Bernardo Vega, ambassador and economist, historian and businessman, writes in today’s El Caribe on the importance of US envoy Roger Noriega’s visit to the Dominican Republic. From a historical outlook, Vega cannot remember any other visit from so high ranking an official as Noriega, who was once a top advisor to former Senator Jesse Helms. Perhaps the highlight of Noriega’s visit was the announcement that the US would pick up the tab for various groups of pre-election observers. Vega says that the ‘pre-electoral’ part is very important, since these people will arrive in February rather than just a few days before the elections, and went on to mention such groups as the Organization of American States, the International Federation of Electoral Systems (IFES), the National Democratic Institute, the National Republican Institute, the Carter Center, and CAPEL from Costa Rica. Recently, the European Union observed the electoral process in Guatemala and will almost certainly be invited to observe here as well. Vega states that the US in interested in the process of the elections, not the result. They want clean elections, without favoring any candidate. Saying that the time for electoral fraud has passed, Vega reminded the reader that equally irrelevant was the old Porfirio Diaz advice, which was to “say ‘yes’ to the Americans, but not ‘when’.”