Word: dominicans
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...attack came as the two warring sides began a second round of peace talks in the Dominican Republic capital of Santo Domingo. The negotiations broke down within hours; the contras insisted on talking directly with the Sandinistas, and Managua said it would bargain only through advisers. "We are at an impasse," said Miguel Cardinal Obando y Bravo, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Nicaragua, who serves as a mediator between the belligerent parties. The two sides agreed to a two-day Christmas truce, but Sandinistas accused the contras of numerous violations. The rebels denied the charges. In Managua, Nicaraguan President Daniel...
Washington is no stranger to military action in the Caribbean. U.S. Marines intervened in Haiti in 1915 after increasing civil strife, and stayed until 1934 as an army of occupation. Marines landed in the neighboring Dominican Republic in 1965. In 1983 some 1,900 U.S. soldiers and a small Caribbean task force ousted a radical regime in Grenada. When former President Jean-Claude Duvalier was tottering last year, the U.S. provided the C-141 Starlifter cargo plane that flew the dictator and his family out of the country...
Meeting with representatives of both sides of the conflict last week in the Dominican Republic, Obando y Bravo proposed a truce from December 22 to January 6, as a first step toward a wider truce under a Central American peace plan...
...Dominican exodus has grown along with the country's economic troubles. A huge foreign debt, high inflation and a 30% unemployment rate make it nearly impossible for people to make a living at home. Cutbacks in the U.S. sugar quota last year crippled the chief export industry and displaced thousands of agricultural workers. The refugee flight serves as an escape valve for social discontent, as well as a source of foreign earnings: the emigrants send home an estimated $280 million each year. Concedes Andres Moreta Damiron, the Dominican consul in San Juan: "Our government needs this injection of money...
...results are less positive for Puerto Rico. The island already suffers a 16% unemployment rate. Dominicans, many of whom will work for far less than the U.S. minimum wage of $3.35 an hour, are further undercutting Puerto Ricans in the job market. For Dominicans accustomed to making an average of $85 a month, Puerto Rico is a relative paradise. Many of the male newcomers work as mechanics or construction laborers. The women typically find jobs as housekeepers or cooks at open-air food stands, positions that Puerto Ricans tend to shun. Though the Dominican economy may benefit from such emigration...