 Great. So welcome everybody. We went over a little bit because folks are still coming in and we just wanted to make sure that you all were here so we could get started with our great guest and also with the launching of this paper that I'm so proud to do today. Welcome everybody. My name is Carl Meacham. I am the director here of the America's Program at CSIS. And today we're here to launch the America's Program's latest report entitled The Dominican Republic, becoming a one-party state. The report is the culmination of a six-month project on corruption and the state of democracy in the Dominican Republic. We have Roberto Alvarez here with us to be a discussant of the report but also to inform us, to enlighten us with his knowledge of the situation in the Dominican Republic as well. But for today's event I'll be focusing on the Dominican Republic's political system, some of the problems that we saw during our trip and how they got there. We'll be holding a second event next month on December 11th to discuss the future trajectory of the country when we'll be hosting the leaders of Dominican Republic's several political parties. You've all chosen to come to this event today so presumably you all hold some personal stake in the answers to all of the questions that we're going to attempt or that I will attempt and Roberto will attempt to answer today. But we carried out this project and wrote this report because in many ways you are the exception. Over the life of the project I heard the same question many times. Why the Dominican Republic? Why are you focusing so much on the Dominican Republic? Why is it so important? The country is a reliable U.S. ally with at least from a first glance a stable and democratic political system. Though the U.S. is the Dominican Republic's biggest trade partner, the Dominican Republic is the U.S.'s 46th largest trade partner. Traditionally the U.S. policy making community has a tendency to turn a blind eye or at the very least to glaze over the challenges and countries friendly to our regional interests. So we're trying to break with that approach. But for all in the United States we've come to count on the Dominican Republic as a stable and reliable partner. There's still very much at stake and the issues that we're going to address through this project corruption the rule of law, judicial independence, the state of democracy would seem less pressing if it were not for the country's incredible promise. The Dominican Republic is the largest economy in Central America and the Caribbean and with its history of stable democracy the country would be poised to take on a leadership role in the region and to expand its international profile. I say would because currently the Dominican Republic is holding itself back. The country's potential is impressive but realizing it is daunting and light of the recent and ongoing developments in the political system. The island's strategic positioning in the midst of the illegal Caribbean flow of drugs as well as goods and people makes the effective administration of justice a still higher stakes game particularly in light of the challenges the Dominican Republic is facing today. And for better or worse we can't ignore the effects of any developments in the Dominican Republic on Haiti a country that the U.S. government has committed almost four billion dollars for hurricane relief efforts since 2010 alone also for reconstruction and for development and billions more over the course of the past decade. With high unemployment and unreliable political system and countless domestic challenges Haiti cannot afford an unstable neighbor and the United States cannot afford an increasingly unstable Haiti. And that tension between the country's potential and the challenges it currently faces brought us to this project. We conceived of this project as an assessment of those challenges. We had we heard rumors of corruption of the apparent imbalance of the pull of the party system and of expanding executive influence. So we shaped our itinerary with that in mind and flew with two members of my staff to the Dominican Republic. While we were there we met with a wide range of stakeholders and practitioners from all backgrounds standing government opposition ruling party civil society private sector current and former members of the judiciary and media in an effort to round out our assessment and ensure that any conclusions we came to were as robust and unbiased as possible. You can find a list of the meetings that we had on the 11 page 11 of the report which is on the web right now or will be in the next hour or two. We heard about the dominance of the Dominican Liberation Party or the PLD in every branch of government. The party currently controls executive branch and holds a majority both in Congress and in the National Council of Magistrates that's the body that appoints the country's judiciary and prosecutors. 31 of the country's 32 senators are PLD members as is a full 60 percent of the House of Representatives. Even though the primary opposition party garnered over 40 percent of the popular vote in the 2012 elections. We heard about the fractured opposition that is no longer able to provide a viable alternative to PLD power. The Dominican Revolutionary Party or PRD has yet to reunify since a 2009 political pact between PRD and PLD leaders the so called blue ties pact. The pact highly controversial within the PRD divided the party and rendered it incapable of presenting a coherent platform in opposition to the PLD. And we heard about how the same pact allowed for the restructuring of the Dominican judiciary process. A process that we were told by many was partial to the ruling party. As I understand it this process included giving members of the judiciary significant weight in resolving both inter and intra party disputes and given the widespread perception that the PLD carries perhaps undue influence in the judicial system. This raises questions about the capacity of the judiciary to fairly arbitrate disputes within the party system. The division of the PRD has according to many of those we spoke with been furthered by discretionary judicial decisions. While I'm not in a position to advocate for any particular law many in the opposition are currently pushing for the development of a law of parties, a law that would protect the multi-party system so central to Dominican democracy. Such a law would ideally ensure that the regulations that govern the Dominican party system would be equally and fairly applied to the country's several parties irrespective of their current power in the political system. We heard about the population's quickly eroding faith in the judiciary. As allegations of executive influence in the judicial system grow ever more numerous and better documented. The judiciary is seen as heavily influenced by the PLD driving the development of a culture of impunity as more and more citizens turn to extraditional extraditional means to resolve disputes and manage conflicts. We heard reports of widespread bribery, corruption and money laundering both plaguing the public perceptions of government and crippling the Dominican private sector. According to members of the anti-PLD movement who have compiled vast tracts of evidence to this effect, one former president and his allies have used the global foundation for democracy and development to launder enormous sums of cash in exchange for higher stakes government contracts. Private sector leaders cite these contracts and the bribes they claim the contracts entail as a source of primary frustration and more importantly of economic inefficiency to the sole benefit of the ruling party. We heard about the distortionary effects of corruption and clientilism on the Dominican economy. The informal sector reportedly constitutes nearly half of the country's economy with the state's corruption providing little incentive for formal sector operations. Employment in the formal private sector grew by just 5% over the last decade while employment in the public sector increased by a staggering 37%. Apparently speaking both to the effects of PLD policies on the economy and to the ballooning of the federal government. And we heard about all of the dangers these developments pose for the country's political stability and democratic foundations not to mention the implications and the changes in that stability would have within Dominican borders and throughout the region. The fragility inherent in the Dominican Republic's geographic position and the Caribbean directly en route from the northern coast of South America, Venezuela and Colombia and to southern states puts it at a distinct disadvantage. Drug cartels operating in the region increasingly use the country's ill-policed coast as a point of transit. A full 14% of US bound cocaine shipments were trafficked through the Caribbean and the first half of this year alone largely by means of the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. And Dominicans make up the fourth largest Latino group in the United States. With upwards of 1.5 million Dominicans currently living in US borders. If the situation on the island continues to worsen, the implications for immigration flows northward and thus for the United States could be huge. So we came back, we wrote this report about everything we heard. If you didn't pick up a copy on your way in, don't worry, the report is already up on our website or will be in the next hour at csis.org forward slash Americas for you to go to that website and for the folks that are watching on the webcast. And it's under the publications section. But I'm not here to only provide these facts that are a bit pessimistic about Dominican Republic's future. We've written this report because the country doesn't have to continue down the path it's currently on. I'm not Dominican, but we recognize very clearly the potential that the island has and the people of the island being, I guess the core of that potential. So to put it simply, it's not too late. The country would benefit from a set of con of conversations and revel re evaluations of its current system and on three issues in particular. The first is the state of the Dominican judiciary and the particular challenges it faces in the realm of independence and party influence. The second, the development of a law protecting the country's political parties or a lay the part deals and its potential implications for a healthy multi party democracy. And third, the future of the PRD and how it will move forward, given its current disunity and inability to present a viable opposition to the PLD. I won't go into more depth for now because I want to open the floor to our guest today, my friend Roberto Alvarez. Roberto is currently the general coordinator for Grupo participación ciudadana, Transparency International's branch in the Dominican Republic. Previously, he served as the ambassador of the Dominican Republic to the OAS. I won't say more for now because you have his bio and you know how impressive Roberto is, but suffice it to say as well that he's an expert on on the issues that I was mentioning before and that he will elaborate on and I couldn't have been happier to have him here today and that he accepted our invitation. I should note though that he is speaking here as an independent citizen, not the representative of any government or organization. The usual procedures apply for today's event. We are on the record in recording audio to place on our website. We are also webcasting, as I mentioned, and live tweeting today's event for the benefit of our international followers. For the Q&A, I would ask that you just wait for one of our staff to come along with a microphone. They'll get to you please, please elaborate on who you are, what organization you work for. I know that everybody is going to have statements that they're going to want to make and we welcome those things, but please keep it brief so we can get to everybody and without further ado, Roberto, the floor is yours. Thank you. This is forward. Thank you very much Carl for your kind words, your kind introduction. I want to end Jill and Michael, thank you very much and CSIS for the invitation. I want to underline what Carl said before that I'm here speaking on a personal capacity that I do not represent any of the groups. I'm not here speaking on behalf of participación ciudadana or anyone else. There are a lot of sort of friendly faces in the audience and I thank you all for coming this morning. Feel like I'm almost preaching to the audience, but I want to thank CSIS for doing this report. It is not an everyday event. It hasn't been in a while actually that a think tank in Washington has focused on the Dominican Republic. Actually, most U.S. citizens focus on the DR when big puppy goes to that. And for those Boston fans, congratulations. But I want to underline first there is a report has a suggestive or leading almost title, the Dominican Republic becoming a one-party state. My answer right up front is not yet. However, there are troubling signs and I will develop my answer and address at the end hopefully how we can break through this moment. Let me underline something that I find striking in terms of the relationship between the Dominican Republic and the United States. In the report you will see some data as to the Dominican population in the United States, which is roughly a million and a half. Not many of them are undocumented illegal and not going to go into that at the moment, but here is part of the answer. These are the number of permanent residences granted by the United States to Dominican citizens. Look at the decade of 1990, 1999. And look where the Dominican Republic ranks. This is all nationalities. Number four versus Mexico, Philippines, Russia, Dominican Republic. In the decade of 2000, 2009, went to fifth place. And in the last, the years 2010, 11 and 12, also in fifth place. That's ahead of Cuba, including all refugees from Cuba. All types of visas and so on. So this, to me, is a very telling statistic in terms of the escape valve that has served well different Dominican governments over the years. And as a matter of fact, to some degree also explains the relationship, the economic relationship with Haiti in terms of the lower wage, scale wage, Haitians that are coming into the Dominican Republic and Dominicans that are leaving. But we have no time to go into that at the moment. Now, I think it would be important, it's important to mention that what's happening in the Dominican Republic is, to some degree, a regional phenomenon, as well. Not the Dominican Republic alone. And I think the context is important. If you look, for example, talking about re-election. In the 2009, 2012 electoral, presidential electoral cycle in Latin America, out of the 18 elections that took place, 10 were re-elections or the official party continued in power, more than half. Of those 10, 5 were continuous re-elections. Now, in the next cycle, which began this year, 2013 through 2018, there are already one Ecuador and probably another one, although it's not consecutive, but re-election in Chile in a few days. Next year, four possible re-elections, Colombia, Brazil, Uruguay, and Bolivia, of which three of those are consecutive, would be consecutive. So, the concentration of power, I think you all know what is happening in many countries throughout Latin America. So, unfortunately, this is a regional-wide phenomenon that is occurring. Then, in the case of the Dominican Republic, the context, you have to look at what is going on in the last 20, 25 years as well. In terms of re-elections, basically the three major parties, one of them is no longer a major party, the reformist party of Balaguer is a minor, very minor party now, but they have all attempted, the main leaders have attempted continuous re-election throughout the last three decades. So, it isn't a single party that is responsible for the current tendencies, although there are certain specific qualities to the current tendency that I will explain. So, Balaguer was in power for 22 years. The PRD, most of them have attempted, of the presidents at the PRD party have attempted re-election at one point or another. He had changed the constitution in 2002 to allow his own attempted re-election, which he lost in 2004. So, there is a context to what is happening at the moment. One of the concerns, for example, my mind, for example, is President Fernandez' statement, that the PLD is a factory or a machine for the fabrication of presidents, and that it is going to, his words, gravitate over the Dominican politics until first, he said, until 2036. Then, a little bit later, he amended and said until 2044, because that would be the bicentennial, Dominican bicentennial. Given the current situation in the Dominican Republic, the fact that he's been president three times, that he's already gearing up for a fourth attempt in 2016, this, and given the current state of the opposition, it creates a tremendous unease in those that consider that the alternation in power, the change of parties, is absolutely necessary for a democratic process. Now, let me show you something about corruptions in the Dominican Republic and the importance of corruption in politics and drug trafficking and throughout the entire Dominican society. First, you have what, Transparency International, the Last Corruption Perceptions Index, has ranked the Dominican Republic 118 of 176 countries. World Economic Forum, ranked the Dominican Republic 105 out of 148, this is the latest, with a score of 3.76 out of 7, only Honduras, Paraguay, Venezuela, and Haiti, ranked lower than the DR. The most problematic factor for doing business in DR cited is corruption. Now, I pulled out, this is the first pillar in institutions that the World Economic Forum uses in order to reach the score, out of a rank of 148, in terms of diversion of public funds, the Dominican Republic ranks 142, public trust in politicians, 143, judicial independence, 131, favoritism and decision of government officials, 145, wastefulness of government spending, 138, reliability of police services, 143. Now, I need to state at this point in time that it doesn't make me happy to be sort of showing this score here. It is, as a Dominican, I feel tremendously ashamed. And if I do so, is with the hope that by denouncing this situation, change will eventually come about. You have probably all heard of WikiLeaks, I gather. These are just two samples, of numerous samples of cables out of the U.S. Embassy. One, 2008, regarding Forbes Energy, proposed investment in sugarcane. Forbes official told Ambassador Fannin that a cabinet, one cabinet minister, had asked them for $10 million to get all necessary permits. That allegation of that cabinet minister, that cabinet minister is a high government officials in the current administration. Another one, regarding Advent International, said that the U.S. Embassy that a government of the DR official had harassed, threatened, sought bribes from the company. And it goes on. This is what the Embassy reported that the Advent experience is unfortunately typical of foreign investors who arrive in the DR. And it goes on to say that another Dominican told the economic officer at the Embassy that this other company, Advent, needed to a term that refers to learning to behave like a Dominican in order to survive. Then the Embassy says, yet if Dominican government officials wish to attract and retain foreign investors, they cannot require these investors to participate in the rampant corruption of negocios a platanados Dominican business. It is the local business climate that needs to reform not the foreign investors. And this is the latest 2012 investment climate statement in the Dominican Republic State Department you can basically find it yourself. It is the same gist of what I was saying before. Now, what is, is this anything new? Corruption? Corruption is everywhere. Corruption is not sort of an exclusive domain of the Dominican Republic. However, what is unique in the DR, almost unique, is the level of impunity. The institution that I had now published this report in 2004, 20 years of impunity looked at 155 cases before that were before the courts for corruption. Of the 155 cases, only six reached a final decision. Five were acquitted and one was sentenced for a misdemeanor. That official, PRD official, by the way, was eventually pardoned. So this was 2004, almost 10 years ago. We're about to issue a report, a new report of corruption without punishment in the next month or two. It looks at all corruption denunciations in the press, in Dominican press, from 2000 through 2012, 76 cases, more or less. Of those 76 cases, very few individuals have gone to court, have been tried, have been sentenced, and those few that have are all lower-level officials. There is no high-level official in the Dominican Republic that is serving a sentence for corruption. None. Now, right now, for example, one of the things that is noted by a lot of people is how President Medina looked to Brazil during his campaign and said that Brazil was a model to follow. As you all know, in President Dilma's first two years in office, she fired seven cabinet ministers for rumors of corruption where they could not prove how they achieved their assets. There is no one, no official, in spite of the many allegations that has yet been fired or that is being investigated before a court. And it pulls to attention also that if you, I visited the anti-corruption unit four months ago or so, anti-corruption unit has six prosecutors, about eight vehicles, about ten officials, security members of the security forces that can accompany the attorneys throughout the country for these very difficult cases, they lack basic resources in order to persecute to go after corruption. Now, unfortunately, I'm going to have to cut this shorter because they're judicial independence. I cannot prove to you, I can't show you one document that will demonstrate to you that the judicial power lacks the higher courts lack political independence. I can't prove it to you. However, I am reminded of that old saying, you know, the duck test, if it walks like a duck, if it squawks like a duck, et cetera, you know it. There are many instances, for example, the Sunland case, which is a case that was a government contract for a loan, that was 132 million, more or less, loan. It went up before the Supreme Court in 08 because the allegation was that it had not received a congressional sanction approval. Well, the person involved was a very influential member of the government, who is currently a senator. The decision of the Supreme Court at the time was basically said, yes, there was a violation, very short sentence. It should have gone before the Congress. However, the people bringing the case before the court have no legal standing, and because they do not have any legal standing, we dismissed the case. The case was absolutely dismissed. Such as that, I can go through several other cases, none as notorious as that one, but other cases. And in terms of political issues, the Electoral Tribunal recently, last year, year and a half, has automatically, almost systematically awarded, given in its decisions, the current head of the PRD, who it is alleged has, he is the one who signed the blue ties pact with President Fernandez in 2009. It is alleged that he has basically reached an agreement with the official party, with the government, and he is not opening the party up to a convention, an open convention, as such. We will see. It's slated to be held in February. But what it's telling is that all of, all decisions of the high courts are in his favor. Now, the most, to me, serious situation, however, is the Dominican economy. I'm not going to have time now to go through this. The, what, the average taxes, whether it's individual or corporate taxes, or value-added taxes, the level of inefficiency or evasion, or exemptions are such that the Dominican government, the fiscal pressure is much lower than it should be, than the average throughout Latin America. As you can see, they should, the Dominican government should be collecting seven and a half percent of GDP between income taxes and VAT. I'm sorry, it's collecting seven and a half when it should be collecting 11 percent. 270,000 jobs were created between 2012 of these. The state was responsible for almost 65 percent of them. The Dominican economy is not creating the jobs that is required in order for growth, real growth to take place. And here is an issue which is at the core of the deficits. You see the light green area there are the interest on the debt that the central bank has to pay for the banking crisis that happened in 2003. The banking crisis, President Mejia at the time made the decision to pay all account holders regardless of the amounts that they owed. This amount of money is growing and there is no solution. The government has as of yet to find a solution as to how to address this ever-growing issue. Now what does this mean? What this means is that public debt is between public debt and subsidies for electricity and other issues, more than half of the budget is going into those two sectors and only, as you can see, 191 million pesos into public services. This is a difficult, rigid situation that we definitely need to be addressed. And in order to address this issue, you need vibrant political parties. You need political parties that are democratic, that hold conventions open and allow the winners to be based on merit, to rise up through the ranks and that is what is not happening now, even within the PLD. The PLD, the 27 members of the political committee have been in office, have been leading the PLD since 2006 now. And they themselves, well, they were elected by the Central Committee but they, at their behest, until 2016, 27 individuals. Now what they're talking about is increasing the membership by six. And the debate is who will be the three that President Medina will nominate and the three that President Fernandez will propose. And I'm going to close at the moment by saying, look, President Medina has the highest standing at the moment of any president in Dominican history. I think it's 88% according to Mitovsky political consultants. You know, you can't argue with that level of popularity. And but the PLD is an essential party to Dominican democracy, as well as the PRD, both of them. Both of them need to open up, both need to democratize. And the law that Carl mentioned, the law on political parties is fundamental. Without that law, there is no accountability whatsoever for the political parties. On financing, the monies they receive, the uses of those monies, whether it be state money or private money, so that is an essential law. Another one is a law on sworn statements of net worth, of public officials, and illicit enrichment. Those two laws, the political parties law has been in Congress for 14 years. And neither, none of the parties have really wanted to approve it. None of them. But it is a central now. Look at what's been happening, I'm sorry, to the deficits in electoral years. Last year, last one on the right, in 2008, presidential elections. The use of state resources have been rampant. And I'm not saying this. You can look at the OAS reports going back to 2004, and even before that. So this is not just the PLD, but as well the PRD, and other parties that have misused state resources. So those two laws are essential in order for accountability to take place. And the opening up, the democratization of the leadership, of the election of the leadership of the PLD and the PRD, both parties is fundamental. Thank you. Usually at this part of our events, I would ask a whole bunch of questions. But we've gone over a little bit. And what I wanted to do is sort of skip that portion and just open it up for questions from the audience. And sort of start a conversation, which I think you would appreciate. So I open it up to you now in the audience. The microphones up here in the front. Yeah. Thank you. Good morning. And thank you for the opportunity to ask. Just wait a second. Let me try that microphone and see maybe it's a volume issue. I think it's going to do the same thing. Okay. One, two, one, two. It's still the same. Hold on one second. Thank you. Better now. Okay. Okay. Well, as director Carl, how do you pronounce your last name? Mission. Mission already said. Roberto is a ambassador, former ambassador Roberto Alvarez. He's a knowledgeable person, well-familiar with the work of the foundation for the global foundation as a close friend of President Fernandez. And as a former ambassador, well-familiar with the Dominican government guidelines towards corruption that he pointed out. And as he properly recognized, it's a problem for probably all over Latin America and probably worldwide problem. So we just want to hear Ambassador Alvarez's position about the other works, like the academic works and cultural works that the global foundation performed in the Dominican Republic, as well as the official government position to where those problems he pointed out. Thank you. Let's take more questions from the audience, and we'll answer them all together. Thank you very much. My name is Flavio Medina. I'm for the PLD, representing here in the Tri-State area. And I'm here with the President of the party, which is Francisco Cruz sitting right there right now. We just want to make some statements because we are now agreed with the notion of one party state that is presented today in this presentation. We have any reason why we disagree with this. And one of them is the first government of the PLD was in 1996, 2000. President Fernandez after 2000, he didn't promote any constitutional changes to President Fernandez. However, when the PRD won the presidency in 2000, they were the one who promoted changes, constitutional changes for the only reason to stay in power. So when we won again the election in 2004, President Fernandez had the option to be re-elected because the PRD was the one who promote that change. So we did. And also because we fulfill good governance, something that has been in power in the office. And yes, they promote a lot of corruption. This is something that we should be debating in a different forum because we are talking about a lot of things. We are throwing everything in one basket. We are talking about political reform. We are talking about economic issues. We are talking about corruption. I think we should be debating this separately. I want to thank President Fernandez and also I want to recognize his professionalism and his capacity. But coming back to business, we believe that the reason why the PRD is in the opposition is because of a problem that is rooted deeply within the PRD party. And one of the problem is the lack institution, they don't want to strengthen the community from within. So it's a weak party. They have a lot of division. They have a lot of groups. At the end of the day, nobody knows who's going to support who. And it's really a mess. And the second reason is they need to come up. They need to come up with promote leadership within the party. They don't have leaders and the PRD. And this is not the PLD falls that this is happening. This is not the people fall that this has happened. This is not even the country. Okay, we can promote a party law that he was promoting in 2000 during the political government. And they didn't pass it to the Congress because they didn't want to do that. So now they want to force the PLD to do it. They want to force the PLD to do this stuff and benefits the majority of the people. So I want to cut it right there, but I just want to say that it is amazed me in a way because it was ambassador to the OAS during the government of PLD. Talking about corrections, I think we all have to share to share the PLD in the past 20 years. He showed a book and I would like to know when that book was published because he go back 20 years. And even before publics in 2004, that means the big piece of the share is not even part of the PLD government when we were in office. And also, President Fernandez, to damage the reputation of President Fernandez and to damage the reputation of the PLD because President Fernandez most likely is going to be elected again president in 2016. And they're starting with this campaign since the Dominican Republic. So we want to play that publicly and I hope you can take that to the bank. Thank you very much for your opinion. Do you want to respond to that in the middle? Sergei Kostaev, Russia-Moscow scholar. We also have huge problems corruption in Russia and we share this disease, let's say. I have a very simple question, a couple of maybe several years ago there was a free trade agreement between Dominican Republic and United States. Did that free trade agreement had any positive effect on economic and political development in the Dominican Republic? Thanks. One question over here. Real quick question Roger Noriega with the American Enterprise Institute. Congratulations Carl on the terrific work and Ambassador Alvarez on your presentation. President Fernandez has a very good reputation in the United States and is considered a good friend and this is why this is sort of an important but sort of surprising revelation. When you and everybody understands that his party is very popular in the current president, PLD president is very popular, but when you see 2010 elections, congressional elections where they win 41% of the vote, but get all but one of 33 senators, I mean there's clearly something sort of unusual. And one specific question on recently the Washington Post wrote about a Supreme Court decision disadvantaging Haitian descendants who are Dominican citizens essentially calling into question their citizenship and tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands may lose their citizenship and their right to vote. This is, I'm not quite sure about this, but friends of mine have told me that the Haitian Dominicans of Haitian ancestry are overwhelmingly PRD supporters. Do you have any sense of whether this decision was politically motivated? Does the PLD have that kind of influence and is there any empirical evidence that they have a sense over the way the Supreme Court might have ruled? Thanks, Roger. Any other questions before we answer? Okay. Look, Fungalode does a lot of good work. Is that what I've taught at Fungalode? And so what can I tell you? Now, that is the reality and now another issue is the questioning that has taken place as to how where the funds came from for the construction. There were allegations that undue influence was used on contractors in order to, now all of these cases were dismissed or dismissed through the courts. They went through the court system and that's what happened now. The PRD, I think that maybe Flavio was not listening all the time that I was talking because I clearly said that this is an issue corruption that has taken place in the Dominican Republic throughout sort of many years and I said this report was published in 2004 and it was 20 years of impunity so it would have been 1983 or 2004 so you know who was in power through those years. Now, the thing is that this level of impunity continues today and it doesn't happen that level of impunity is not the same everywhere. I can point to countries where former presidents have been in jail in Latin America or many cabinet ministers I mentioned the case of Brazil. What I'm talking about is impunity. The level of impunity is rampant in the Dominican Republic and until we overcome that and understand it and overcome it, we will not be able to eliminate all of the economic woes that we have but in addition even drug trafficking. For example, we have drug cartels like you have in Mexico or Colombia it's not that way that it happens in the Dominican Republic. You cannot move a leaf in the Dominican Republic without the security forces the armed forces knowing about it. So until we address corruption and people start going to jail for corruption there is recently the other day you may have seen in the Wall Street Journal an allegation that in the sale of some airplanes that a Dominican colonel was paid off. Well, I hope that it's investigated and this is a serious allegation. I hope we'll see. Now, in terms of the constitutional court I don't know of any evidence whatsoever that has been politically tainted none whatsoever. There have been allegations to that respect but I know of no credible evidence to that respect the decision is I find it disastrous personally. I think unacceptable. We have issued the institution that I represent has issued a statement to this respect and I hope that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is going to the Dominican Republic soon. Hopefully they're negotiating a date and hopefully a solution will be quickly found in this situation based on the constitutional court's decision and the commitments that the Dominican state freely assumed when it signed all human rights treaties. Sure, and I would just elaborate just with facts the perception is clear that there is a dominance of the PLD and every branch of government is members wise. You have 31 of the country's 32 senators or PLD members you have the National Council of Magistrates, the body that appoints the country's judiciary and prosecutors being mostly of the ruling party then you have the majority of the congress being of the ruling party and then you have the vice president of the country being the wife of the former president these are just facts I mean it's factual. I'm not arguing the why the how but that's just the fact. On the issues that have to do with the FTA I would say that the more that there is an environment where you question the regulatory strength that it bodes poorly for people wanting to invest in Dominican Republic and we do have a state agreement which is a very positive thing it was done when you were assistant secretary Roger and it's a positive thing this is something that Americans all over the political spectrum they like it, they promote it it's good for us, it's good for Dominican Republic but if you can't really rely on how you do business in the DR it becomes less and less attractive of a place to go for commercial interests okay thanks very much and I have to say that I'm really happy that the CSI is taking so much of interest on the DR so in less than a week we have two events on the DR so this is something new this is the ambassador of DR and also I want to congratulate you for the new offices I mean this is wonderful and you know corruption is a problem in the DR we can't deny it and we have to work to try to correct it we have to find solutions we have to fight against impunity I mean there is no doubt about that we all agree on that but also we have to look at corruption as it is in the DR and I will say that it's a system based on a coalition coalition of forces that's why the last report by the State Department of the DR when they talk about corruption it says that corruption comes from both the public and the private sector and if you look at the polls in the DR corruption never comes to the forefront it's one of those forgotten issues in the agenda in the public agenda in the country so that's why for the people in the DR so the recent strong current of thought against corruption because it's not important because people look at corruption as a part of everyday life that doesn't mean as I said before that we don't have to fight against corruption and we have to fight hard and I think that Danilo Medina is doing that I think he's doing that Roberto, my friend mentioned these allegations coming from Brazil on the Tucano sale to the DR and it's been investigated in the Dominican Republic already so this is a good sign that you'll see some results on the other hand I can't comment on the report the Dominican Republic becoming one part of the state because I haven't had the opportunity to read it and to study it and I don't want to make the mistake so many people concerning the sentence passed by the Constitutional Court that they are talking I'm talking about the sentence and they haven't read it and they are talking here say and that's why there are so many misconceptions about the sentence but I'm going to say a politically incorrect phrase Church de la Famba so if you look at the appendix of the meetings if you read the names it will be very hard for me to say that this report is no biased out of routine names 10 names or 9 names belong to people from the position section of the DR and I want to say something about those people so because all of you probably don't know those people who they are first of all, Pastor Rosario Dames he's a friend of mine he's a journalist but also he was the ghost writer for Ipolito Medina in the last electoral campaign Henry Molina was belong to Roberto Alvarez, he's independent Francisco Vito Dominguez Visano he's the party the reformist party allied of the government but he's against that alliance he's been very outspoken against the government Orlando Jemera incorrectly said here that he's a secretario general de partido revolucionario dominicano no, he was expelled from the party and that and that was upheld by the electoral court in the Dominican Republic Guillermo Carrán is also another dissident Guillermo Moreno and Cristobas Rodríguez they are together so Guillermo Moreno is the person he's obsessed with the persecution of President Fernandez and he's the one behind the allegations that the Fundación Funglo was used for based on corruption so I don't think he's a very relevant source if you want to have an independent opinion about what's going on in the Dominican Republic Jorge Subero Issa he was a former president of the Supreme Court but also he's very unhappy because he wasn't re-elected to the post Lisa Vinader, he belongs to the PID Hippolyte Tomahina is the future candidate for the PRD and Jose Monero he's a journalist and I have no complaints about him so 9 out of 14 can we believe that this is a no bias to report? I don't know, I have to read it thanks very much I appreciate you giving your perspective of the folks that we met with we met with as you know we met with the president of the Constitutional Tribunal we met with the member they a member of the Junta Central Electoral we met with Henry Molina that works for the president we made a very concerted effort to meet with folks in the government folks that were dissenters as you mentioned and we met with folks in the media in the civil society so it's not like usually people in the civil society are folks that speak freely and have a different kind of agenda than you would say folks in either the party structure and we heard some pretty strong things and I think that in the interest of trying to keep things pretty fact based and moderate we omitted a lot of statements going from either sides as you know sir because these things happen in the DR there's a lot of gossip and rumor and allegations we tried to stick to the things that we thought had the most substance behind it and so that sort of explains that I don't make any sort of apologies for the group I think that it was a very diverse group that we met with and we looked forward to your comments I mean it would be great to hear what your views are of our report and our views and as mentioned this is the first of two events that we will be having and we would love you to have a prominent role or if there's anyone that you would recommend for that next session we welcome that sorry may I suggest that you invite someone from the official sector to talk about this constitution ruling? we have submitted invitations to the president's office already okay perfect, thank you we are going to take hold on one second how many people want to ask questions so we can sort of we are going to go with these last four no just a quick one and then we're going to have to shut it off because we have gone over and I think this has been an excellent session and I wouldn't want to stop anyone from giving their opinions but I only see four hands and I'm going to take four hands okay thank you Carl Hector Shami Georgetown this is just a general comment the issue aside from corruption I think corruption in the region is a symptom, a symptom of deeper things number one, number two whenever you go to any data set on the easiness of doing business and corruption is a symptom of the difficulty of doing business in Latin America regulations, permits all the things you mentioned there and the Dominican Republic is pretty much in the same neighborhood with many many countries in the region and this is important because it highlights that the current economic growth in the region is overwhelmingly based on the commodity boom given all that you go to the World Bank you go to Bertelsmann transformation index and so on and so forth the difficulties of doing business of investment, of getting the permits of dealing with corruption and so on and so forth all of that suggests that when prices change and prices always change and we've seen these booms in the past then there are many many countries that will not be able to sustain this level of growth in this context and it will come down to those countries that have credible rules, predictability and investment friendly climate and so on and so forth, low corruption however you want to call it I'm saying this because this has had in the region this incredible boom in terms of trade that many countries have not seen in history or in many generations once prices change it's going to be a complicated political situation because this boom this excess amount of resources that many countries have had over the last 5, 10 years have all this boom has trickled down over politics and has allowed many governments to think to play around with institutions and to use that to in one way or another manage to stay longer in power than they were originally elected or perpetrated the dominance of the party however you want to call it and this is the moment in which the economies are going to start slowing down and the politics are going to become unstable in Latin America and we're talking about the moment the cycle begins to change and this is looking forward an even more pessimistic perhaps perception but something to start looking at and start worrying about in anticipation of bad years to come thank you in the middle here Ralph Nuremberger with Georgetown University first your report is excellent and your opening comment raised the question and that is what can the United States do to try and deal with this problem and the second problem is narco-trafficking is there anything that can be done to reduce or eliminate that my name is Jonathan Rossin my law firm Rossin Vecche Eredio Bonetti has an office in the Dominican Republic and we face these questions of corruption on a daily basis Ambassador Alvarez you have been studying corruption outside the Dominican Republic in a number of other contexts I think here in the United States as I look around and I look at the difference between what our administrations have done with the first savings and loan association scandal in the United States and what the current administration is doing with the mortgage scandal of 2008 my question is is it really a down solution does not the executive himself have to demonstrate a resolution not to tolerate corruption in order to be able to weed out the system you looked at the example in Brazil there it's the president who has made the effort as you look at the Dominican Republic is the only way that you can really get to corruption by having the top person in the government make it no longer tolerable thank you so much for having this discussion today my name is Regina Morales I'm a graduate student at American University and my question you touched on it for just a moment is about civil society organizations in the Dominican Republic you spoke about the impunity of high level officials and the lack of accountability in the country and in many ways civil society is seen as kind of the demand side of accountability so I was hoping you guys could speak a little bit to how active civil society is within the country the Dominican Republic is not one of those countries that has benefited from the commodity boom that is not where we are major exports are not any of the ones that South American countries actually this is one of the ways that the two Americas are sort of have been differentiated there is a very good study that the IDB did on two Americas two Latin Americas one the commodity driven South America and another one is those closer those countries closer to the United States that depend on a number of other their economies depend on tourism remittances and now a number of them also mining is becoming a very important component now where the Dominican Republic is going where we are running into an issue has to do the 2008 was paradoxically was a boom for countries because of easy credit quantitative easing in the United States opened up a flow of cash a lot of money flowed also the private sector in the U.S. in the U.S. in the U.S. in the U.S. we are easy to get this is changing as we all know interest rates are going up starting to go up in the developed world and the sources of funding is going to dry up for a country such as the Dominican Republic that has been depending on whether his target for this year deficit target is 3% of GDP last year it was we don't know some the IMF at one point said it was 8% up to 8% but the thing is we have not been told yet exactly what the deficit for 2012 was we don't know but anyway in how to sort of transit this particular cycle that we are going to go through the I will leave the U.S. and NARCO up to you the I think Jonathan you are absolutely right until the president steps down on corruption and the strongest signal and that signal needs to be accompanied with the resources for prosecutors to be able to go after corruption until you have both business as usual is going to continue unfortunately I just don't see in a country where presidential power is so large so vast and so important the message from the president has to be unequivocal unequivocal vocal and civil society you know we the institution that I preside now decided many years ago that it would be just for one year and we shun the term president or secretary general that's why we call ourselves general coordinators fortunately it's for a year because there's no more consuming work than voluntary work get paid not one cent we get phone calls from the press from international organizations tons of calls every day and the reason that the journalists themselves and the international organizations tell us openly is there is no political opposition no real viable political opposition so the pressures on civil society are much greater than ever so is there a vibrant civil society somewhat but still dispersed and very and usually most of the NGOs are very focused on one issue and not enough linkages across themes in the society regarding your questions I would say what the U.S. can do to deal with I guess the drug trafficking and the other issues the corruption which is what came out I'd say on the drug trafficking the focus on the country's ill-policed coast as a drug transit area is a big issue we may be working together to beef up their maritime borders would be an area that we should be focusing on as far as other issues dealing with corruption I think these are Dominican problems and they demand Dominican solutions the people of Dominican Republic should be at the forefront of all this but I think the United States can play a role as a partner especially in the working that have to do with the political party law and any issues related to that in order to sort of create a fair even playing ground for all of these parties I think that a lot of the issues that have been raised today are positive I think this conversation should be happening in the DR and I think that as much as we can serve as a framework we can engage to have that happen and build awareness I think we're doing our part and I think that's really positive but at the end of the day it's Dominicans that need to be leading these conversations it's Dominicans that need to be coming up with these solutions to conclusion on some of these difficult issues it's not going to be easy especially given that this has been going on for such a long time and there's so many entrenched interests so I would just thank everybody once again that the report is on our website it's at csis.org forward slash Americas and it's under the publication section I want to thank Roberto for your time for going over the time that we agreed on and I want to thank all of you for coming to this launching we appreciate it and thank you very much thank you