Prominent ecologists also rebuke US-proposed naval station

SANTIAGO.- The prestigious Cibao Ecological Society (Soeci) Thursday rebuked the construction of a naval station and a pier in the Saona island announced Monday by the Government and the United States Embassy, which said it would be used to thwart drug and people trafficking.

The environmental organization said the military facility jeopardizes the ecology and sovereignty, and is incompatible with the preservation of the island’s natural resources, “whose environmental impacts we’d regret in posterity.”

In press conference, SOECI president Andres Blanco said the true roots of the illegal traffic of controlled substances and of people to Puerto Rico need to be sought out.

“First of all we had to ask why the illegal trips take place so frequently and in plain sight. Why do their promoters and organizers act with so much freedom and impunity? Why do accomplices related to law enforcement agencies figure in them so often? Or simply why are drug trafficking and the crime derived from it are engulfing the country?,” Blanco said.

The environmental organization called on president Leonel Fernandez to halt the action it called “ignominious,” and on the population to rebuke by the means available the attempt against sovereignty and against the National Park of the East.

“The United States has never disguised its intention to install military bases in the Dominican Republic and to use them as an instrument of domination. An American military base, overt or covert, would grossly jeopardize the Dominican Constitution, guarantor of our national sovereignty,” added SOECI