Summary: Americans hate cover-ups, the Aruba boycott may
therefore have a comeback.
Boycott Watch previously uncovered
a campaign by Aruba to cover up the affects of the boycott against the island
nation triggered by the disappearance of Natalee Holloway on May 30, 2005. (See
the previous Boycott Watch reports regarding this case:
here,
here,
here,
here,
here, and
here.) The Boycott
Watch reports showed that Aruban tourism officials told the public that tourism
was up despite the boycott because, as they said, "now everybody knows Aruba."
The fact, however, is that tourism to Aruba was down and it caused the Aruban
economy to sink between 6 to 8 percent according to the Central Bank of Aruba,
a story exclusively broke by Boycott Watch.
Now, in
November 2007, Aruba again took action in the Natalee Holloway case, and
Boycott Watch questions the timing, as the arrests came after the conclusion of
the sales season for the winter vacation packages. Aruba has two major
industries, tourism and hand cream, the latter of which is mainly sold to
tourists. With such a fragile economy, any disturbance of the tourism industry
can cause massive economic devastation to Aruba, so Aruba has a vested interest
in delaying any such actions as not to hurt themselves.
The problem here is twofold: Justice delayed is
justice denied as well as actions that can only be described as a cover-up.
Americans do not like cover-ups. The Nixon presidency was brought down not by
Watergate, but by the cover-up. Martha Stewart's stock fraud case was about the
cover-up just as was the Lewis "Scooter" Libby / Valerie Plame case. Americans
do not like being lied to and history has shown that Americans will pursue such
cases until the end.
The Aruba boycott died down as
the Natalee Holloway case vanished from the news. Then Aruba launched a massive
"Come to Aruba" campaign featuring TV commercials, for example, on Fox News the
cable network which one can argue pursued the Natalee Holloway case more than
any other network. The return of the case to the news with more questions,
therefore, can and most probably will result in a resurgence of the Aruba
boycott.
Aruba can't afford a second boycott against
them because the first one devastated their economy. Additionally, Boycott
Watch questions if the so called "new evidence" is actually something new, or
is the evidence something that was covered up in the initial investigation. We
question this because Aruba's tourism officials publicly claimed, a stated
above, "now everybody knows Aruba," thus a boost in tourism.
The fact remains that Aruba lied to the public, and
as such we should question their other statements and actions related to
tourism. If someone is found to have lied in court, their complete testimony is
suspect, and that should be the case here. Aruba has shown that it will cover
the truth in an effort to protect their tourism industry. As such, there is no
reason why we should not expect Aruba to take other actions in this case to
protect tourism, including delaying announcements related to prosecution or
even withhold evidence which can hurt their tourism.
Aruba must have hoped that the case would have disappeared in the minds of
Americans but Aruba knows that they must resolve this case in the off season in
order to protect their economy, something they are very mindful of. It is
therefore in Aruba's best interests to solve the case quickly now that the
winter vacation package sales season is over in order to keep it from affecting
the next winter tourism sales season. Boycott Watch predicts Aruba will try to
keep to a timeline to match that.
Fred Taub, the
Boycott Watch spoke about this issue on Your World with Neil Cavuto on Fox
News, Thursday November 29, 2007. You can see the video here:
See the Newest video of Fred Taub on Your World with
Neil Cavuto on Fox News, Tuesday December 18, 2007. You can see the video
here:
