As reported in El Caribe newspaper, hundreds of representatives of more than 20 civil society organizations and business groups met last night at the Cinemateca Nacional at the Museum of Geography & History to demand an end to impunity and widespread corruption. The protestors want justice to be brought to all those involved in the Baninter case. Likewise, they implored the President, government officers and politicians to put an end to the practice of gifts, credit cards and services that limit their independence.
?We call on the authorities that have come forward to denounce [the Baninter debacle] to publish the list of persons and beneficiaries of the fraud, so that, once and for all, we may know how the resources were distributed and so that the suspicions of complicity not fall on everyone,? reads the document circulated by the executive director of Participaci?n Ciudadana, Javier Cabreja.
?This recently denounced scandal places into evidence the political summit that is too often committed for individual interests,? said Cabreja.
One of the most emotional moments of the same evening was apparent when Cristo Rey parishioner Rogelio Cruz said that, as the rest of the sectors, the Catholic Church should also look inward and review itself, because neither can it continue to negotiate the procurement of favors from the powers that be.
Father Jorge Cela called out that the scandal turn into ?an opportunity for transparency and strengthening of institutions.? He criticized that the country is ?imprisoned by the terrorism of power,? and that one of the consequences of the Baninter case is the return to presidential centralization and a regime of force more than a regime of the law. He criticized that ?President Hipolito Mej?a himself mentions the personal negotiations he is carrying out with one of the key accused persons.?
Journalist Ana Mitila Lora of the List?n Diario was also critical of the self-censorship of the Dominican press, mentioning that The New York Times and Miami Herald had been more open about many aspects of the scandal.
So far, the only official document detailing in some way the scope of corruption in the Baninter affair, and the disappearance of the purported RD$55 billion, is a Power Point presentation bearing very few names. No government institution has taken responsibility for the presentation, despite the fact that it was delivered to the press at the Presidential Palace prior to the announcement of the fraud by the Central Bank?s governor. Similarly, the government and its judiciary have been markedly selective in who is investigated in this colossal corruption case.