Juan Dolio is a totally different kettle of fish to Sosua. It was a thriving seaside tourist resort with 8 active and large all inclusive hotels. The powers that be decided to knock the hotels down apart from 4 ( one of which is closed and one now only Dominican) and replace them with high rise apartment buildings on the beach. This resulted in no tourists and the majority of the apartments have been bought by rich dominicans from the capital, who come at the most for one weekend in four. When they do come they do not go out, hence over half of the shops and bars and restaurants have closed.
The population of the area is also totally different. There are around 80% if not more Haitian. They came for the construction boom, and mostly live in the woods off the main boulevard known as Villas del Mar, the eastern end of town. They live in extremely poor conditions, shacks with no running water, no bathrooms, cooking outside. As the construction has slowed or stopped, the vast majority are out of work, but have no left. In fact the numbers increased post the earthquake.
There are few dominicans, and ever fewer ex patriates. The ex pats are mostly Italian and German, with very few Americans, Canadians and even fewer British. Many have left over recent years, especially those whose livelihood depended on tourism.
There is a large gated community on the main highway opposite Juan Dolio, which is populated by many ex pats and richer Dominicans - many of whom again use their villas as a holiday home.
The police are very active in Juan Dolio - there is a quasi curfew at night, when any Dominicans or Haitians on the street are arrested - for nothing.
There have been violent episodes on and off over the past 5 years. An Italian bar owner was murdered in old Juan Dolio - this looked like a revenge killing, as they held up his bar with sub machine guns the week before, and he was shot in both knees, the stomach and then straight betweeen the eyes. After that I was shot in an attempted burglary - I just got in the way, and then another Italian was beaten to death. The latter was the same man who shot me, again the motive was robbery.
We then had a relatively calm period, followed, as I said earlier by a spate of armed robberies, where there was little violence involved as long as the victims complied with the robbers requests.
Juan Dolio is an easier place to commit crime, as it is right on a very fast autopista, making for an easy getaway to San Pedro or to Boca Chica or the capital.
As to why things do not get reported. That is easy. The developers in Juan Dolio do not want people to know bad news - it is bad for business. They are very large and very powerful, hence nothing gets in the national press, especially involving an ex pat. For example, they refused to publish anything about me when I was shot.
There are several on line local papers who report everything, it does sometimes mysteriously disappear though!
In this latest case an external group are carrying out an investigation, so it may be solved.
Matilda
