Sosua to Be Cut into 10-acre Tracts, Cooperative Plantations for Refugees, Rosen Reveal

The 26,000-acre Sosua tract donated by Generalissimo Rafael Trujillo for refugee settlement in the Dominican Republic will be divided up into 10-acre plots and cooperative plantations, it was revealed today by Dr. Joseph Rosen, vice-president of the Dominican Republic Settlement Association.

Dr. Rosen, who recently returned from an extended stay in the Dominican Republic to prepare the way for the project which is scheduled to get under way next month, spoke at a press luncheon under the auspices of the American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corporation (Agro-Joint).

Dr. Rosen expressed the conviction that the Dominican project had the best possibilities of success of any of the colonization schemes examined in recent years. He said it was the only one where settlement was actually getting under way, negotiations with the governments of Costa Rica, Bolivia, British Guiana, Philippine Islands, Mexico, Bolivia and Chile being held up for political and other reasons.

The Dominican project will get under way next month with an initial settlement of 250 to 300 individuals aged 25 to 30 who are now being selected in European countries. Success of the entire project will depend upon the experience with this first group, Dr. Rosen said, during a trial period of three or four months. If the experiment proves successful, the remainder of the 500 families and several hundred individuals will be settled.

Each refugee family will be given a ten-acre tract of land together with a house and garden. The remainder of the Sosua tract will be divided up into plantations which will be operated on a cooperative basis and which will raise bananas and other sub-tropical products.

Dr. Rosen said that $500,000 was available to finance settlement of the 500 families at a per-family cost of $1,000.

Among advantages of the project cited by Dr. Rosen were the fact that it was not necessary to invest money in immovable property, such as buildings, since the Sosua tract was already equipped with sufficient accommodations for 250 people. Dr. Rosen said that the largest building in Sosua was formerly Generalissimo Trujillo’s haciendo, which he had purchased and developed at a personal expenditure of $100,000 and which he had turned over to the settlement association together with other buildings without charge.

Other advantages listed by Dr. Rosen were: the eagerness of the native population to have the refugees; the progressiveness of the Dominican Government, which was genuinely interested in advancing the interests of the population; the quality of the soil; the fact that a good deal of the land was already cleared and the opportunities for a group, community life from the very beginning.

Dr. Rosen emphasized that one of the doubtful quantities of the project, which would be cleared up during the trial period, was the ability of Europeans to work on the land under the sub-tropical climate, which was featured by a narrow range of temperatures and high humidity during the rainy season.

He also stressed the fact that the colonists would be required to do at least 75 per cent of the work themselves since the sponsors of the project did not want them to become merely landowners with Dominicans as peons.

Dr. Rosen also disclosed that plans were being discussed which looked toward the possibility of establishing a refugee-training camp in the Dominican Republic, which would act as a temporary outlet for refugees now accommodated in training camps in European countries.

Alexander Kahn, vice-chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee, presided at the luncheon.