It's been nearly 100 years since segregationist President Woodrow Wilson invaded the Dominican Republic, and although the country is technically independent today, the US government is free to even ask for the dismissal of the country's chief of intelligence, as revealed by Wikileaks. The US government invaded the Dominican Republic a second time in 1965 to prevent the rise of a potentially pro-Castro government, and it appears that there is a third invasion underway, this time to do away with free speech and the island's Hispanic values, all in the name of "social progress."
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| Dominican police chief and FBI head of ext. ops. Listin Diario |
Just this week, the Dominican government signed an agreement with the Federal Bureau of Investigations, creating a task force that will execute operations inside of the island. This is in addition to the New York Police Department precinct in the island's capital, and in addition to the US Border Patrol office there, and in addition to the Department of Homeland Security drones watching over Dominican and Puerto Rican waters, and in addition to a secret US Army research facility which officially doesn't exist.
In light of all this, most Dominican media pundits concentrate on the fact that the US ambassador to the island is a married homosexual. Most Dominican people have been completely blind to the erosion of their sovereignty, distracted instead by the fact that a gay man could be the Ambassador to a conservative Hispanic country.
Nelson Javier, better known as The Cocodrilo, is one of the few TV hosts who has reported on the creeping erosion of national sovereignty at the hands of American officials and complacent Dominican politicians. There is an old proverb -- "tell me who I can't criticize, and I will tell you who rules me" -- which aptly applies to what has happened to The Cocodrilo.
During his show on Monday, The Cocodrilo criticized a visit by the US Ambassador and his husband to a school in a conservative area. The Cocodrilo asked his audience on Monday: "What need does a child have to learn that a man is having sexual relations with another man?"
The Cocodrilo is notorious for his use of strong language, and he exploded briefly, saying, "What need does the school have to make kids meet that maricon and bugarron!?" Those two terms are considered derogatory towards homosexuals in Dominican Spanish, even though the word bugarron is not commonly used outside of Dominican slang.
Within not even 10 seconds of using those terms, The Cocodrilo placed them in context, saying that his children are adults and if they are gay that he doesn't have a problem with it, but that he believes that they will suffer in the afterlife. The Cocodrilo used even more profanity throughout the show, and at the end of the recording he apologizes for his use of profanity, yet it was only for the insults which were possibly directed at the United States that he was suspended from television by the government.
The government says it is suspending The Cocodrilo for two weeks from television allegedly due to his use of those slang terms, even if most people wouldn't even understand them. There used to be a time when freedom of speech was protected, but it seems that liberal American sensibilities have overridden freedom.
Good jobs are hard to come by in the Dominican Republic, and The Cocodrilo has a large audience of people who agree with him that the United States is eroding the sovereignty of countries around the world. At the rate things are going, even this news site could be taken down by the Dominican government for our criticism of the US State Department.
