 |
| Mr. Medina and Mr. Obama |
In mid-March of 2004, at-the-time campaign manager for the Dominican Liberation Party [PLD,] Danilo Medina, took a trip to Washington, DC. There is no mention of this trip in the mainstream media by the man who was responsible for helping elect the Dominican President in 2004, a man who had previously been Secretary of State, President of the Chamber of Deputies, a man who traveled to Washington accompanied by Eduardo Tejera, Julio Ortega, and Juan Temistocles Montas, all important figures in Dominican politics and business. Perhaps there was no mention of this trip in the media because Mr. Medina did not travel to the US Embassy in Santo Domingo beforehand.
According to a leaked US diplomatic cable, during that visit to Washington, Mr. Medina and his delegation asked for US support in "election
monitoring." Further, they "left an aide memoire outlining PLD commitments
to the U.S. government on the policy aims of a PLD government
if elected. Particularly notable were an avowal of intent to
continue law enforcement cooperation, support for Dominican
participation in Iraq within the Spanish brigade, and a
commitment to honor the free trade agreement just negotiated
by the [Hipolito] Mejia government with the United States."
In the aide memoire handed to the US, Medina asked that "a proactive role on the part of US government officials
including public warnings could help dissuade" election theft in the 2004 elections. This meant that Medina wanted the US to actively warn of election fraud, possibly creating tension. In return, he promised "the new government will
not modify any agreement currently in effect with the United
States."
Further, he promised to continue integrating the Dominican Republic in "ongoing third border security initiatives" and to "expand collaboration" in "all anti-terrorist activities."
In shockingly direct words, the aide memoire further stressed that "the key objective of the new government will be to
address the economic crisis and to establish the mechanisms
to provide a stable environment for US and all foreign
private investment."
More shockingly, Mr. Medina promised to help stabilize Haiti, promising that "disarming the population [is] as important to the Dominican
Republic as to any member of the Haiti Friends Group and the
international forces present in Haiti."
 |
| Meigs. |
During his visit to Washington, Mr. Medina also met with a desk officer for Western Hemisphere Affairs/Caribbean. The leaked cable almost takes an apologetic tone that Mr. Medina and his delegation were only met by the Dominican Republic desk officer, but this was a trip that he did not announce at the US embassy in Santo Domingo.
The cable, drafted by three-decade State Department veteran Michael Meigs, further goes
on to claim that "Embassy officers raised directly with Medina the
following
week the need to coordinate Washington contacts in advance
with the Embassy in order to assure appropriate attention and
US Government preparation for formal contacts."
Though the Dominican Republic would go on to withdraw from Iraq, Mr. Medina's party has towed the free trade agreement line and has also solidified the Dominican border to prevent "terrorism." Though the crime rate has increased since Mr. Medina's party rose to power, the investment climate for US firms has never looked better.
Source: Wikileaks [Warning to US personnel: public disclosures of classified documents do not alter the
documents' classified status or automatically result in declassification
of the documents.]
