President Leonel Fernandez has appointed Roberto Rodriguez Marchena as the official government spokesman. Rodriguez explained that his post was created to make the flow of information to the Dominican press more expeditious. President Fernandez has been rarely available for comments to the local press, contrasting with the constant accessibility of his predecessor, President Hipolito Mejia. Rodriguez promised that any information not instantly available when requested by the press would be sought out by his office and forwarded.
Vehicles parked on city sidewalks will be towed away by the Metropolitan Transport Authority (AMET) and their owners forced to pay between RD$800 and RD$4,500 for the service, in addition to fines of RD$500 to RD$1,000. To effect this plan, the AMET will have 30 tow trucks at its disposal, as agreed to by AMET and Santo Domingo's city government. Likewise, motorcycles parked on sidewalks will also be removed and subject to the same penalties. The measure also applies to the sidewalks of the Juan Pablo Duarte Olympic Center.
Taxes collected by the government were up 14% in August, according to preliminary figures from the Finance Ministry. The official report says that as of 27 August, the government had received RD$9.22 billion, representing 14% more than what had been budgeted for the month. The total does not include government collections for the exchange surcharge or foreign currency receipts.
Foreign Relations Minister Carlos Morales Troncoso announced the opening of an Indian Embassy in Santo Domingo and a counterpart Dominican Embassy in New Delhi, India. He made the announcement on occasion of the visit of his Indian colleague, Rao Inderjit Singh. The foreign minister explained that the government of India is interested in manufacturing products here for export to the US under the preferential terms of the free trade agreement the country has signed with the US. The ministers are working on bilateral accords, such as a technological cooperation agreement whereby Dominican students would receive scholarships for study in India. Another area for discussion is pharmaceuticals. Formal relations were established in 1999 between the DR and India, where the country is represented by the Cuban ambassador.
The US has taken the position that if the Dominican Senate keeps the 25% tax on corn syrup imported from the US added in the Chamber of Deputies to the tax reform proposal currently being debated, they will discard the bilateral free trade accord with the Dominican Republic. The additional tax was requested by the DR's two leading sugar producers, who at present hold a monopoly on sugar imports in the country and argue that new imports will cause detriment to the local sugar industry. Peter F Allgeier, US Deputy Trade Representative, wrote to the Dominican Ambassador in the US, Hugo Guiliani Cury, to indicate that such a tax would be discriminatory to US sweet producers and contrary to the agreements signed with the World Trade Organization and the reciprocal spirit of the trade act signed on 5 August 2004. Corn syrup imports would be attractive to soft-drink bottlers, given its lower cost compared to cane sugar sweeteners.
The Supreme Court of Justice ordered that the Listin Diario be returned to its former proprietors prior to the government intervention. Ramon Baez Romano called the decision a "transcendental act for the history of freedom of the press and business in the Dominican Republic." Following the change of government, the Central Bank, which took control of the Listin Diario as one of the assets seized following the collapse of the Baninter financial group, appointed Osvaldo Santana, who in the past has overseen several newspapers of the former Baninter media group, as executive editor of the newspaper. As reported in the Listin Diario, Ramon Baez Romana confirmed the possibility of reopening Ultima Hora, the newsmagazine that was shut down on 6 June for financial problems. Baez Romana is the father of Ramon Baez Figueroa, whom the government accused of fraudulent operations at Baninter.
Lawyer Marino (Vincho) Vinicio Castillo, a former president of the National Council of Drugs (CND), and head of the legal counsel of banker Ramon Baez Figueroa of Baninter, said yesterday on the Cesar Medina and Yolanda Martinez television talk show that the lot on which former President Hipolito Mejia built his large mountain residence and farm nursery complex in Jarabacoa was the property of a drug trafficker who was to be extradited and now is a fugitive of justice. He said the farmland had been confiscated by the CND that was under his direction as of August 2000, when Mejia became President. Vinicio Castillo also denounced the fact that other farms held in the inventory of drug council properties had been confiscated in Villa Altagracia and presumably transferred.
Three foreign women inmates in Najayo are bitter about allegedly having paid a large sum of money to be pardoned by former Attorney General Victor Cespedes, whose office set an all time record in jail pardonings. The new director of prisons forwarded this testimony to District Attorney Jose Manuel Hernandez, together with that of several Dominicans who claimed they were also the victims of a fraudulent pardons scam. The new government is investigating the list of 500 individuals who were to be pardoned on 16 August, as well as those who were released on 27 February.
The group of 500 inmates, who expected to be released on 16 August – the last day of the Mejia administration – were ultimately not given their pardons. Then-President Mejia rescinded the exonerations, saying he did not want to add another scandal to his administration's legacy.
Former Attorney General Virgilio Bello Rosa is opposed to Dominican Revolutionary Party members defending officials of the past government against whom there is evidence of corruption. The lawyer, who resigned from his post over a disagreement with measures taken by the Mejia administration, said he would not defend these people even if it were former President Hipolito Mejia himself. As a former president of the PRD, Bello Rosa said that those who committed corruption would have to defend themselves.
He questioned the fact that former attorney general Victor Cespedes Martinez, Bello Rosa's successor, tried to defend himself from accusations against him using the name of former President Mejia. He said that no statesman could order a person to commit a crime.
Bello Rosa said that the only truth that Cespedes has uttered is that there will never be an attorney general like him.
Police chief Manuel de Jesus Perez Sanchez is in a difficult situation. His decision to give police officers 72 hours to return vehicles unlawfully in their possession seems to have opened a can of worms and provoked the ire of the citizenry. Of the 300 vehicles in question, some 60 have been returned. These are vehicles that were reported stolen, recovered by police, but never returned to their rightful owners. TV and radio commentary focus on whether any penalty will be levied on the officers who freely employed the vehicles for their own use. "What will happen to those officers?" questions Hoy newspaper.
Moreover, there is much debate going on over whether these vehicles, many of them SUVs and luxury model cars, were actually retrieved by police or whether they were stolen with the police acting as accomplices. On a TV show yesterday, lawyer Marino (Vincho) Vinicio Castillo speculated over the possibility. Furthermore, TV show host Milagros German dedicated a large segment of her program to highlight that if you want to rob in the Dominican Republic, make sure you do it big, and she satirized all the million-peso robberies that had taken place while justice turned a blind eye, while petty thefts are commonly penalized with five-year jail sentences.
In a contribution to Hoy newspaper, Rosario Espinal comments that 85% of those interviewed for the 2004 Latinobarometro poll believe that the Dominican Republic is governed for the benefit of a small group of powerful interests, demonstrating the generalized perception of widespread social inequality. She says many values, such as the notion of common good, sense of nation and purpose of the state, have been undermined and replaced by exclusion, abuse, injustice, arbitrariness, cynicism and lack of confidence.
At least four of the seven youths riddled with bullets in a house under construction in Navarrete, a town next to Santiago de los Caballeros, had been tortured before their executions. General Bernardo Santiago, the police investigator assigned to the case, says that so far the only certainty was that the crime committed was a multiple homicide. He said there is speculation over whether the group was collectively murdered regarding a dispute over a drug sales post.
Relatives of the youths, however, deny they were involved in drug trafficking and have requested an indepth investigation. They said the men worked transporting passengers on motorbike, selling fruit or in free zone industries.
El Caribe reported that police had identified the victims as Juan Ignacio Hernandez Rosario (El Quimico), 21, Vidal Dionisio Tavarez Jaquez (Vidalito), 28, Esmelvi Delgado Bisono (Mendy), 40, Andres Nunez Perez, 20, Juan Pablo Reyes Mezquita (Cha), 26, Pascual Rafael Mejia Paulino, 24, and Miguel Mercado Beato, 40. Some 68 bullets were found in the house.
Neighbors at the scene of the crime told El Caribe reporters that drug vendors operated 24 hours a day without any intervention from local authorities. The house is property of a woman who lives in New York. Residents also say they denounced the criminal activity to police, who in response merely intensified their collection of "tolls" to look the other way. Braulio Vargas, one of the few willing to speak openly said, "In Navarrete we have always said that drugs are taking over society, but that the government bodies that are suppose to act were not doing anything, but collecting 'tolls'," he said.
News reports indicate an increased volume of drugs trafficked from Haiti to the Dominican Republic, and that these traffickers are being paid with drugs for local sale.
Colonel Felix Bello, Navarrete's police chief, said he was aware of the rumors, but were limited to sending the report to the Department of Drug Control (DNCD).
Seems the DR will not get a direct hit by Hurricane Ivan as it makes it way westward. If the storm maintains its western course, it may not even be felt in most areas. As reported on the DR1 Weather & Beyond Forum, as of the 11am National Hurricane Center advisories, Ivan is currently to the south of a rather strong subtropical ridge, heritage of Hurricane Frances, which is steering the hurricane westward and impeding it from taking the WNW track that would bring it to bear down on the island of Hispaniola. Well out of the hurricane's path are Puerto Plata and Samana on the North Coast, as well as Punta Cana on the East Coast, as the prognosis predicted Hurricane Ivan's passage through Santo Domingo on the South Coast instead, some 275 miles away. This distance is far enough for it not to be felt. Weather forecasters say the closest Ivan would come to the DR is 150 miles south of Isla Beata in the southwest. Caribbean storms need to be closely monitored, however, as they are known to drastically change their course with scant warning. To follow the storm, see the Tropical Storm Ivan thread at the DR1 Weather & Beyond Forum at http://dr1.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=34
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