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1994. The Dominican Republic.Not a very well focused shot, and for good reason.
It was taken from inside a moving car. These folks were pretty upset and they had a right to be. The results of
their presidential election had been postponed while the votes were "recounted." The results of the recount showed
that the populist candidate, Pena Gomez, had lost by a narrow margin and the CIA-backed puppet president,
Joachim Balaguer- 87 years old and blind- was declared the winner just as he had been in previous so-called
free elections. International observers concurred that the election was rigged and the predictable response you
see in this picture followed. You'd be mad too.
Author William Blum wrote, “Joachin Balaguer… ruled…his
people in the grand Latin American style: The rich became richer and the poor had babies, hungry babies; democracy remained
an alien concept; the police and military regularly kidnapped, tortured and murdered opponents of the government and terrorized
union organizers. But the man was not, personally, the monster that Trujillo was. There was relative calm and peace. No ‘communist
threat’ hovered over the land. The pot was sweetened for foreign investors, and American corporations moved in with
big bucks. There was stability and order. And the men who ran the United
States looked and were satisfied.”
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