Widow demands Government compliance 18 years after professor vanished

Santo Domingo.- To mark the 18th anniversary of university professor and journalist Narciso Gonzalez’s (Narcisazo) disappearance, relatives and friends attended a memorial in the Santo Domingo State University to demand the Government’s compliance with the Inter-American Human Rights Court’s ruling to continue the probe and punish those responsible.

Gonzalez’s wife Altagracia Ramirez (Tati) said they await the Government’s response to the sentence which in her view is an important advance in the case, but which has yet to be complied with.

The Court based in Costa Rica sentenced the Dominican State to pay US$395,000 in damages (more than RD$15 million), on being found guilty for the professor’s forced disappearance.

Ramirez said the sentence for the González family is also for all Dominicans.

“We’ll neither forget nor forgive, justice now,” read the protesters’ pickets and banners, accompanied by musicians.

“Until all the intellectual and material, civilian and military people responsible go to jail, it will neither be conclusive nor satisfactory,” Ramirez said amid chants from the group as they walked toward the Justice Ministry offices.