Caribbean & Central America - March 2012 (ISSN 1741-4458)

Last month the international human rights NGO, Amnesty International (AI) reminded the government of President Leonel Fernández of the need to address some of the atrocious practices still being committed by the National Police (PN) which was created during the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo (1930-1961). Instead of taking AI’s recommendations on board however, the Fernández government no doubt with one eye on the looming May presidential election, accused the NGO of seeking to “discredit” it by launching an international campaign aimed at damaging its image.

Back in October 2011, AI published a report entitled: “Shut up if you don’t want to get killed!: Human rights violations by police in the Dominican Republic”. The 59-page report highlighted that, despite substantial progress to demilitarise the force, the PN has continued to maintain its military ethos which dates back to its creation by Trujillo in 1936.  An estimated 50,000 people were killed and countless others were tortured and disappeared under the Trujillo dictatorship, with the PN and the military accused of being responsible for serious human rights violations during this period. AI’s report found that the widespread perception of the PN within the country continues to be that of an “authoritarian, repressive, corrupt and ineffective body responsible for many human rights violations”.

According to the report, which cites data from the prosecutor general’s office, between 2005 and 2010, the PN was responsible on average for 15% of all violent deaths in the Dominican Republic, an “alarming proportion which raises significant concerns that police frequently employ disproportionate force with deadly consequences”. AI identified the PN’s abusive policing as the main contributing factor in the sharp rise in the country’s homicide rate, which went from 13 per 100,000 in 1995 to 25 per 100,000 in 2010, after peaking at 26 per 100,000 in 2005. Yet, the international NGO claims that, despite the fact that members of the PN are known to be responsible for many deaths; and suspected of being responsible for serious abuses such as physical torture and extrajudicial executions, they are rarely brought to justice. As a result, AI concluded that at the heart of the problem lay the authorities’ failure to implement effective reforms due to a lack of “political will”.

With the DR’s recent ratification of the United Nations Convention against Torture going into effect on 23 February, the previous day, AI special advisor in the DR, Javier Zuñiga, called on the government to “put an end once and for all the abusive [police] practices that have been in place for decades”. Zuñiga also pointed out that 289 people had been killed by the PN in the country in 2011, more than 10% of all homicides registered in the country, and more than the 260 people killed by the police in 2010.  The government’s response came a week later, on 2 March, the ‘national day of the police’, marking the anniversary of the PN’s creation.  Minister of Justice & the Police José Ramón Fadul, and PN chief, Mayor General José Armando Polanco Gómez, issued a joint statement complaining that the PN had been targeted by a negative campaign conducted by a “renowned international institution” devoted to the defence of human rights. Maintaining that the international organisation, which was never named, “resorted to false accusations and prefabricated testimonies in an attempt to damage the image of the country’s security forces”, the statement accused the campaign of attempting to “discredit the country’s image”. While recognising that the PN has its “weaknesses”, the statement insisted that the authorities had the political will to deal with these problems, recalling that efforts to modernise, and strengthen the institution has resulted in the removal of 10,000 police officers in the past four years. This response by the government – of going on the defensive rather than recognising the existence of what is an historic problem - suggests it could also be wary of the issue becoming a campaigning point ahead of the May election.

• Polanco seeks AI’s help

Bizarrely, following the latest criticism from the AI’s Javier Zuñiga and prior to the joint statement denouncing the “campaign” against the PN, police chief José Armando Polanco Gómez himself on 25 February requested AI’s help in finding a well known gang leader, Gervasio Nolasco ‘Rey’. Polanco Gómez called for assistance from AI and other human rights organisations operating in the DR to help with Rey’s capture after admitting suspicions that Rey had contacts within the PN.  According to Polanco Gómez, the PN is planning to investigate which police officials may be working for Rey. This follows the confirmation that two former members of the PN were involved in the recent hold-up attributed to Rey’s gang in which a truck driver was shot dead.