Five days after taking office, Dominican President Leonel Fernandez Friday ordered the retirement of 97 of 230 military generals, including military branch chiefs and many who were in open confrontation with the new president. Former Armed Forces Minister Jose Miguel Soto Jimenez; Army Chief Radhames Zorrilla Ozuna; Navy Chief Euripides Uribe Peguero; Air Force Chief Virgilio Sierra Perez and the head of the National Emergencies Commission Radhames Lora Salcedo were all ordered into retirement. It was the largest downsizing of the rank of general in recent Dominican Republic history and contrasted drastically with Fernandez's predecessor Hipolito Mejia, who promoted 167 officers to general during his 2000-2004 administration. Many of the generals ordered to retire openly supported Mejia in his re-election campaign. One of them, former Navy Commander Sierra Perez, once had a bronze statute made of Mejia astride Pegasus. Military expert Daniel Pou, at FLACSO university, had harsh words for the Mejia administration, which also promoted hundreds of soldiers making them officers. "In the history of the armed forces, no government administration so degraded the military corps as the Mejia government did," he said, explaining that the mass promotions undermined quality control. --SP 2328 Local Time 2028 GMT
