Speech delivered by Ex-president, Dr. Leonel Fernández at Seton Hall University.

Monsignor Robert Sheeran, President of Seton Hall University;

Dr. Mel J. Shay, Provost of Seton Hall;

Dr. Frank J. Morales, Executive Director of Special Academic Programs;

Distinguished Authorities;

Faculty Members;

Students;

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Some years ago, in the mid eighties, I had the opportunity of visiting Seton Hall University. At that time, I was part of a group of Dominican university professors who came to share their views and experiences with U.S. scholars on a set of important issues regarding our nations.

As I recall, Seton Hall was then a joyful place, bursting with eagerness for learning as much as with passion for basketball.

Later on, when I was lucky enough to catch the Seton Hall basketball team on T.V., I would always remember my visit here and say to myself, sometimes biting my nails: “Come on, boys, let’s beat them.”.

Today, I am honored and privileged to receive an Honorary  Doctoral Degree in Human Letters  form a higher learning institution as prestigious as Seton Hall for what has been considered as accomplishments of my administration in strengthening democracy and positioning the Dominican Republic in international affairs.

I would like to thank all those that have made this precious moment possible, especially to the members of the Dominican Institute at Seton Hall, who submitted the petition for approval to the University’s authorities; to Dr. Frank J. Morales and Monsignor Robert Sheeran for all their interest and support.

I would also like to thank Dr. Franklyn Holguin Haché, who embraced this project with enthusiasm and warmth, as well as to the Rectors of the Dominican Universities: Monsignor Agripino Nuñez Collado,  Rafael Toribio and Mariano Defilló, who are accompanying us today.

Also, I would like to express my gratitude to Jacqueline Malagón, for all her efforts, and to all the members of the Dominican Week team.

Once again, thanks to all of you.

Regarding the situation of the Dominican Republic in the new international system, there are certain ideas I would like to share with you today.

First of all, that the whole world has been going through an accelerated process of transformation in which the expansion of democracy, trade liberalization and global communications have played a key role.

We are now living within a new international context that has substituted the old ideological rivalries between the superpowers during the Cold War for an interdependent, globalized world order.

This emerging new world order creates opportunities, but also poses many risks and uncertainties for all nations, especially to those living under precarious conditions, such as the Dominican Republic.

Globalization, with all its technical and scientific revolution, creates a new interwoven network of nations that interact closely in the areas of economic production, distribution and consumption of goods and services, by way of a more intensified international transfer of capital, technology and people.

With all the profound changes that have taken place in the last decade, the world has really shrunk, becoming a borderless global village.

But as a consequence of globalization the gap between the rich and the poor has widened. Social inequality has deepened. Wealth is being concentrated ever more in fewer hands. Millions of people live with less than a dollar a day. Deadly diseases are spreading everywhere and there seems to be no valid prescription for alleviating world hunger.

Ambivalence appears as the dominant characteristic of this period of history in which the greatest fortunes ever accumulated by mankind coexist with the greatest poverty ever endured.

Without knowing that he would portray a precise image of the times we are living in, Charles Dickens wrote in his classic novel,  A Tale of Two Cities,  these masterful words:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us…”

What does this all mean for the Dominican Republic, a small Caribbean country who shares with Haiti, the poorest country of the Western Hemisphere, the island of Hispaniola?

It means an inevitable challenge. A challenge for survival of its people, of  its culture and of its identity; and a challenge for progress and prosperity.

With the emerging new world order, that operates more on the basis of trade and investments than on the principles of traditional geopolitics, the Dominican Republic has embraced the opportunity  to break away from its old insular vision and international isolationism and become more outward looking.

As I took office in 1996, I found that the Dominican Republic could not only become more integrated with its regional neighbors, but also play a leadership role in the area due to its unquestionable democratic credentials and its economic potential

We signed a free trade agreement with the members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and with the Central American countries, and proposed a strategic alliance between the two sub-regions in order to create a market of 60 million people and a unified political body in all world forums.

To highlight the importance of the Caribbean and Central America as a whole, I must say that it sustains a trade volume of 60 billion dollars per year with the United States, which is larger than the U.S. trade, for example, with France, Germany or Brazil.

For the Dominican Republic, regional integration means expanding its export market, and as a consequence, creating new job opportunities. But it also represents a  valuable preliminary experience in dealing with international markets prior to a wider integration with more sophisticated markets on a global scale.

The trade liberalization process will continue in the Western Hemisphere with the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) initiative, that was originally launched at the Miami Summit of 1994 and which envisages an area of free trade for all of Latin America, the United States and Canada by the year 2005.

The Dominican Republic must prepare itself to meet this new endeavor with an attitude of openmindedness, acknowledging that this is an inevitable trend that has been put to work since the end of World War II, is gaining strength and is heading towards the full integration of the whole world under the guidance of the WTO.

However, what the industrialized nations should take into consideration when dealing with these matters is that there is a growing gap with the under-developed countries that urgently needs to be addressed. One way to approach this is, as the European countries did with the less developed areas of the continent in the process of creating the European Union, by granting provisional concessions and increasing the cooperation and investments in these deprived areas.

I am not suggesting that the industrialized countries carry the burden of the historical structural inadequacies and deficiencies of the underdeveloped countries. But I am making the case they should neither increase their hardships by not taking into consideration the unequal starting points for a trade relationship between these two different levels of economic development.

By ignoring this fact the developed countries would contribute to the destruction of the poorer countries’ production capacity, entailing the somber consequences of unemployment, social unrest and political upheaval.

On the other hand, by helping uplift the fragile conditions of the underdeveloped economies, the industrialized nations are contributing to create stronger markets, from which they benefit as it increases their exports.

To many observers of the world scene, the end of the Cold War and the emergence of a new world order which emphasizes business and markets over any other consideration, has meant a loss of interest from the world powers towards Third World nations.

This apparent lack of interest, which is expressed through a policy of benign neglect, is a result of the fact, according to this line of reasoning, that there is no threat coming any longer from a collapsed communist world, and for that reason, holds no preoccupation or concern of the developed world.

To support this viewpoint, the decrease in aid programs, the revision of quotas or limitations to unilateral access to markets are signaled out as some of the most remarkable features of this neglect or lack of interest towards the poor areas of the world.

Even though these facts are undisputable, it should be fair to say that a new agenda, that includes economic, social, political, environmental, technological and security issues is bringing the world to a closer tie.

To take advantage of the opportunities the emerging new world order may bring, a country like the Dominican Republic must develop a strategic vision, which means making an assessment of its actual resources and determining where it wants to become more competitive in the short, medium and long term.

During many years of its history, the Dominican Republic depended basically on agriculture, and it was a major producer and exporter of sugar, coffee, tobacco and cocoa.

As the prices of some of these commodities began to fall on the world markets, the country started to make a shift during the seventies and eighties towards a more service oriented economy, basically in the areas of tourism and free trade zones.

Thanks to these new and vigorous economic sectors, as well as to the ever growing remittances from Dominicans living abroad and the flourishing of the financial, commerce and telecommunications sectors, the Dominican Republic has prospered during the last decade as never before.

But our economic model has depended, fundamentally, on a labor intensive, low-wage system that will undoubtedly become obsolete in the upcoming years, due to the fact that world centers of production are operating more on a model of knowledge-based economy.

For the Dominican Republic, the challenge of the next decade will be to make a new paradigm shift from the labor intensive, low wage model that has prevailed during the last two decades, to a knowledge based economy with highly skilled labor, connected to the world markets.

This does not mean I disapprove of what has been done in the past or is being done today. What I am trying to do is establish a path for the future, more in accordance with world trends, and consequently, more propitious for growth and prosperity.

The information technology is the backbone of this new knowledge based economy, and it brings the opportunity, for the first time in human history, to allow a country, such as the Dominican Republic, to skip stages of development and leapfrog into the modern world.

In order to educate the human resources needed for this new information age, during my administration we introduced computer labs connected to the internet in public high schools.

We built the Technological Institute of the Americas with the purpose of training the young labor force that will be employed in the new high-tech industry and we created the Santo Domingo Cyberpark, which is intended to attract investments in the same field.

The Dominican community living in the United States can play a significant role in the future of all these projects.

During my previous trips to the U.S., I have met many young Dominican professionals trained in the areas of hardware and software engineering, business administration, management and marketing who have expressed a strong desire to apply their knowledge to what they jokingly labeled “the Santo Domingo Silicon Alley”.

Institutions like Seton Hall and other colleges and universities in the U.S. have also been making important contributions to the fulfillment of this project with the educational opportunities being offered to young Dominicans, as well as through the exchange programs with Dominican institutions of its kind.

It is my firm belief that only through education, we as a nation, and I am speaking for those who live in the island as well as for those who live here, can make the changes needed to transform the Dominican Republic into a modern society, filled with hope, opportunity and social justice for all.

In the sphere of  U.S.- Dominican Republic bilateral relations, there is also a new post-Cold War agenda, with a set of issues that are of mutual interest.

The United States and the Dominican Republic share the same goals and ideas related to the protection of freedom, human rights and democracy.

We both believe in a fair political system of checks and balances, a strong judiciary and freedom of the press.

We deplore and struggle with the same determination against drug trafficking, money laundering and against all forms of transnational crime.

We cherish dearly world peace, and we think tolerance and understanding are the premises under which we can construct the possibility of living together on this planet.

We know that the Dominican Republic is not a priority on the U.S. international affairs agenda, and we do not intend it to be otherwise.

The Dominican Republic is not a military power. It is not a world class economic power. It does not have the means or resources to alter world affairs. And it is not in a  critical situation.

The Dominican Republic is only a small country. But a small country proud of its history, its culture and its identity.

It is a country of highly prestigious intellectual figures, of novelists, poets, short story writers, of painters and musicians, and of course, of  baseball players.

Some say that our baseball players are our main exports to the U.S. Maybe so. But it is interesting to observe that even baseball needs international exchange for its development, which is another way to say that we are living in the era of globalized baseball.

No one can live in isolation. Neither can individuals nor nations. For many years the Dominican Republic lived in relative isolation from the rest of the world, which made us almost unknown.

Beginning a new century and a new millennium, the Dominican Republic faces the challenge of reducing poverty, creating job opportunities and modernizing.

Having led the nation for four years, I know of its strong dynamism, will and vitality, and therefore, have a reason to feel optimistic about the outcome of its daily struggles, tensions and anxieties.

I just hope that when we reach our national goals, we can say for the Dominican Republic what Bishop James Roosevelt Bailey, the founder of Seton Hall, wished for this institutions to be: “a home for the mind, the heart and the spirit.”

Thank you.