Candidate joins growing rebuke of U.S. funded naval station on island

SANTO DOMINGO.- Minority party Alliance Country presidential candidate Guillermo Moreno is the latest to join the growing chorus of sectors that rebuke the construction of a U.S. financed naval station on Saona Island, announced Monday by Dominican military and US Embassy officials.

On Thursday Moreno vowed to defend Dominican soil “at all cost” and warned that the facility to be built on Saona Island "would be a violation of the national laws and a threat against the local flora and fauna."

Quoted by news source diariolibre.com, the political leader said Saona’s residents and merchants fear eviction from their lands and losing their sources of income and jobs.

He said the fact that more than 3,000 tourists visit Saona daily, a military base would curtail income in foreign currency and have a negative impact on tourism.

Nonetheless the US Embassy affirmed in a statement issued Tuesday that it would the Dominican Navy and not its military which would be in command of the facility, whose main purpose they said is to increase vigilance over drug trafficking and illegal crossings.