30 order to make the Government meditate on the economic plan it was about to implement, which would greatly hurt the population. In the morning of December 4, 1990, the leaders spread themselves among the different work sites in order to invite the workers to take part in the march, which started at 16:30 hours at the del Carmen church to proceed down Vía España to May 5th square, where a rally was going to take place. The march progressed peacefully, without any problems, and was accompanied by an escort of “traffic detail members of the National Police.” There were no proposals during this demonstration relative to the form of government. The Co-ordinating Organisation of State Enterprise Workers Unions did not have any knowledge of the takeover of the fort led by colonel Herrera-Hassán before the start of the march. At the end of the march they held a rally that ended more or less at 7 in the evening. At the end of the rally the leaders held a meeting to evaluate the results of the march. After 10 in the evening of that same day, they heard on the radio that colonel Eduardo Herrera-Hassán had escaped, and that several Government officials were trying to associate his escape with the workers’ march. Such association that was made between the labour union movement and the uprising of colonel Herrera-Hassán was a determining factor for the decision to suspend the work stoppage scheduled for December 5, 1990; such decision would be made at 7 in the morning of the 5th day, depending on how the events would unfold. It was then that an agreement was reached to suspend the work stoppage. Because of the distance to the work sites, the suspension of the stoppage was delayed until about noon. He did not know colonel Herrera-Hassán personally. No State worker was judicially attached to the penal proceedings initiated against said colonel for the alleged attempted coup d’état. No member of the Co-ordinating Organisation of State Enterprise Workers Unions met with colonel Herrera-Hassán. At no moment during the December 5, 1990, work stoppage were the essential public services affected, since the workers were at their work sites. They did not advise the Ministry of Labour and Social Well Being about the stoppage eight days in advance, because the movement was not a strike; when a strike is planned, all arrangements are made in compliance with the requirements of said Ministry. Concerning the measures taken by the State vis-à-vis the workers who took part in or encouraged the work stoppage, as of December 10, 1990, at the time when a draft bill was presented to the Legislative Assembly, the management of the enterprises started to send them dismissal notices terminating the employeremployee relationship, pursuant to instructions from the President of the Republic. In said notices it was mentioned that the work stoppage had been associated with the attempted coup led by colonel Herrera-Hassán. Law 25 was applied to the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Public Works, the IRHE, the INTEL, the IDAAN, the Port Authority, the State Bayano Cement Enterprise, the Ministry of Education, the INRENARE, and the Social Security Administration, among others. The immediate heads of the workers determined who had backed the stoppage, and based on this they prepared their lists and delivered them to the heads of human resources, who decided whom they were to dismiss. Not all persons from the IRHE who took part in the work stoppage were dismissed; while more than 2,000 IRHE workers participated in it, only 137 of them were dismissed; it was a selective dismissal. Before the entering into force of Law 25, approximately 185 workers, out of 270 alleged victims, were dismissed pursuant to it, while the rest were dismissed later. This is proven by the dates on the dismissal notices. In order to justify the dismissals of the day before the entering into force of Law 25, the workers were advised in writing that by order of the President, the appointments of all workers who had taken part in the work stoppage of December 5 were declared non subsistent; in a separate paragraph it was stated that the march of the 4th and the stoppage of the 5th were related to the attempted coup of colonel Eduardo Herrera-