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UNCLAS SANTO DOMINGO 002900 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR WHA, WHA/CAR, INR/IAA; USSOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD; 
TREASURY FOR OASIA-JLEVINE; DEPT PASS USDA FOR FAS; USDOC 
FOR 4322/ITA/MAC/WH/CARIBBEAN BASIN DIVISION; USDOC FOR 
3134/ITA/USFCS/RD/WH; DHS FOR CIS-CARLOS ITURREGUI 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: DR PGOV PREL
SUBJECT: DOMINICAN POLITICS III #3: BALAGUER COMMEMORATION: 
FERNANDEZ WALKS FINE LINE 
 
 
¶1. This is the third cable in our series on Dominican 
politics in the third year of the administration of President 
Leonel Fernandez. 
 
(SBU) Summary.  The commemoration of the 100th anniversary of 
the birth of longtime president Joaquin Balaguer presented 
Dominican politicians with many difficult questions.  The 
length of Balaguer's career and the nature of his rule -- he 
served seven terms as President and frequently shifted 
alliances -- meant that most current politicians had been 
both allied with and opposed to Balaguer's PRSC party at some 
time.  President Fernandez presided over a commemoration at 
the National Palace that was designed to be non-partisan and, 
on balance, praised Balaguer's service to the Dominican 
people, particularly his public works.  In contrast, 
leftists, including a key advisor to Fernandez, held little 
back in their criticism of Balaguer, focusing on the excesses 
of his anti-communist campaigns during the Cold War.  The 
formal event was a numbing four hours long. 
 
There was an eerie Balaguerist twist to the event: Fernandez 
conceding the stage to the older-generation PRSC group led by 
Foreign Minister Carlos Morales Tronocso that had abandoned 
the PRSC nominee to support Fernndez in his presidential 
bid, and putting the current PRSC leadership in a dither on 
whether or not to attend.  Senator-elect Amable Aristy Castro 
did so; PRSC president Quique Antun and Secretary General 
Victor Gomez Casanova did not.  End summary. 
 
Seven-Time President 
 
(SBU) Joaquin Balaguer's first term as President, 1960-62, 
began as a figurehead during the Trujillo dictatorship. 
Later, he won elections in 1966, 1970, 1974, 1986, 1990, and 
(at the age of 88) 1994 that reflected the developing nature 
of Dominican democracy -- some were free and fair, others 
not.  In the 1960s and 1970s, Balaguer's battles with the PRD 
and PLD parties were legendary, and often brutal.  In a 
compromise following the disputed 1994 election, Balaguer 
agreed to serve only a two-year term.  In the 1996 election, 
when PRD candidate Jose Francisco Pena Gomez won a plurality 
in the first round, Balaguer threw his support in the second 
round to former rivals the PLD and their candidate Leonel 
Fernandez, who went on to win the presidency.  The PRD never 
forgave Balaguer for 1996; however, following his death, they 
joined with his PRSC in an election coalition for the 2006 
legislative elections.  The PRSC is now deeply divided:  some 
of the old guard members have joined Fernandez's cabinet, 
some PRSC leaders attended the event in the palace, and 
others refused to attend last week's official commemoration 
and organized a separate, smaller event. 
 
A Mixed Record 
 
(SBU) At the official commemoration held in the crowded Salon 
de las Caryatides at the National Palace, held on September 1 
and attended by DCM and POLOFF, a panel of speakers and a 
video presentation detailed Balaguer's long career of public 
service, often focusing on the public works projects and 
overall economic progress of the country during his 
presidencies.  The evening culminated with a speech by 
President Fernandez, who argued that historical figures 
cannot be judged in black and white terms.  Nor, he said, 
should Balaguer's ties to Trujillo mar his entire record, 
given that now-revered figures such as King Juan Carlos of 
Spain were also associated with dictators.  On balance, 
Balaguer was one of most intelligent, hard-working, and 
patriotic leaders in the history of the Dominican Republic. 
Fernandez, who has not said whether he will run again in 
 
2008, drew a raucous applause from the gallery when he quoted 
a Balaguer re-election axiom, "You don't change horses when 
you're in the middle of the river."  With a slight smile, 
Fernandez then lightly castigated his supporters for 
"misinterpreting" his remark. 
 
Fallen Comrades 
 
(SBU) The tone was decidedly different among those farther 
left.  Reflecting divisions over Balaguer even within the 
Fernandez Administration, the President's senior advisor for 
press and public relations, sociologist Carlos Dore Cabral, 
turned down an invitation to the official commemoration. He 
was open in comments to the media:  "I don't have any 
particular reason to inform the President (of my decision)," 
and listed the names of three fellow Communist Party 
colleagues whom he said were assassinated by Balaguer's 
security forces.  "Those are the reasons -- personal and 
political -- that I have for not attending that event." 
 
In following days the Op-Ed pages also carried articles from 
the country's most incisive commentators, almost all critical 
of the official commemoration, most focused on the repression 
they were subjected to during the Cold War.  Speaking out 
were the leftist/Caamanoist thinker Hamlet Hermann, 
sociologist Rosario Espinal, and historian/former ambassador 
to Washington Bernardo Vega.  There were Balaguer sycophants 
out there as well, still at work. 
 
Comment 
 
(SBU) President Fernandez's keen political skills were on 
display at the Balaguer commemoration.  He praised the man 
who helped him get elected while implicitly acknowledging the 
pain Balaguer had cause to others, including Fernandez 
allies.  Many in the audience must have noted the irony of a 
President from the PLD -- which originated as a leftist 
breakaway group from the populist PRD -- presiding over an 
event in honor of a man who tolerated (and at times 
encouraged) the crushing of the left in the 1960s and 70s. 
However, Dominican political parties have long had more of 
business than of ideology to them.  The PRD is working on 
putting together its first coherent party platform and the 
PRSC has been switching alliances regularly in search of 
survival.  Dore Cabral, the old leftist no less, stood out 
this week as a politician who stuck to his principles even at 
the risk of piquing the president who appointed him. 
 
¶2. (U) Drafted by Peter Hemsch. 
 
¶3. (U) This report and extensive other material can be 
consulted on our SIPRNET site, 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/santodomingo/  . 
HERTELL