Tens of thousands march over corruption in Dominican Republic

Tens of thousands march over corruption in Dominican Republic

Demonstrators, mostly young and dressed in the green color of the country's environmental movement, overflowed across a six-lane thoroughfare in Santo Domingo, waving the red, blue and white Dominican flag as they chanted demands for the president and other top officials to resign.

The protest was the biggest of seven demonstrations since January that followed an investigation revealing executives from Brazilian engineering company Odebrecht paid $92 million in bribes to officials from the poor country that shares a Caribbean island with the even more impoverished Haiti.

"The people have no legal recourse, we have no one to represent us. But the government can't repress them," said businessman Ivan Veloz Cabral, a 69-year-old owner of a small sportswear factory.

Odebrecht has paid $184 million in damages related to the bribery charges and 14 top officials and businessmen have been indicted in the case that has stirred up deep-seated anger over decades of suspected government corruption.