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Dominicans strike for national economic reform, 2003-2004

Summary

In November 2003 and January 2004, Dominican labor, leftist parties, and the Catholic Church ran two 48-hour general strikes against President Hipólito Mejía’s austerity policies and the IMF loan agreement, achieving an estimated 90-97% participation nationwide. [source: nv-database] The campaign extracted no policy concessions; Mejía did not resign, and a planned third strike for March 2004 never occurred. The source scores the campaign 0 of 6 on achieving its stated demands, noting that the strong participation was the largest anti-government mobilization of the period but did not translate into structural change. [source: nv-database]

Tactics used

Tactics used

Background

During the 2003-2004 Dominican economic crisis the peso lost half its value; in response, the Mejía government entered a loan agreement with the IMF. [source: nv-database] Privatization of health care, education, electricity, telephones, and water removed the state’s role in social welfare; in April 2003, Mejía disregarded the law to bail out the second largest commercial bank, Baninter, with two-thirds of the government’s annual budget and 15% of GDP. To compensate, the government cut budgets and raised prices across the board. [source: nv-database]

What happened

Ramon Almanzar of the New Alternative Party and Ramon Pérez Figuereo of the National Center of Unified Transport Workers (CNTU) organized a march in Santo Domingo on July 1, 2003. Police stopped it with tear gas and arrested 40 demonstrators; Mejía sent thousands of police and soldiers to raid the homes of activists, students, and working-class Dominicans in search of illegal weapons, arresting hundreds. [source: nv-database]

A separate group of organizers called a labor strike that began August 20, 2003, in San Francisco de Macoris. Protesters blocked streets with burning tires and set fire to eight vehicles. An unmarked car opened fire on protesters; police fired rubber-coated bullets and tear gas, killing one protester, wounding two, and arresting twelve. [source: nv-database]

The first general strike, on November 11, 2003, lasted 24 hours. Demonstrators set up barricades of burning debris and marched through the streets; organizers claimed that 95-97% of the country participated and that every city shut down. Police killed six protesters, wounded 100, and arrested several hundred, including Almanzar. [source: nv-database]

Almanzar and Pérez organized a second 48-hour general strike in late January 2004. The demands expanded to include reducing the cost of the family market basket, reducing fuel prices, stopping the blackouts, 100% wage increases, reducing transport fares and charges, renationalization of privatized energy enterprises, ending agreements with the IMF, ending the increase of foreign debt, ending the free-trade agreement with the United States, and — newly — the resignation of President Mejía. The strike was supported by labor unions, leftist parties, and the Catholic Church; additional organizers included the Coordinadora de Unidad y Lucha, the Colectivo de Organizaciones Populares, and the Frente Amplio de Lucha Popular (Falpo). [source: nv-database]

The strike began at 6 a.m. on January 28, 2004, with about 90% participation; hospitals, clinics, shops, and passenger and freight transportation halted. Dominicans threw their furniture — beds, refrigerators, televisions — into the streets to add to the barricades. The Army, Air Force, Navy, and police, sometimes with painted faces, patrolled the cities by foot and in buses with machine guns. Strikers prepared self-defense based on prior experience with police response; some held off police and soldiers with rocks and homemade bombs. Police shot and killed seven strikers, wounded over 100, and arrested 600, including strike and leftist-party leaders. One policeman died of gunshot wounds. [source: nv-database]

The strike, known as the “48-hour strike,” ended on January 29, 2004. The government did not change any of its policies. A planned third 48-hour strike for March 16-17, 2004 did not occur. Mejía lost the May 2004 election to Leonel Fernández. [source: nv-database]

Key people & organizations

  • President Hipólito Mejía — the target of the resignation demand
  • Ramon Almanzar — President of the New Alternative Party, co-organizer
  • Ramon Pérez Figuereo — General Secretary of the CNTU, co-organizer
  • Coordinadora de Unidad y Lucha, Colectivo de Organizaciones Populares, Falpo — additional strike organizers
  • The Catholic Church — supported the demand for Mejía’s resignation
  • Labor unions across transport, public, and informal sectors

Outcome

Verdict: lost.

The source scores demand achievement at 0 of 6: the government changed no policies. [source: nv-database] Mejía did not resign; rather, he lost the May 2004 election to Leonel Fernández. The campaign is noted for its extraordinary participation rate (90-97%) and its cost in lives (at least 14 dead, hundreds wounded), but those numbers did not translate into immediate policy reversal.

Lessons

  • A general strike can shut down a country’s economy and still fail to shift policy if the regime has external backing (here, the IMF) that allows it to absorb the disruption.
  • A multi-day, escalating pattern (24-hour, then 48-hour) signals seriousness without immediately exhausting the workforce; here, the planned third strike was simply impossible to organize after the second’s casualties.
  • A resignation demand dramatically raises the cost of continued repression; here, it triggered the deployment of combined armed forces and large-scale arrests but did not change policy.

Sources

Disclaimer: Included as a teaching example of campaign craft, not as endorsement.

Sources & verification

  • nv-database — grounding: primary — license: link-only / all-rights-reserved (ND-style; content paraphrased, not quoted)
  • Verified: 2026-07-04 by human

Last verified: 2026-07-09