Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic: National Security
not occurred in recent years. However, the 1994 disappearance
of university professor Narciso Gonzalez, a prominent critic of
the government of President Balaguer, has been a source of
discord in the country, with suspicion falling on senior military
officers. After President Fernandez took office in 1996, he
reopened the investigation of the case.
In 1997 President Fernandez dismissed the heads of the
National Police and the DNCD after both officers had been
criticized by the attorney general for use of torture in criminal
investigations and excessive force in attempting to control
crime. Extrajudicial executions, described as "exchanges of
fire," were said to have occurred. In addition, valuable assets
seized in drug cases—cars, planes, and boats—were said to
have disappeared.
Numerous deaths have resulted from police use of excessive
force on persons in custody, during civil disturbances, or in
pursuing suspects. In 1995 eighty-five such cases were reported;
in 1998 seventy-five extrajudicial killings were ascribed to the
police or the DNCD, a sharp increase over the previous year.
Police personnel involved in such incidents may be tried by
police courts or remanded to civilian courts. During 1998
police courts convicted and sentenced fifty members of the
police for serious crimes. Numerous other officers were dismissed
and their cases remanded to the civilian court system.
As a rule, sentences in serious cases of abuse have ranged from
a one-month suspension to six months' incarceration. In 1997
the narcotics police of the DNCD were accused of numerous
cases of torture. The DNCD initially failed to cooperate with
efforts to impose civilian supervision over the investigative process;
the monitoring program resumed when the DNCD director
was removed. When soldiers were transferred to the
National Police in 1997, the human rights issue was high profile
enough that the government mandated that those transferred
receive several weeks of human rights training.
The National Police and narcotics police are reported to
engage in the practice of rounding people up indiscriminately
in poorer neighborhoods; most detainees are released after
several hours. The security authorities continue to detain relatives
and friends of suspected criminals to coerce a suspect into
surrendering. Detentions of hundreds of persons occurred in
1994 and in earlier years at election time, ostensibly to prevent
violent demonstrations. The individuals involved were released
within the legal forty-eight-hour period.
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