"Other Fair" - Organizer Arrested!

Robert

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Jan 2, 1999
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The guy organizing the "Other Fair" was arrested without bail.
The guy had the correct permits etc. No word yet why they arrested him.

http://www.clavedigital.com/Index.asp

I guess the Government are not happy about him organizing a fair in opposition to the one Leonal opened a couple of weeks ago, which was basically a propaganda fair singing the praises of the last 10 years of Leonel.

I have a feeling this will stir up a lot of problems!
Nice to see free speech is alive and kicking in the DR :)

---------------------------

From yesterday's news:

The Other Fair will take place at Parque Duarte this weekend, on Calle Padre Billini in the Colonial Zone. The event is a takeoff on the "10 Years of the Vision of President Leonel Fernandez" fair that was held earlier this month on the grounds of the Feria Ganadera. That event consisted of government department pavilions showcasing what the government perceived as achievements in the first two years of the current term and from President Leonel Fernandez' 1996-2000 government.
Guillermo Pena, one of the alternative fair organizers, said that the event is not a political one, and is held to present the reality the nation is experiencing. He said that during the Hipolito Mejia government, the same group organized the "Ya esta bueno ya" protest.
The activity aims to show the serious problems affecting the country, including government corruption and the lack of public services.
 

Rick Snyder

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Nov 19, 2003
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Thank you for that report Robert as I find it very interesting. I honestly don?t think LF had anything to do with this as it would be a way of committing political suicide when you fail to allow the opposition to conduct peaceful demonstrations. LF knows the length of Dominican memory and I?m therefore sure he saw this ?Feria? as no threat to his administration. As there was no mention of a DA being present during this show of force by the PN, which is a normal accepted procedure under the new penal code, I would think this decision was the brainchild of an idiot.

Very interesting in researching your link is this article. According to it the PN was acting under orders of the Monumental Patrimony when the arrest was made.

Monumental Patrimony which was known as Oficina de Patrimonio Cultural and whose job is to protect, to conserve and to consolidate all the monumental and immovable sets of historical interest of the country is headed by Cesar Ivan Feris Iglesias. As such he has stated, ?he would work in coordination with the schools of architecture at the Dominican universities to prepare plans to assist in the organizing of the cities?.

I would guess that the protection of the park will be the excuse given for the arrest but find that excuse so full of holes that I can?t visualize it holding any water. Only time will tell as to the outcome of this situation and request that you keep us abreast of what you hear.

Rick
 

Hillbilly

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Jan 1, 2002
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The article on the "Other Fair" in this week's CLAVE is really cool. The kids have their heads on straight and I only wish they were in power!!
A really impressive group.

HB
 

rellosk

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Mar 18, 2002
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Rick, thanks for summarizing the article for those, like myself, that are linguistically challenged.

It will be interesting to hear more about this.
 

Lambada

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The show goes on!

According to Clave http://www.clavedigital.com/Portada/Articulo.asp?Id_Articulo=8074 and Hoy http://www.hoy.com.do/app/article.aspx?id=86685 Galvan was released after three hours at 11 a.m. without charges. Looks like it took some left wing intervention to get him out..........(Despradel and Isa Conde)
http://elnacional.com.do/app/article.aspx?id=61897 According to El Caribe it is alleged the police were preventing entry to the park from Friday night http://www.elcaribecdn.com/articulo_multimedios.aspx?id=97177&guid=DDFA247588C44BEBB31147A3DC8BB74A&Seccion=63. El Nacional added the nice little touch about police carrying metal tubes on bikes with no registration ...........:ermm:
 

RHM

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Sep 23, 2002
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Thank you for that report Robert as I find it very interesting. I honestly don?t think LF had anything to do with this as it would be a way of committing political suicide when you fail to allow the opposition to conduct peaceful demonstrations. LF knows the length of Dominican memory and I?m therefore sure he saw this ?Feria? as no threat to his administration. As there was no mention of a DA being present during this show of force by the PN, which is a normal accepted procedure under the new penal code, I would think this decision was the brainchild of an idiot.

Very interesting in researching your link is this article. According to it the PN was acting under orders of the Monumental Patrimony when the arrest was made.

Monumental Patrimony which was known as Oficina de Patrimonio Cultural and whose job is to protect, to conserve and to consolidate all the monumental and immovable sets of historical interest of the country is headed by Cesar Ivan Feris Iglesias. As such he has stated, ?he would work in coordination with the schools of architecture at the Dominican universities to prepare plans to assist in the organizing of the cities?.

I would guess that the protection of the park will be the excuse given for the arrest but find that excuse so full of holes that I can?t visualize it holding any water. Only time will tell as to the outcome of this situation and request that you keep us abreast of what you hear.

Rick

I "luv ya like a brutha", Rick. But you are giving LF too much of a pass on this one.

Perhaps he had nothing to do with the arrest, but he also had to hear about it and would be an even bigger moron if he didn't intervene. Then he could actually look like a "free speech hero".

This whole thing stinks.

Scandall
 

Rick Snyder

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Nov 19, 2003
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Sorry Rellosk I too am linguistically challenged so don't take what I might say to the bank.

The article I cited just said that the Monumental Patrimony is who the PN said gave the orders and I just did some research on that entity and gave my opinions on why I think things happened as they did.

Rick
 

Rick Snyder

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Nov 19, 2003
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Scandall, Bro, I may have in fact given LF too much of a ?pass? but in all honestly in the couple of days that I?ve been around I have noticed how one person, not LF, will take the stupid position of supposed authority and us it. The end result will usually put the egg on the face of the other person and leave the idiot smelling like a rose or unseen.

I still believe LF had no idea that this arrest was going to happen and as it is a Saturday and as he is the president with a full schedule dictated far in advance and as we all know the inability or lack of desire for one element of the police to communicate with another, or any entity for that matter, then the feasibility of LF knowing what was happening even after it happened is a stretch of the imagination. He is not all knowing and all seeing as some would indicate. Once he did find out I am almost sure he didn?t say, ?Give me a microphone I want to make an announcement to the public in regards to this outlandish action?, but rather looked for his PR man, there we go with that communication problem again, for guidance as to how best to handle the situation.

It will be interesting to see how his PR does handle this situation and I guess time will tell.

Rick
 

bilijou

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Jun 13, 2006
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If there were no curfew and armed forces patrolling the streets, shutting "La Otra Feria" down wouldn't look as bad. But given the circumstances, nobody here can't deny the LF government is getting more and more authoritarian.
(He's just like the rest of them. Limiting freedom of speech might be a trick he learnt from his good old friend Balaguer.)

As to whether he actually knew about it or not, I doubt he gave the order.
However, I apparently had "La Otra Feria" all wrong. While I thought it would be of the unbiased informational nature, a few blogs (here and here) I read this morning revealed the political intentions behind it.

Look at the shirts of the organizers (Here and here).
"La patria no se vende, se defiende." and the other "anti yankis" shirts.

Knowing all these old generals who saw the most action against the communists during Balaguer's administration, they probably saw a red flag with what the organizers had on. Their first response as to their arrests was that it was an "antidemocratic" act. This was the term used back in the day.
 

Rick Snyder

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Nov 19, 2003
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Bilijou I want to thank you for those wonderful links as it is always nice to get the story from a different perspective.

After doing some limited research this morning as to the locations of the ferias yesterday and that held by the government it would seem as the one sponsored by the government was in fact in an area that is meant for such things. Not being familiar with SD it is possible that a special permit is required for Duarte Park and it's possible the necessary paperwork was not submitted.

As the Monumental Patrimony has the responsibility of the parks they may have in fact been doing the right thing in closing the feria down. Could have been like the KKK demonstrating in the US without the necessary permit and the state shutting it down.

If the feria was in fact illegal in that park and the PN gave the order to vacate and if the organizer disobeyed that lawful order then his arrest would in fact be proper.

It would be greatly appreciated is someone there in SD could get a true handle on this occurrence and let us know.

Rick
 

aegap

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Mar 19, 2005
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..looks like the protestor weren't really who they were portraying themself to be, ..some of those that attended didn't really like the fact they were deceived, once they found out who was really running the show (the "Other Fair")
 

rellosk

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Mar 18, 2002
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If there were no curfew and armed forces patrolling the streets, shutting "La Otra Feria" down wouldn't look as bad. But given the circumstances, nobody here can't deny the LF government is getting more and more authoritarian.
(He's just like the rest of them. Limiting freedom of speech might be a trick he learnt from his good old friend Balaguer.)

As to whether he actually knew about it or not, I doubt he gave the order.
However, I apparently had "La Otra Feria" all wrong. While I thought it would be of the unbiased informational nature, a few blogs (here and here) I read this morning revealed the political intentions behind it.

Look at the shirts of the organizers (Here and here).
"La patria no se vende, se defiende." and the other "anti yankis" shirts.

Knowing all these old generals who saw the most action against the communists during Balaguer's administration, they probably saw a red flag with what the organizers had on. Their first response as to their arrests was that it was an "antidemocratic" act. This was the term used back in the day.
Good post!

Thanks for the links, especially the one to the Dominicana (???) who blogged in English.
 

A.Hidalgo

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Apr 28, 2006
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If there were no curfew and armed forces patrolling the streets, shutting "La Otra Feria" down wouldn't look as bad. But given the circumstances, nobody here can't deny the LF government is getting more and more authoritarian.
(He's just like the rest of them. Limiting freedom of speech might be a trick he learnt from his good old friend Balaguer.)

As to whether he actually knew about it or not, I doubt he gave the order.
However, I apparently had "La Otra Feria" all wrong. While I thought it would be of the unbiased informational nature, a few blogs (here and here) I read this morning revealed the political intentions behind it.

Look at the shirts of the organizers (Here and here).
"La patria no se vende, se defiende." and the other "anti yankis" shirts.

Knowing all these old generals who saw the most action against the communists during Balaguer's administration, they probably saw a red flag with what the organizers had on. Their first response as to their arrests was that it was an "antidemocratic" act. This was the term used back in the day.


Excellent follow up on this story. After reading the blogs I felt
that same feeling as the blogers of being deceived and let down. Its too bad because there are problems in the DR that should be given more attention.

As the blogers reveal, there are Dominicans who are ready to fight for their democratic rights and not necessarily be leftist or communist, and that is a good thing.
 

aegap

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Mar 19, 2005
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I think he probably gave them a good, legitame reason for arresting him.

I say that after reading this here:

Decreived

After we fed everyone, we took a bunch of pictures for the press. For whatever reason, I kept on being asked to be in these pictures so I agreed because like I said before, I believed in the cause and I am not going to do anything half assed. They wanted me in the damn pictures, I was in them. I was there. I was helping.

Shortly thereafter, Galvan (aka martyr boy) started talking about how tonight there would be a vigil and that the alcohol laws would not be observed during the protest.

HOLD UP.

I stated in front of the group that peaceful protest does not involve breaking the law and whether we like it or not there is a law that prohibits drinking after 2:00am. Some people echoed my sentiment but he wouldn't hear any of it. Eny and I spoke to a couple of the other organizers and explained to them our point of view which included but wasn't limited to how Galvan was quickly becoming their weakest link


this is the guy (on the right) whogot arrested:

spaceball.gif

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bracuta/225700150/
 

bilijou

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Jun 13, 2006
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I would bet it wasn't even the guy on the right who came up with the idea, but the one on the left, Padre Rogelio Cruz.

Here's an article on him a few months ago where he shows his anti-yanqui and communist tendencies.
 

Dolores1

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May 3, 2000
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Was around the area on the afternoon of the fair and the kids were still there with black tape on their mouths. Lots gathered in the fair. Actually the interrupting of the fair seemed senseless because it was raining.
 

aegap

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Mar 19, 2005
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Golo was a big fan of father Rogelio:

While Father Rogelio Cruz has a good social agenda with the children in Cristo Rey, he has deviated greatly from this extremely important activity in his parish to get involved in other areas that have to do more with his "ego" and "self-promotional" values.
...

Father Rogelio acts like a clown, wears no official attire, makes ridiculous statements very often and is only second to Hipolito Mejia(aka Hippo and El Burro) as the most idiotic characters in our society today.

His recent bout with a policeman, where he hit the man with a huge rock placed in his hippie sack shows a man with an instinct for violence, contrary to his church*s values. He is a big mouth who would insult anybody he does not like using foul language. He has tried to extend his power by opening centers in other far away towns and is spreading himself thin. This clearly shows the man cannot concentrate in one area and do a good job.

Father Rogelio has also a lot to answer for his political contacts. He was even recently partial to a political party and attacked another party specifically. He has lots of political friends who give him money for his activities. He gets involved in political and social protests too much...

I am also concerned that Cruz may end up eventually in a major scandal. I do not trust him at all. He is at best of suspicious orientations...if you know what I mean. I would not place one of my children in his church. He had a recent activity where teenage dancers were shaking their booties with a scanty amount of clothing.

(source)
 

A.Hidalgo

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Apr 28, 2006
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I would bet it wasn't even the guy on the right who came up with the idea, but the one on the left, Padre Rogelio Cruz.

Here's an article on him a few months ago where he shows his anti-yanqui and communist tendencies.

My question is if the padre is a leftist,socialist,communist or a melting pot does that invalidate his fight for the poor and the corruption in the DR that he complains about.
 

bilijou

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Jun 13, 2006
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My question is if the padre is a leftist,socialist,communist or a melting pot does that invalidate his fight for the poor and the corruption in the DR that he complains about.

thanatos,

The polls show that few Dominicans trust governmental institutions. What they do trust is the Church and Universities. If this guy wasn?t a priest, he would just be ignored like most other extreme leftists in the country. He is using the Catholic Church, a supposed sacred institution which Dominicans hold high, to gain political leverage.

The problem is that most Dominicans would never think a priest would lie. A priest is incorruptible. Maybe he isn?t lying, and he actually believes all the BS he says. From what I read in that last Clave Digital article I posted, his discourse is no different from Hugo Chavez. I would even say he is heavily influenced (they say the same things). Like Chavez, Padre Rogelio Cruz is a populist and as most populist, they don?t mind making irresponsible statements no matter how ridiculous they are. Making these statements as a public figure alone should invalidate what he does, but what making these statements using the Church as a banner, is just plain disgusting.