Orlando Martinez, Joaquin Balaguer.
Santo Domingo. - Although the material authors of the murder of the journalist Orlando Martinez have been convicted and are serving time, the late president Joaquin Balaguer’s "page in white" still remains.
During a ceremony to mark the 33rd anniversary of his death Monday, Dominican Journalists Guild (CDP) president Mercedes Castle said that the “page” must be filled with the names of those who planned and ordered the killing.
She said the journalists will not rest until those who planned and ordered Martinez’s death are brought to justice.
The leftist leader Narciso Isa Conde, Martinez’s companion in the Dominican Communist Party, said the slain journalist was "brilliant and un-bribable" and reiterated the determination of hits friends and relatives "to take to justice and to obtain the exemplary conviction against all the intellectual authors of this still unpunished act."
He said he’ll fight untiringly so that justice "posthumously reaches the illustrated tyrant, who with his doubtful ways authorized this murder which affected the Dominican nation 33 years ago: Joaquin Balaguer Ricardo."
Written by: tejada, 18 Mar 2008 8:49 AM
From: United States
DR is one of those few countries still left where a president who was responsible for countless horrific crimes against citizens is viewed as some kind of great hero. Just like there are those who would still argue that Trujillo was a great president... what a joke.
From: Cuba, it is a secret the censors are looking for me
some in Russia mourn good old uncle Joe Stalin who murdered millions
From: Cuba, it is a secret the censors are looking for me
and some fools will even mourn the passing of mass murdering Castro brothers
From: United States
president Mercedes Castle said that the “page” must be filled with the names of those who planned and ordered the killing.
0000
Those people still alive, wait for their death at their bed side !!!
Balaguer wasn't involve, the cold war was !!
From: United States, New York City
I've said it before and I'll say it again...history will not be kind to Balaguer, and justifiably so.
Written by: Edward, 18 Mar 2008 4:15 PM
From: United States, Faux News: Unfair Imbalance
I never liked Balaguer. I don't understand why so many people loved him. Despite supposedly great economic growth during the times he was president, the DR was still a country with a lot of poverty and like 30% unemployment. Leonel has done a lot more in 8 years as president than Balaguer did in like 25!
From: United States, New York City
"I never liked Balaguer. I don't understand why so many people loved him."
Thay have a name for the reason why.....it's called ignorance..
Written by: jeffreyb, 18 Mar 2008 10:32 PM
From: United States
Edward why did people like Balaguer? For one he knew the how tomanage the dominican economy without having to take out the massive loans that we see now...and where do u get ur stats? 30% unemployment? during the sugar boom of the 70's? when the peso was on par to the dollar ....thats one us dollar = one dominican peso....also pls remember the infrastructure that was developed was done with internal funding and not like the metro which A) no one knows how much it will cost B). funded by international loans.
From: United States
yes, Jeffreyb, he is credited with economic improvements in the DR. however, as the old saw goes, Hitler made the trains in berlin run on time, too.Don Balaguer represented racial hatred like few others did, and can also be attributed with the aggravation of the debilitating anti-haitianismo which plagues our society today. i remember the Balaguer days in this country, and the poverty among the majority was no less then than it is today. like cibaeno, i have great difficulty in awarding any accolades to this person. the racist scholars who found his writings enlightening should hang their heads in eternal shame.
From: United States, New York City
"Amnesty International called special attention to "the numerous political assassinations carried out by Death Squads (such as the notorious La Banda) that have been openly tolerated and supported by the National Police. In 1970 it was alleged that there was one death or 'disappearance' every 34 hours. In July, 1971, Norman Gall alleged that in the post-1965 era, the number of political murders in the Dominican Republic exceeded that of any comparable period under the monstrous Trujillo. The Santo Domingo newspaper El Nacional December. 30, 1978 filled a page and a half of newsprint with the details of 186 political murders and thirty disappearances during 1970." All this during one year of Balaguer's first twelve. Please, people, do research. Learn who Balaguer was and see the man for what he was depite all the yelling from his accolytes: a tyrant with blood on his hands,just as his mentor before him.
Written by: jeffreyb, 18 Mar 2008 11:44 PM
From: United States
Dreadlocks: Balaguer did not create the anti haitian feelings that exisisted and still exists today. I believe that Balaguer (as all politicians d0) played the nationalistic race card to divert attention from other domestic issues that would arise from time to time. Let us not forget that Bosch as president in 1962 mobilized combat troops and almost started a war between Haiti and the DOminican republic..PS your history is again askew it was not Hitler who made the trains run on time but Benito Mussolini....please get your right wing dictators correct. as to your comment "poverty amongst the majority was no less than it is today." Is not that statement ass backwards? so This administration has done nothing for the impoverished Dominican people and has left them in the same lurch as 25 years ago.
From: United States, New York City
Written by: Edward, 19 Mar 2008 12:33 AM
From: United States, Faux News: Unfair Imbalance
My family has always hated Balaguer because he and his people killed my uncle in the 60s because he was part of the leftist opposition. I think he was 18 at the time. I never met him though because I was born in 1977.
From: Cuba, it is a secret the censors are looking for me
please cibaeno that chomsky stuff is pretty far out there on the left.....balaguer was a hoax and an extension of banana republic politics .....but Chomsky is out there on the grassy knoll
From: United States, New York City
"Let us not forget that Bosch as president in 1962 mobilized combat troops and almost started a war between Haiti and the DOminican republic"
That was in response to haitian troops violating dr's embassy in port-au-prince, not on any action eminating from Bosch himself. In other words,it was a reaction. If we are to call up history let us not paint as the aggressor he who does not deserve to be refferred to as such. In the seven months that Don Juan was president no political killings took place and the populace was respected by its government. That alone is legacy enough for any dominican statesmen in the 20th century.
Written by: jeffreyb, 19 Mar 2008 6:23 AM
From: United States
Cibaeno...if troops were mobilized from a siege of one of the DRs embassies why was nt the same reaction taken when the M-19 took over the Dominican Embassy in Bogota or when shining path took the DR ambassador hostage in Lima?
From: United States
jeffreyb, at no time did i attribute anti-haitianismo to balaguer: if you read my post carefully you will see the word AGGRAVATED. that implies the worsening of an already extant condition. and mussolini was not the only right wing dictator who made trains run on time: hitler did the same.i am not a practioner of relativist analysis. the fact that inequality exists today does not have any bearing on Balaguer. i am a little weary of postings that seek to explain things away by comparing one thing with another. the fact that there are human rights abuses in china does not make them acceptable in the DR!!
From: United States
Goulet, you may not like Chomsky, but you would do yourself a favor by reading the article cited in the posting by cibaeno. actually, it cannot be too inaccurate, as certain characteristics of the model are highly visible in today's experience!!
From: United States, New York City
"Cibaeno...if troops were mobilized from a siege of one of the DRs embassies why was nt the same reaction taken when the M-19 took over the Dominican Embassy in Bogota or when shining path took the DR ambassador hostage in Lima?"
Because colombia (or peru for that matter) has no border with dr and it would've been logistically impossible for the dominican army to mobilize any forces against colombia....not the case with haiti.
From: United States, New York City
"Goulet, you may not like Chomsky, but you would do yourself a favor by reading the article cited in the posting by cibaeno. actually, it cannot be too inaccurate, as certain characteristics of the model are highly visible in today's experience!!"
Thank you dread...I haven't read that article in almost ten years and when I reread it yesterday I couldn't help but come to the same conclusion.
From: United States
thanks for answering that question for us, cibaeno. i wanted to do it myself, but i was unsure if i could put it as delicately and tactfully as you did. after all, how would we mobilise a military response against peru on their soil?
Written by: jeffreyb, 19 Mar 2008 9:12 AM
From: United States
The military response to Peru or Colombia Dred wuld be done thru a un approved congressional loan via the Sunland corp.
Written by: jeffreyb, 19 Mar 2008 9:15 AM
From: United States
Dred: I m not going to go off on tangents......the electoral promise was made by Mussolini to make the trains run on time....not Hiltler.....German & Swiss trains have always run on time. And from your last possting i am now concluding that Balaguer has no relevance to the degree of anti-haitianism in the Dominican Republic.
From: United States, New York City
"Dig him up...then string em up...and high"
Indeed. One day I'll visit Balaguer's grave and I can assure whomever that what I do when I get there isn't going to pass for roses. As the dominican population becomes more educated and when history begins to take an impartial view of Balaguer his figure will be condemned by future generations of dominicans (at the very least if future generations have any sense of justice).
From: United States
touche, jeffrey!
From: United States, New York City
"Balaguer has no relevance to the degree of anti-haitianism in the Dominican Republic."
I suggest you read Balaguer's "Isla al Reves". It's anti-haitianism codified.
Written by: jeffreyb, 19 Mar 2008 9:25 AM
From: United States
Dred: Merci,mon ami....now lets all work together for a better world........Cibaeno: I have read La Isla al Reves more than once....I find it to be a very nationalistic piece not anti Haitian but pro Dominican.
From: United States, New York City
Not anti-haitian! Not only is it anti-haitian, it is anti-black. Balaguer carried on and on about the "degenerative" state of the african peoples. Then, in the center of the book, he inserts pictures of people from my region with decidely european features as if to say to the world: look, we have whites, too!. Like I said in another post he was proud of the fact that dr has areas with a significant white(at least phenotypically) peasantry but the fact that those very same individuals posed barefoot and in front of dilapidated shacks didn't seem to bother him one bit. The guy then proceeds to lament the loss of the elites that hightailed it out of the island during the turmoil of the late 18th and early 19th century because of the "damage" it caused to the racial composition of the country. Give me a break. I'm proud to be descended from those that couldn't leave or chose to stay behind. Ellos lograron hacer patria para nosotros, los dominicanos de hoy, a pesar de sus deficiencias.
From: United States
i share your wishes for a better world, jeffrey. i wish our politicos felt the way we do
From: Cuba, it is a secret the censors are looking for me
jeffrey.....have you cleared up your confusion about the law ,and having two passports.......buddy
Smaller
Bigger
Close Gallery
Facebook
Digg this
del.icio.us
Technorati
Yahoo
0000
Those people still alive, wait for their death at their bed side !!!
Balaguer wasn't involve, the cold war was !!
Thay have a name for the reason why.....it's called ignorance..
http://www.chomsky.info/books/washington02.htm
That was in response to haitian troops violating dr's embassy in port-au-prince, not on any action eminating from Bosch himself. In other words,it was a reaction. If we are to call up history let us not paint as the aggressor he who does not deserve to be refferred to as such. In the seven months that Don Juan was president no political killings took place and the populace was respected by its government. That alone is legacy enough for any dominican statesmen in the 20th century.
Because colombia (or peru for that matter) has no border with dr and it would've been logistically impossible for the dominican army to mobilize any forces against colombia....not the case with haiti.
Thank you dread...I haven't read that article in almost ten years and when I reread it yesterday I couldn't help but come to the same conclusion.
Indeed. One day I'll visit Balaguer's grave and I can assure whomever that what I do when I get there isn't going to pass for roses. As the dominican population becomes more educated and when history begins to take an impartial view of Balaguer his figure will be condemned by future generations of dominicans (at the very least if future generations have any sense of justice).
I suggest you read Balaguer's "Isla al Reves". It's anti-haitianism codified.