This is a letter I wrote to the NDI regarding DeChevalier's report on DR in the Miami Herald:
"To Mr. Geraldo Le Chevalier:
Your recent report on the Dominican Republic's political and economic situation, although accurate, is an understatement. As things are developing, we are living in a police-military siege, where civil and constitutional rights have expired and mob law directed by the government of Hipolito Mejia is now a reality.
Just today, several civic leaders belonging to groups sponsoring a peaceful strike this Wednesday were arrested without cause by intelligence military groups. The civic leaders were awakened and terrorized early morning.
The government is exarcebating the Supreme Court by threatening to remove key judges, including the supreme court chief justice, Jorge Subero Isa, to implant political hacks as substitutes and pass laws favoring Mejia's reelection campaign and other issues.
We are very close to a dictatorship. Never in the last 40 years has Dominican Republic been in a chaos like this. The government has implanted anarchy at all levels to disrupt normality to be able to fish in trouble waters. The first victim of this plan is the May 16, 2004 elections. Hipolito Mejia does not want free elections. He fears his days are counted as elected president. His palace ring of mostly corrupted officials, some of whom have lost their U.S. visas due to suspected criminality, are desperate and will do anything to stay in power. Mejia has tried to corrupt the military and has succeeded in dividing the army in two camps. This is extremely dangerous, since former army generals have warned they will not sit still if pro-Mejia generals try to use power to force an uncosntitutional government.
Illegal wiretapping is widely used by intelligence government agencies like the DNI to spy on almost everyone, including Mejia's own vice-president Milagros Ortiz Bosch, who is herself against his attempts to reelect himself.
Almost 50% of his own party members are against Mejia's plans, including his own party's president Hatuey De Camps, who has called Mejia a "liar and a cheat". His own secretary of tourism Fello Subervi, and a former PRD party president have joined forces against Mejia.
If something is not done by the international community to reinforce fairness in the next presidential elections, a major fraud is in the making. This election must be the most watched election in history, perhaps in Latin America, due to the sensitivity of the situation and the possible precedent it could set.
Should Mejia and his mafia style palace group succeed in thei attempts to violate the constitution and commit the fraud we are all expecting, other repressive governments in Latin America and potential anti-democratic forces will begin a revival of the old days of dictatorial rule in our hemisphere."
Golo
"To Mr. Geraldo Le Chevalier:
Your recent report on the Dominican Republic's political and economic situation, although accurate, is an understatement. As things are developing, we are living in a police-military siege, where civil and constitutional rights have expired and mob law directed by the government of Hipolito Mejia is now a reality.
Just today, several civic leaders belonging to groups sponsoring a peaceful strike this Wednesday were arrested without cause by intelligence military groups. The civic leaders were awakened and terrorized early morning.
The government is exarcebating the Supreme Court by threatening to remove key judges, including the supreme court chief justice, Jorge Subero Isa, to implant political hacks as substitutes and pass laws favoring Mejia's reelection campaign and other issues.
We are very close to a dictatorship. Never in the last 40 years has Dominican Republic been in a chaos like this. The government has implanted anarchy at all levels to disrupt normality to be able to fish in trouble waters. The first victim of this plan is the May 16, 2004 elections. Hipolito Mejia does not want free elections. He fears his days are counted as elected president. His palace ring of mostly corrupted officials, some of whom have lost their U.S. visas due to suspected criminality, are desperate and will do anything to stay in power. Mejia has tried to corrupt the military and has succeeded in dividing the army in two camps. This is extremely dangerous, since former army generals have warned they will not sit still if pro-Mejia generals try to use power to force an uncosntitutional government.
Illegal wiretapping is widely used by intelligence government agencies like the DNI to spy on almost everyone, including Mejia's own vice-president Milagros Ortiz Bosch, who is herself against his attempts to reelect himself.
Almost 50% of his own party members are against Mejia's plans, including his own party's president Hatuey De Camps, who has called Mejia a "liar and a cheat". His own secretary of tourism Fello Subervi, and a former PRD party president have joined forces against Mejia.
If something is not done by the international community to reinforce fairness in the next presidential elections, a major fraud is in the making. This election must be the most watched election in history, perhaps in Latin America, due to the sensitivity of the situation and the possible precedent it could set.
Should Mejia and his mafia style palace group succeed in thei attempts to violate the constitution and commit the fraud we are all expecting, other repressive governments in Latin America and potential anti-democratic forces will begin a revival of the old days of dictatorial rule in our hemisphere."
Golo