The Dominican Republic braces for big problems triggered by Iraq war

Despite being half a world apart, the Dominican Republic fears a U.S. attack against Iraq could unleash serious difficulties amid a complex social and economic situation the island nation is going through.

In Dominican president Hipolito Mejias’ opinion, “a war against Iraq is a fact and the country must brace itself to cushion its effects, especially in such basic sectors for the economy as tourism and free trade zones.”

President Mejias –who believes in the impossibility of forecasting the conflict’s outcomes and timeframe- said during his Sunday night televised address that his country is sketching out emergency plans to stand up for a national economy that’s closely linked to the United States’.

The Dominican Republic expects the arrival of over 3 million tourists this year, a goal too hard to come by would the U.S. go to war with Iraq. A conflict could only shrink the sector as it did happen during the air campaign against Afghanistan.

As far as sweatshops lodged in free trade zones are concerned, their output is closely related to the economic situation in the Unites States, a country that takes in the largest chunk of their products.

As to cash remittances sent by Dominican residents in the U.S., the country rakes in a ballpark figure of $2 billion every year.

This close linkage of the two countries’ economies has not watered down a huge popular antiwar feeling whose latest display was a women’s rally in the nation’s capital last March 8 under a slogan reading “Say No To War; Say Yes To Life”.

The generalized belief among Dominicans is that the conflict could speed up the deterioration of an already belt-tightened national economy bogged down in increasingly higher living costs.

Guilds of teachers, college professors and health technicians are staging partial strikes to demand higher wages and better working conditions, while a group of popular organizations announced preparations for a general strike next April.

In the face of all this, president Mejias warned “there’s no money for salary raises” and refused to give in to what he called blackmailing positions. In Mr. Mejias’ opinion, nobody knows for sure what’s in store for the Dominican economy out there.