Dominican vice pres. breaking new ground

Dominican vice pres. breaking new ground

"The development of human resources is most important, in particular in a country not rich in natural resources," said Milagros Ortiz Bosch, vice president of the Dominican Republic, who visited the University of Massachusetts-Boston last week to sign an exchange agreement between the University and the Universidad Autonamia de Santo Domingo.

Bosch, who also serves as minister of education, spent three days in Boston last week meeting with educational officials and activists in the city's Dominican community. The visit was her first since she was elected vice president in May 2000 for a four-year term.

She is the first female vice president and an accomplished lawyer, writer, and past leader on the senate floor in the Dominican Republic.

Bosch's focus on education and human resources is a hallmark of her political career, which began in the early '60s.

Over the decades, Bosch has used a combination of grit and coalition building to break traditional gender barriers in the Dominican Republic. From her senate position, she has written and sponsored legislation in favor of education, health, and women's issues.

Her rise to power represents a significant change in the country, according to Andres Paniagua, an academic with UMass-Boston's office of Graduate Studies and Research.

"It's very significant," he said. "Politics in the Dominican Republic has been dominated by men. She's the first woman vice president. She's been elected to the senate two times. And in order to become vice president, she's had to beat hundreds of men."

At UMass, Bosch attributed her rise to power to external forces.

"My being the first Dominican woman vice president is a result of global and local changes in the status of women, of progress on many levels," she said. "President [Hipolito] Mejia won with a majority of the female vote."

In her Boston appearance, Bosch spoke about the aims of the Mejia government, including redistribution of wealth and pensions and health care for the poor.

Bosch told a gathering of activists at the Revolutionary Dominican Party's Boston headquarters in Jamaica Plain that the reforms of the government will not bring about immediate change.

"If the government fails, everybody fails, so we have to be patient," she said.

PRD supporters say the government has enough popular support to push through its goals for social change.

"They will have opposition, especially from the extreme right," said Paniagua. "But they can defend themselves. They have a constituency to support their changes."

Paniagua said the PRD has formed a broad-based coalition of different sectors of Dominican society.

"Farmers, workers, students, women, professionals, teachers," he said. "It's a pluralistic party."

The reforms advocated by the government are moderate socialist, according to Paniagua, and would place the country on a political scale somewhere between the democratic socialism of Switzerland, and the communism of Cuba.

While Bosch talked politics with the party faithful, at UMass, she focused almost exclusively on education.

According to Bosch, the development of a partnership with the university began when UMass-Boston was invited to the 2000 Presidential inauguration in the Dominican Republic with this collaboration in mind.

Among the initiatives to be implemented by the exchange program are: the development of special, exchange programs between both institutions; technical cooperation in the fields of information technology and distance learning; exchange of research in the social, scientific, and pedagogical areas; and projects of socio-cultural understanding and enrichment.

"We need help in technology...The new education in communications is really changing the world...Democracy is education. It breaks down the last barriers in the world," said Bosch.

Photo (Milagros Ortiz Bosch)