rogelio Cruz. 

All levity has since been dispelled, as protests have grown and become occasionally violent as police broke them up. On 8 July one such clash claimed the life of a Chinese shopkeeper, hit by a stray bullet in the Capotillo district of Santo Domingo. Dozens were reportedly injured in confrontations the following day. 

The police responded by arresting Ví­ctor Gerónimo, coordinator of the Colectivo de Organizaciones Populares (an umbrella body of organisations that have been campaigning against price increases and power blackouts). 

Faced with the prospect of his detention becoming a motive for the escalation of protests, Gerónimo was released after a day -'because we have not yet been able to find a weighty enough legal argument to prosecute him,' as police spokesman Ramón Francisco Rodrí­guez put it. The government then again raised fuel prices, and the Colectivo announced an escalation of the protests.