Dominican government calls Spanish daily’s swastika an insult

Madrid.- Journalist and writer Juan Luis Cebrián, president of the Prisa media group which publishes newspaper El Pais, on Tuesday said he regrets that Dominican Republic’s government and people feel insulted by an op-ed by Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, which unleashed outcry from the swastika that accompanied the article.

He promised impartiality on how Madrid’s major daily’s treats the alleged smear campaign by some NGOs against Dominican Republic, in the wake of the Constitutional Court’s controversial ruling which affects thousands of offspring of Haitians.

Cebrian met with Dominican ambassadors in Spain and Great Britain, Cesar Medina and Federico Cuello Camilo, who handed him a letter of rebuke for El País’ alleged bias against their country, since the ruling was enacted.

The newspaper published Vargas Llosa’s article which slammed Dominican Republic, which was also illustrated with the symbol of Nazi Germany superimposed on the island.

"There’s an intent to create the false image that our country seeks to denationalize hundreds of thousands of citizens born in our territory of undocumented parents, when the ruling itself clearly states the need for those people to regulate their situation and properly documented, as do all countries of the civilized world," the letter said.

Nonetheless Cebrián lauded Vargas Llosa’s literary merits of and as the newspaper’s contributor.