Scandals, Lies and videotapes: A follow-up on Félix Bautista and the Haitian corruption case

Things happen so quickly during these elections it is impossible to keep track. In this blog I will list all the recent scandals that have emerged, one crazier than the other (and all lies, it seems like), before I analyse the government's desperate answer to the Nuria revealed scandal involving Félix Bautista, a PLD senator, organisational secretary of the PLD, and as close to a president as the president's own son. It seems like I will never get time to write on the institutions and do more "political sciency" analyses of the parties, party system, electoral system, etc. We'll hopefully come back to that in May.

First an update on the Félix Bautista scandals, which are not few, before I talk about the others (which also are quite many). Nuria's revelation of Félix Bautista's corruption schemes, his fortune, and the bribing of two presidential candidates in Haiti has made the governing party rather desperate. The evidence Nuria has presented is very convincing and as mentioned earlier: in most other countries Félix Bautista would be under investigation, potentially in custody, and his party would have tried as hard as it could to distance itself from him. In the DR none of this is occurring. Since the first (of the last of many) revelations regarding Félix Bautista, Nuria has provided more evidence that nails Félix Bautista to the coffin. First of all, as everyone here knows, many journalists receive money from the government so that they will talk nicely about the government. Nuria is the first to present evidence of this by putting forward cheques from Bautista to "journalist" José Laluz who used to work in the famous morning debate show "El gobierno de la mañana". She also demonstrated that Bautista hires the ASISA survey company, which not surprisingly is one of the companies that give the highest popular advantage to the PLD and Danilo Medina. Nuria also presented evidence of payments to another PLD senator, an ex-bureaucrat of Panamá (a country in which one of Bautista's company is working to get construction contracts). Finally she presented two interesting news: the government is seeking high and low for her sources (instead of investigating Bautista), and several of the people Nuria has demonstrated is paying or receiving money in an irregular way, have sought official letters from their banks that deny Nuria's accusations. None have gotten this so far. Today, April 18, acento.com.do also produced the Cámara de Cuentas (Chamber of Account, the state's external auditing agency) report for OISOE (Oficina de Ingenieros Supervisores de Obras del Estado), which Félix Bautista headed between 2006 and 2010. It had been rumoured for some time that the audit existed, but that it demonstrated so many irregularities that it had been shelved. Licelot Marte de Barrios, the distinguished and respected PRSC politicians who deads CdC said that no audit had been shelved, and dared the media to prove this. Acento did so within a couple of days, and published a summary of the shelved report (which means that indeed Marte de Barrios did conceal this report to protect Félix Bautista...which of course constitutes another scandals and discredits even more the already heavily discredited CdC9. To make a long story short, there has been no control of the budget and thousands of million Dominican Peso are unaccounted for (either going out or in and to different sources). From the government's side, no news: investigations have not come up with anything (My guess is: there are no investigations).

The revelations Nuria has presented with have been great food for the PRD in their attack on this government's corruption. Therefore, the story has been used for what it is worth politically, and as always rumours are created. This time the PRD started rumours that Nuria had fled the country to avoid government persecution. Several I know updated their Facebook pages with support-statements for Nuria, etc. (it'll be interesting to see how long the PRD will be fond of Nuria if the PRD wins the elections in May). Nuria, however, was travelling for private reasons and finally had to send out twitter messages denying the rumours that she was hiding from the PLD-government. The case has also become a minor international embarrasment not only for the country, but indeed for the press. The journalist covering the case for Le Monde has compared the Haitian and Dominican press coverage of the case and found that the Haitian press seems much more interested in the case, and that the Dominican mainstream media hushes the case down. The latter is also my impression, and as mentioned earlier, mainstream media only overs the Félixgate when there are official denials from the government, and then rarely on the front page. This has been noted in Hoy, which is becoming slightly more critical, but has not created any investigative journalism in that newspaper either.

What is new this time is that the scandal finally is well substantiated. This never happens in the DR. Scandals used to be invented, like the Margaritagate, or when in 2004 the PRD government put out false tapes that Leonel Fernández was trying to destabilise the Peso, or whenever Vincho Castillo (FNP) opens his mouth, and so on and so forth. Maybe the government and Danilo's electoral campaign is just taken aback by Nuria's audacity to actually publish evidence of corruption. Maybe it is because they really do not know what to do with Bautista (how does one actually perform an investigation into government corruption? The PLD doesn't seem to know or care)? Or, maybe it is that the Danilo campaign has figures showing them to lose the elections and therefore they are getting desperate. What is clear is that Nuria's revelations have unleashed a series of desperate measures from the PLD, one more incredible than the other. In sum the government/PLD has accused parts of the PRD of plotting to coup Michel Martelly in Haiti, use that to stop the elections in the DR, and to want to kill the president of their own party, Miguel Vargas Maldonado (PRD). Before those cases, some other incredible stuff.

It started quite innocently with the Senate sending an official apology to Barack Obama for Hipólito Mejía's (PRD) statements in New York that Barack Obama was from Africa (and born over there) (31 of 32 Senators signed, only Amable Aristy Castro of the PRSC and ally of Hipólito Mejía did not sign). See the tape here. As always with Mejía, this was only a bad joke, which the PLD has taken out of context, but a good example of how one can overcome obstacles to succeed (Obama was the example). It is obviously not true that Obama was born over there (por allá) since Obama is born in Hawaii, but that he comes from Africa is partially true since his father was from Kenya. I would not be the least surprised that Mejía would make a point of this, he has been known to comment on skin colour earlier, and after all he is a Dominican, and if there is one place where genetics is important, it is here. Nevertheless, if Mejía said this it is only a minor error (although typical, and one that points towards a potential anti-african sentiment in Mejía), said in a jokingly tone to make a point that your background (African) does not matter. The irony, however, is that the way the apology is formulated it looks like the Senate finds it to be more of an insult to argue that one is born and/or have ancestors in Africa than the fact that Mejía potentially put in a little lie about the US president. I do actually believe that the Senate considers the "accusation" that one is born and have ancestors in Africa to be an insult. No matter the truth of the matter, this case is just as embarrassing for the Senate as it is for Mejía, and I am sure whoever received this in the White House is having a big laugh. Considering that this was an official letter sent to the President of the USA from the Dominican Senate, it is also an embarrassment for the Dominican Republic. The other irony is that  the Senate is dominated by the PLD (31 of 32 senators) and the PLD has since 1994 been allied to a racist and xenophobic party, the FNP, the PLD itself has been no stranger to racist attacks on its opponents when this has been necessary, and has implemented decrees, laws and a new constitution that is highly discriminatory against (black) haitians, but now find it prudent to defend the US president from attacks that potentially has discriminatory origins.

I mentioned the other day the surveys. The one ordered by Diario Libre (which I used in my blog on Margaritagate), has been surrounded by controversy. I heard early on that rumours within the PLD was that the numbers had been altered to favour the PRD before publication. I can understand the PLD wanting to put out that rumour given the fact that this survey is one of the more serious ones. The reason why it was altered, however, is a really interesting and bizarre story. The accusation is that Luis Alvarez Renta who is in jail in connection with the BANINTER bankruptcy in 2003, threatened to kidnap and/or kill the owner of Diario Libre, Arturo Pellerano, who is also in jail but due the bankruptcy of BanCredito the same year, if he did not change the results of the Greenberg survey published in Diario Libre in favour of Hipólito Mejía. The accusations were made by journalists favourable to the PLD, and former members of the famous "El Gobierno de la Mañana", who we know now, after the exposé of Félix Bautista, receive money from Bautista or the PLD. By the way: Funny how Pellerano could feel threatened by a threat to kidnap him considering he is in jail. Alvarez Renta took the accusations seriously and has asked the prosecutor general to investigate.

Last week the really big bomb (of desperation of the PLD) was dropped. The foreign minister of the DR, the Minister of Justice in Haiti, the prosecutor general of the DR, together with the ambassadors of Haiti and the Dominican Republic accused Pepe Goico and a Haitian Businessman Pierre Kansky of plotting to coup President Michel Martelly. A press conference was called to announce this bomb, a press conference in which no questions could be asked, only accusations be thrown out so that media coverage was secure and people could forget about Félix Bautista stealing tax payers money in order to get rich. The evidence was two taped phone conversations between Pepe Goico and Pierre Kansky. The quality was horrible and only demonstrates that Pepe Goico wanted to make it known in Haiti that Nuria Piera had proven that Michel Martelly was taking bribes from Félix Bautista. For the PLD/Government this was evidence enough that Pepe Goico/PRD was planning to destabilise Haiti. Apparently Nuria was being used by the PRD who had falsified the evidence Nuria presented in order to destabilise the president of the neighbouring country (see Nuria's reaction here). Why would the PRD do this, you might ask? Well, presidential candidate Danilo Medina explained it all a couple of days later: According to Danilo Medina, the PRD plans to generate disorder in Haiti via Pepe Goico so that the elections in the Dominican Republic would have to be cancelled. Medina argues that PRD and Hipólito is planning this because they are losing the election and Hipólito is a cry-baby (llorón). Before I go on here, it should be mentioned that it is not accidental that the PLD is attacking the PRD via Pepe Goico, who is Hipólito Mejía's and the PRD's own Félix Bautista. He is a weak spot for Mejía, and Mejía should have gotten rid of him years ago...I will write more on Pepe Goico later, suffice to say that when in government he is equally bad as Félix Bautista.

There are so many bad sides to this case for the DR, its government and the ruling party, the PLD:
The prosecutor general has taken the case seriously and sent it for investigation with the prosecutor of the Distrito Nacional, i.e. Santo Domingo, who is in a bind. Either she argues the case has merits and creates  international news: Man close to presidential candidate Mejía is plotting to take down Martelly (based on no evidence whatsoever), or she goes against her own government and presidential candidate Medina, and says that the whole press conference was full of lies (which is the truth). My guess is, she won't do much at all. The accusations, however, are serious, and they are an embarrasment to the DR, its government and governing party, the PLD. 1) First of all, it is obvious that this is not a complot. Nothing in the taped conversation suggests a complot, absolutely nothing. Second, how could a Dominican destabilise the Haitian government when he has no army in Haiti and the country is filled with 14,000 UN troops? Third, what are the motives? Etc. 2) The prosecutor general is taking this case seriously, while he would not touch the Félix Bautista case which is well evidenced, and has resulted in an international scandal already. This is also a huge embarrasment for the DR. Danilo Medina challenged the PRD and others to sue Bautista in a civil lawsuit, while he asked the prosecutor and the state to investigate Pepe Goico. It is actually Pepe Goico that should sue the state in this case. 3) The case demonstrates that the government has never stopped its bad practice of listening in on phone calls they have no business or right to listen to (see also below). Leonel government is just as bad as Mejía's in that regard. 4) The PLD/Government is implying that Nuria Piera's story of Félix Bautista is part of the plan to destabilise Martelly. This is a government attempt to drag into the mud the best, and most respected journalist in the country. No wonder the International Press institute expressed concerns about press freedom in the DR during these campaigns. The government is already trying to find Nuria's sources and has earlier searched other journalists' homes after exposés of scandals. 5) It is serious that the government of Haiti is picking sides in this elections. By joining forces with the DR government in this matter, they knowingly interfere with the Dominican elections. Normally, Dominican authorities cry foul whenever anyone makes an opinion on national politics. Here official Haiti is. Clearly Martelly and Fernández and the PLD have interests in common here: discredit Nuria (save Martelly, the PLD and Bautista), get Danilo elected (after all Martelly was given the highest dominican order, Duarte, Sánchez y Mella, when he visited three weeks ago).

The case is also serious because it demonstrates that the media here: 1) receives money from the government in order to work as "periodistas de bocina" (journalist loudspeakers) for the government; 2) the attention given to this case, or the lack thereof, demonstrates that the mainstream media fears the government or does not want to touch it, and that in Haiti the press is much more critical to its government; 3) the lack of questions from the press as to how the government got a hold of this tape, whether the tapping of the phone conversation was legal, questioning how the governments could argue for a complot when the tape reveals no evidence of such, and the massive attention this is given in the major newspapers, is an embarrasment to the media corporations in this country (exception is acento.com.do), 4) on a more personal note, the case really drags Ruben Silié, the former director of FLACSO in the DR, and respected social scientist (apparently Silié did not like being at the press conference, but as Dominican ambassador to Haiti, he was present. Silié also felt the need to express his concerns for Dominican-Haitian relations after the accusations in a letter written to El Día). All in all, this whole case is an embarrasment to the government, the PLD, and Danilo Medina because it is so clearly based on a lie, and because it demonstrates the government's total lack of interest in investigating what is clearly illegal and corrupt activities.

One would think that a trumped-up complot against the Haitian government was the worst the PLD/Government could come up with, but it was not...the next case is not as embarrassing at the international level, but just as unfounded and weird.

The latest, and maybe the craziest, or at least as crazy as the complot/coup-plans in Haiti, is that Guido Gómez Mazara, a PRD politician, together with other colleagues in the PRD are supposed to plan to kill the president of the PRD Miguel Vargas Maldonado. This was announced on April 17 in a press conferene by 5 PRD (!) representatives in the Chamber of Deputies (not surprisingly no questions were allowed). To this story one should add that Miguel Vargas and Hipólito Mejía are no longer friends after Mejía won the PRD primaries, and Miguel Vargas cried foul and fraud. Vargas still in control of the PRD as president of the party, has been reluctant to support Hipólito's campaign, but has come around somewhat. It is nevertheless a divided party that goes to the polls, and most observers blame this on Miguel Vargas. Apparently a conversation has been taped in which Gómez Mazara states that what Miguel Vargas needs is a bullett ("darle un tiro es lo que hay que hacer"). If the tape is the real deal, then this is just typical Dominican Tigueraje talking. I would not be suprised in any conversation with top politicians here that they state that their opponent is the worst ever, and in context say that the guy needs a bullett. But, what the press is not asking yet, is how PRD representatives have access to taped conversations between to other PRD-politicians. This case is of course yet another attempt to discredit the opposition, and the accusations are lies. The "clever" move this time is that it is the PRD that is making the accusations, not the PLD. The idea behind this is of course to increase the legitimacy of the accusations. Well, my guess is that these 5 PRD-representatives have been paid (maybe by Félix Bautista?) and are quite ready to leave the party (at least if Hipólito Mejía does not win the elections). And a simple google search on one of the main accusers, Victor Gómez Casanova, makes the accusation lose any legitimacy. The case is now being followed up by the prosecutor general who takes the accusations seriously, but who has his hands full with a host of phony cases recently. It will be interesting to see if the prosecutor general will ask where the tape comes from given the fact that Dominican law only accepts taping of private conversations after a court ruling giving permission to do so. 

So within a week we now "know" that the PRD is using Nuria Piera in order to remove Haitian President Martelly in order to stop the elections in the DR because they know they are losing to Danilo Medina, and because they are dissatisfied with the party president, Miguel Vargas Maldonado, the PRD is planning to kill him. Well, the DR is a good example of what happens when there are no ideologies or policies to debate, then scandals and lies take over.