Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic: National Security
nationals are leading figures in drug distribution and delivery
in New York and throughout the northeastern United States.
Rarely do narcotics-related crimes result in prison sentences in
the Dominican Republic.
The presidential administration that took office in 1996 had
drug corruption and judicial and prison reform on its agenda.
Measures have been introduced to make the criminal justice
system more humane and effective and independent of politics.
As the head of a minority party, the president nevertheless
faces an uphill battle in cleansing the bureaucracy, the military,
and justice and law enforcement agencies of the influence of
the well-entrenched drug interests.
History and Development of the Armed Forces
Spanish colonial militias were the first organized military
forces in what is now the Dominican Republic. These forces
maintained law and order over the entire island of Hispaniola,
which from 1496 was ruled from Santo Domingo, the center of
Spanish colonial administration in the New World (see The
First Colony, ch. 1). By the mid-1500s, when Spain's interests
shifted to the richer colonies of Mexico and Peru, the Dominican
colony had a well-established hierarchical social system that
was based on authoritarian rule by a small white elite. The colony
also included a large black slave population (see Ethnic
Heritage, ch. 2).
The shift in Spain's colonial interests and the consequent
withdrawal of most of Spain's military from the Dominican colony
was followed by a long period of economic and political
decay, during which domestic order deteriorated. The colony
was threatened by pirates along the coast as well as by periodic
encroachment by the forces of France and England, which
were competing with each other and with Spain for territory
and power in the New World.
As a result of this competition, Spain was forced in 1697 to
cede the western third of Hispaniola to France. Nevertheless,
border disputes continued, and by 1797 France had prevailed
on Spain to cede the rest of the island.
Before French rule became established in the Dominican
colony, however, a slave revolt broke out in the western portion
of the island, which came to be known as Haiti. In what proved
to be the first in a series of Haitian incursions into Dominican
territory, the rebellious Haitians invaded the poor and less
populous eastern side of the island in 1801. Haitian forces were
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