Country Snapshot

Population: 8,715,602 (July 2003 est.) Size, comparable to U.S.: slightly more than twice the size of New Hampshire Per Capita GDP, not adjusted for PPP (year): $2,511 (2002) Income, wealthiest 10% / poorest 10%: 53.3/2.1 (1998) Population earning less than $2 a day: < 2% Ranking, Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index: 70 out of 133 Defense Expenditure as a percentage of GDP: 1.1% (FY 1998) Size of armed forces: 25,000 (2001) U.S. military personnel present: 13 (2003)

Counternarcotics

Drug interdiction is the main rationale for U.S. security assistance to the Dominican Republic, as it is with most Central American and Caribbean countries through which drugs are smuggled on their way to the United States. The United States provided the Dominican Republic with at least $4.2 million in counternarcotics assistance between 1988 and 1998.¹

In August 1998 the U.S. and Dominican governments signed an amendment to the two countries’ original 1988 counternarcotics Letter of Agreement. The amendment added another $300,000 in U.S. counternarcotics funding, most of it through the State Department’s International Narcotics Control (INC) program.² The new funding will pay for training and equipment for military and police units with counternarcotics and law enforcement responsibilities.

Foremost among these units is the National Drug Control Directorate (DNCD), the Dominican government’s principal counternarcotics agency. U.S. assistance also pays for training and maintenance of military units involved in narcotics interdiction, especially new border patrol troops.³

U.S.-Dominican counternarcotics cooperation, according to the State Department’s February 1999 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), consists of “information sharing, special operations targeting major international traffickers, highly successful joint anti-narcotics and anti-alien smuggling military exercises, and a joint Haitian/Dominican counternarcotics operation on the border with Haiti.”⁴

U.S. funding supports a DNCD Joint Intelligence Coordinating Center (JICC), through which U.S. personnel share information about possible narcotics trafficking activity. The INCSR notes that the JICC “maintains a close relationship” with the State Department, the DEA, and a Defense Department counter-drug Tactical Analysis Team (TAT) assigned to the embassy in Santo Domingo.⁵

In September 1998 the Dominican security forces received non-lethal equipment and U.S. Customs Service training valued at $550,000 through a counternarcotics “emergency drawdown.”⁶ No further drawdown aid for the Dominican Republic was approved in 1999.

U.S. Special Forces counter-drug deployments in 1998 included basic infantry training for the Dominican Army’s new Border Patrol Unit, and joint infantry training for the DNCD.⁷ A U.S. Navy Special Boat Unit participating in the “New Horizons” series of Humanitarian Civic Assistance (HCA) exercises paid a visit to build a pier in Cabeza del Toro, at a cost of $230,000.⁸

The Dominican security forces take part in several joint maritime operations with U.S. Coast Guard units. In “Halcón,” a recurring operation, U.S. boats and aircraft with Dominican personnel aboard as “shipriders” enter Dominican territorial waters and airspace to pursue suspected traffickers or would-be immigrants.⁹ “Frontier Lance” uses shipriders from both Haiti and the Dominican Republic aboard Coast Guard craft pursuing drug traffickers. According to the INCSR, Frontier Lance “marked the first time USCG forces conducted counter-drug operations from a foreign base in Baharona, Dominican Republic.”¹⁰ Dominican shipriders also participate in “Caribe Venture,” a similar Coast Guard anti-drug operation that involves nine countries and several territories.

Other training

Measured by cost, the Dominican Republic is consistently among the hemisphere’s top five recipients of training assistance through the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program. Expanded IMET made up 49 percent of the country’s IMET funding in 1998, a significant increase over the E-IMET share in previous years. The State Department’s 2000 Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations maintains that IMET seeks to “further the professionalism” of the Dominican military and to promote its “increased civic involvement.”¹¹

The U.S. Special Forces’ Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) program normally deploys once or twice a year to the Dominican Republic. JCETs in 1998 focused on light infantry, peacekeeping, marksmanship, mission planning, and small unit tactics, among other skills.¹²

Dominican personnel participate frequently in the U.S. Southern Command’s regular series of multilateral military exercises, including Fuerzas Aliadas Peacekeeping, Fuerzas Aliadas Humanitarian, and Tradewinds. In April 1999, the Dominican Republic hosted part of the “maritime phase” of Tradewinds 99, a field training exercise managed by U.S. Special Operations Command South to practice “combined security, peacekeeping, and selected maritime operations.”¹³ The “New Horizons” series of Humanitarian Civic Assistance (HCA) exercises has been present in the country almost constantly since mid-1998, first for a regularly-scheduled construction and medical training visit, then for rebuilding projects in the wake of Hurricane Georges, which struck in late 1998.

Other arms transfers

The Dominican Republic regularly receives grants of used equipment through the Excess Defense Articles (EDA) program. Vehicles, tugboats and barges make up nearly all Dominican EDA granted in recent years. Section 1018 of the 1999 National Defense Authorization Act approved an additional grant of a floating dry dock through the EDA program. The 2000 Congressional Presentation indicated that EDA will be used "to promote inter-operability and modernization of equipment."¹⁴

The Dominican Republic appears to prefer to purchase U.S. weapons through the Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) program; DCS licenses are many times greater than the sum of arms-sale agreements made through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. Spare parts, sonar systems, small arms, and ammunition have made up the bulk of recent purchases and licenses.¹⁵

Sources:

¹ U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998, (Washington: Department of State: February 1999): <http://www.state.gov/www/global/narcotics_law/1998_narc_report/major/Dominican_Republic.html.>

² Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998.

³ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998.

⁴ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998.

⁵ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998.

⁶ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998.

⁷ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998.

⁸ United States, Department of State, "Memorandum of Justification for use of Section 506(a)(2) special authority to draw down articles, services, and military education and training," September 15, 1998.

⁹ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998.

United States, Defense Department, State Department, "Foreign Military Training and DoD Engagement Activities of Interest In Fiscal Years 1998 and 1999: A Report To Congress," Washington, March 1999: 3, 16.

¹⁰ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998.

United States, Department of Defense, U.S. Southern Command, "New Horizon - Dominican Republic 98," Slideshow document, 1998.

¹¹ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998.

¹² Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998.

¹³ United States, Department of State, Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 2000, (Washington: Department of State: March 1999): 875.

¹⁴ United States, Department of State, Office of Resources, Plans and Policy, Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 1999 (Washington: March 1998): 419.

¹⁵ United States, Defense Department, "Report on Training of Special Operations Forces for the Period Ending September 30, 1998," Washington, April 1, 1999.

¹⁶ United States, Department of Defense, U.S. Southern Command, "Tradewinds 99 - Draft," Slideshow document, April 21, 1998.

¹⁷ United States, Department of State, Office of Resources, Plans and Policy, Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 1998 (Washington: March 1997): 391.

¹⁸ United States, Department of State, Office of Resources, Plans and Policy, Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 2000 (Washington: March 1999): 875.

¹⁹ United States, Department of State, Department of Defense, Foreign Military Assistance Act Report To Congress, Fiscal Year 1996 (Washington: September 1997).

United States, Department of Defense, Defense Security Assistance Agency, Defense Articles (Including Excess) and Services (Including Training) Furnished Foreign Countries and International Organizations Under the Foreign Military Sales Provisions of The Arms Export Control Act, Chapter 2 (Washington: August 1998).

United States, Department of Defense, Defense Security Cooperation Agency, Defense Articles (Including Excess) and Services (Including Training) Furnished Foreign Countries and International Organizations Under the Foreign Military Sales Provisions of The Arms Export Control Act, Chapter 2 (Washington: July 1999).

United States, Department of State, Department of Defense, U.S. Arms Exports: Direct Commercial Sales Authorizations for Fiscal Year 97 (Washington: August 1998): 1.

United States, Department of State, U.S. Arms Exports: Direct Commercial Sales Authorizations for Fiscal Year 98 (Washington: July 1999): 25-6.