Aruba Dirty Police runs a translation of an article appearing in Aruba's newspaper, Diario today.

The article tells of a 16 year old female raped at school by her school mates while some took pictures of the rape with their cell phones. Disgusting.

What's even more disgusting is that her parents are afraid of further harm to her reputation by simply reporting the matter to Aruban police. After we've seen what the Aruban police did and didn't do in the Natalee Holloway case, we can understand. Her family may know that they don't have the power and the perpertrators of the crime do.

I encourage you to read the full article and see just one more reason to never set foot on the Island of Aruba.

The tourism numbers have finally been released (at least in part) for Aruba for the 2nd quarter of 2006. From Amigoe, July 24, 2006

"Fewer passengers in second quarter

ARUBA  Compared to the second quarter of last year, 5 percent less people traveled via the airport of Aruba, but the number of flights increased with 11 percent.

Compared with last year, the drop in passengers in the first six months of this year was 9 percent and the number of flights increased with 4 percent. The number of passengers from the US dropped with 11.5 percent and from Europe with 11.5 percent. The number of passengers from Colombia increased with 14.3 percent and from the Neth.Antilles with 9.6 percent.

Aruba Airport Authority (AAA) indicated that the increase of the number of flights is especially attributed to the increasing number of private-planes via General Aviation. Compared with the second quarter of 2005, the number of private airplanes increased with 74 percent.

Other reasons for the increased number of flights are that Arkefly increased her flights from Amsterdam, Continental from La Guardia, and Avianca and DAE that also increased their number of flights. Also the launching of Tiara is noticeable in the figures.

Airline Company JetBlue announced that effective September 16th, it will start daily flights from New Yorks John F. Kennedy Airport. AAA hopes that with this airlink, more tourists will come to Aruba this fall."

Now why would there be increased traffic from Columbia? Oh, that's right, drugs come from Columbia and Aruba's news about drug addicts all over the place may have attracked them! We see the following in Amigoe for the same day:

"CURACAO  The annual report of the National Police Corps services that was published earlier this year reports that the Detective Collaboration Team (RST) that is working in the Antilles and Aruba, has enhanced the collaboration with Venezuelan- and Colombian investigation authorities.

The operations of the RST go together with an intensive collaboration; they therefore sought collaboration with partners in Colombia. That is necessary, because the dealings in narcotics often start in these kinds of countries....

Guess all that collaboration caused an increase in "tourists" from Columbia.

Psychopaths have to be people like Scott Peterson, OJ Simpson and Joran van der Sloot. They just go on with their life and nothing in their way of living shows any remorse or even consciousness of what they have done to the victim.

If I had been involved, even accidently, to anyone's death, I just can't imagine myself out at my old haunts partying it up a year later while the victim's family continues to grieve. I can't imagine myself on the golf course or writing to people interested in making a "love connection" with me, knowing all the pain and grief I brought on someone else.

What Makes a Psychpath?

"The hallmark of the psychopath is the inability to recognize others as worthy of compassion. Victims are dehumanized, flattened into worthless objects in the murderer's mind."

Well Joran's partying it up in Aruba certainly shows a lack of understanding for the misery that he's brought upon the common people of Aruba Beth Twitty, Dave Holloway and their family.

San Quention reports that Scott Peterson gets female visitors on a regular basis. Yet his wife, Lacy, and his soon to be born son, Connor, were brutally murdered and simply dumped in the San Fransico Bay. He has his own room, TV, 3 meals a day and time to work out and see visitors. Lacy and Connor lay in dark graves. Laci's family continues to morn the loss of their daughter and grandson.

We don't know exactly where Natalee's body is located. We don't know exactly what happened to Natalee, but we have some pretty good ideas. We do know that her body has not been returned in her family. We do know who was last seen with her. We also know that at one point Aruban police announced Natalee's death and a confession by one of the suspects which hours later was retracted with a flimsy excuse about a "mis-information campaign". Aruba has become quite well known in the last year for its "mis-information campaigns". We know that Natalee's family not only suffers her loss on a daily basis, but they continue to experience additional agony not knowing where she is, not being able to at least bring her home to Alabama and not seeing her killers (and most probably rapists)come to justice.

It's sad that Joran and his friends don't seem to feel a thing.

"Psychopaths/sociopaths are diagnosed by their purposeless and irrational antisocial behavior, lack of conscience, and emotional vacuity. They are thrill seekers, literally fearless. Punishment rarely works, because they are impulsive by nature and fearless of the consequences. Incapable of having meaningful relationships, they view others as fodder for manipulation and exploitation. According to one psychological surveying tool (DSM IIIR) between 3-5% of men are sociopaths; less than 1% of female population are sociopaths....

..."One carefully conducted experiment revealed that "low arousal levels" not only causes impulsiveness and thrill-seeking, but also showed how dense sociopaths are when it comes to changing their behavior"....

"Can psychopaths be successfully treated? According to the psychiatrists, "No." Shock treatment doesn't work; drugs have not proven successful in treatment; and psychotherapy, which involves trust and a relationship with the therapist, is out of the question, because psychopaths are incapable of opening up to others. They don't want to change."

Remind you of anyone?

Seems like Joran has a new blonde girl friend. Now just who would be so desparate for a guy that they would take up with Joran van der Sloot?

As far as Aruba's Tourism that we wrote about the other day? Well here's an update:

Scared Monkeys posts a resolution by the Aruban Tourist board that describes current tourism in Aruba with one word: "dire".

Aruba worries about tourism and wants to raise $13 million to promote tourism, while their "favorite son" returns to party for the summer in Aruba. Yes, that's Joran van der Sloot at Youth Xtreme at the Club Bahia on July 15, 2006, with his arms wrapped around a blonde. Of course the last blonde we remember seeing him with on May 29, 2005 is now presumed dead.

Yes, even though Aruba's economy has totally tanked, the guy who bears the largest responsibility for that tanked economy dances on, oblivious. Look around a bit and you will see some of Joran's "friends" sharing the fun as a family in Alabama still searches for clues as to what happened to their daughter that fateful night she left Carlos n Charlies with Joran van der Sloot, and Deepak and Satish Kalpoe. Also note that the Kalpoe brothers are conspiciously absent from this party. Apparently they are only invited when Joran needs transportation.

Also now available is a document put together by people at Blogs for Natalee detailing information from the investigation including snippets from Dave's book and early interviews before the three suspects had the opportunity to "refine" their stories. Some pretty telling stuff that Aruba wants everyone to forget. Fat change Aruba!

A July 14, 2006 article in Amigoe only goes to prove that Aruban officials are either totally clueless or more likely than not, pretending to be totally clueless.

"Development tourism calls for action

ARUBA  Andy Lee, commissioner for opposition party AVP and member of the permanent Parliamentary Committee for Tourism is of the opinion that the developments in the tourism are alarming and that it is time to reverse this negative development.

Lee indicated that the tourism in Aruba is the best indicator for economic growth, since the economy relies on the tourist sector. The number of visitors to Aruba had dropped since August of 2005, compared to the year before. In February and March of this year, the number of stay over tourists dropped with respectively 11.1 and 18.2 percent, compared with same months last year. Also the room occupancy in the hotels continues to drop and also the spending done by tourists during their vacation. It seems like this tendency is continuing and the developments that the airport noted, confirm this.

A consistent decrease in the export of tourism will lead to a decline of our economic situation in 2006. So, its time to take actions. Our challenge is now to proof that we can reverse this trend. The problems with the tourism are attributed to the economic- and tourist policy pursued in the past years. The economic return has to be realized by the growth of the number of tourists that spend less, or by fewer tourists that will spend more. The economic- and tourist policy has to aim for this development and this way realize more revenue from the tourism, said Lee.

Lee is of the opinion that the current trend is a clear signal to the minister of Tourism, to buckle down and work on the promotion of Aruba. He says that MEP must accept the responsibility and must support the necessary changes in the 2006 budget. This is the only way the economic interests of Aruba can be protected and guaranteed."

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell that Andy Lee is barking up the wrong tree, unless the minister of Tourism is the official calling the cover-up shots in the investigation of missing Alabama teen, Natalee Holloway. First investigators had a problem even saying her name, now they have a problem admitting that it was their outrageous conduct in the investigation of what happened to Natalee Holloway on May 30, 2005 that is the cause of the ever declining number of tourists entering their "happy little island" of corruption and deceit.

Aruba tried lying, telling the world that their tourism numbers were up. They were only fooling themselves. Tourism numbers dropped in single digits for the remainder of 2005. Aruban officials didn't get the message. Many Americans had already booked trips that could not be cancelled without penalty. As the months dragged on, Aruban officials tried the tactic of blaming Natalee's death on herself. The crowning nail in Aruba's coffin appears to have been Chief Gerald Dompig's appearance on the American TV program, 48 Hours where among other things Dompig contends he has a witness that Natalee purchased drugs while in Aruba.

What Dompig forgot to mention to the viewing audience was that his "witness" was none other than his lying, drug addict brother-in-law who had already proffered lying testimony against the two security guards initially arrested in the case.

But don't blame Gerald Dompig. He was neither the first, nor the last chief investigator who tried to blame both Natalee and her mother Beth Twitty for Natalee's death and the subsequent cover-ups. Nor was Chief Dompig the only investigator in the case who turned out to be related to the three prime suspects, Joran van der Sloot and Deepak and Satish Kalpoe. Jan van der Stratten, the first chief investigator is admittedly a long time great pal of Joran van der Sloot's father, Paulus van der Sloot. It is rumored that van der Stratten was even Joran's godfather. Next we learn that Dompig is cousins with prime suspects Deepak and Satish Kalpoe. As more suspects (most friends of the three prime suspects)were rounded up and questioned, more relationships were eventually revealed until it became totally confusing to recount just who in the investigation was related to which of the suspects.

The bottom line is that Aruba can point fingers, lie, make up tourism numbers and/or lie, tax their own people into the ground and hire new investigators while patting themselves on the back for all the money they are spending looking for Natalee Holloway, and spend even more money on tourism, but nothing will change until they:

1. Tell Natalee's parents what happened to their daughter on May 30, 2005;
2. Return Natalee's remains to her parents;
3. Arrest and prosecute those responsible for what happened to Natalee;
4. Bring the officials who lied and covered-up the investigation of Natalee's disappearance to justice;
5. Explain just who the person who appears to be Paulus van der Sloot on the casino video is and why he is sitting next to Natalee;
6. Remove all officials from office who either were involved in the cover-up or turned a blind eye to the cover-up.

I, personally, could never return to Aruba for a vacation. I cannot ever forget the hell that Beth Holloway Twitty and Dave Holloway have gone through. While the pain of losing their daughter is something that Aruban officials can not be held responsible for, the lies and dirt Aruban officials have tried to pile on Beth and Natalee are unexcusable. Just who could vacation peacefully in a place like that?

Read Paul Reynolds account of what the family was told on June 10, 2005. There WAS a confession. The police were told where Natalee's body was. Suddenly there was a retraction and now everyone in Aruba wants to pretend it never happened.

Yesterday, we told you Aruba was cooked.

Scared Monkeys runs a story today demonstrating yet another nail in Aruba's coffin. The long awaited and touted $200 million project by the Ritz Carlton to build a luxury hotel in Aruba has been scrapped.

It seems the Ritz Carlton is claiming that someone within the Aruban government lied to them. Shocking isn't it!

"The Ritz Carlton has informed the Aruban government that they are going back to their original plan for a high rise resort. The Ritz Carlton stated that the Aruban government has promised them incentives in granting them an exemption in paying import duties on building materials for the project. The Aruban government states that such an incentive is not legally possible because such a law was abolished in 2003."

Oh my. Guess the saying "Oh what a tangled web we weave when we practice to deceive" comes true again.

One of the fascinating things about this defuncted project is that the Ritz Carlton was to be built on the exact property where Joran van der Sloot contends he left missing Alabama teen, Natalee Holloway.

Stick a fork in Aruba, it's done, cooked through and through. As tourism numbers continue to trickle out, each number is lower than the one before.

CDNN runs another story about the dismal tourism numbers and questions whether previous reports by Aruba Truth (no longer on line strangely enough)were made up.

"While Aruba has had an increase in tourism for several years, there is a definite decline in tourism since the disappearance of Natalee Holloway."

There's no question that whether Aruba admits it or not, the fraud ridden investigation of missing Alabama teen, Natalee Holloway, who disappeared in Aruba on May 30, 2005, has had a major effect on tourism in Aruba. Aruba.com continues to proclaim the "happy little island" as safe and refuses to admit the declining numbers that are all too apparent to everyone else.

However, PR and lies aside, the numbers that are released from various sources in Aruba simply to not add up.

It may be that other potential tourist to Aruba feel the way I do. There was a time when I only considered not going to Aruba until answers were given to Natalee's family. Now, regardless of the answers the family does or does not get, I have no interest in visiting that tiny little corrupt island. I have learned too much about Aruba to believe that I could ever relax and enjoy myself on that island.

It's not that I believe harm would come to me in Aruba, though I certainly would never agree to either of my children ever going there; rather I've come to understand that tourism, numbers and money are the things that Aruba values. Human life, feelings, love, respect and pain do not appear to have much value in Aruba.

Now of course when I speak of Aruba, I am speaking of those who control and run Aruba, not the average Aruban citizen. These are the people with whom we should all be concerned when making vacation plans because the people in control (whether elected officials or simply individuals with power) are the ones that decide what criminal acts will and will not be investigated. They are the ones that decide what to tell the press, the information that will and won't be release.

It doesn't take a high school graduate to know that there are officials in Aruba who know without a doubt what happened to Natalee Holloway and who cause it to happen. As early as June 11, 2005 police officials in Aruba had a confession. How do I know this? Because Aruban officials announced the same to the international news media.

Oh yes, there was a backtrack where Aruban officials tried to retract the announcement that a suspect had confessed and Natalee was dead. But every act by those officials since then belies that retraction. Evidence has been destroyed, disappeared, disregarded and lied about. Natalee and her family have been attacked, rumors have been spread, lie after lie has been told.

The number of people involved in the investigation directly related to the suspects is beyond belief. But of course these relationships were not openly discussed. Has anyone in Aruba ever heard of a conflict of interest?

The Aruban Government deserves the mess they are currently in. Tourism numbers can only continue to fall as Carnival Cruise Ships (owners of Cunard, Carnival and Princess cruise lines) announce a changed itinary that no longer includes Aruba. That's a whole bunch of captive people who will no longer step foot on the "happy little island".

Scared Monkeys announces:

"The following numbers are for February and March, 2006

* The number of stay-over visitors dropped by 11.1% and 18.2%, respectfully compared to 2005

* Visitor nights spent on Aruba decreased by 5.6% and 15.6%, respectfully."

Actually, I don't think we need even bother to poke Aruba with a fork to see that its cooked.

The number of Tourists arriving in Aruba on cruise ships decreased 12.9% in April 2006; the number of tourists arriving at the Aruban airport also plummeted 14.7%. This dispite Aruba telling us what a wonderful 2006 Spring Break season they had.

Scared Monkeys Blog runs a July4, 2006 translated article from Amigoe indicating these admitted figures along with a note that the consumer inflation index rose 3.9% with an expected total inflation rate of 5.6% for 2006.

While many Arubans want to blame Americans for this continued decline in tourism, the fault rests solely on the corruption displayed by Aruban officials through out the investigation of American Teen, Natalee Holloway.

Americans have no responsibility to vacation in Aruba. They once chose Aruba as a vacation spot because they thought it was a relatively safe place. However, ALE has demonstrated that should something bad happen to an American Tourist, there will be lies and cover ups instead of an actual investigation. Americans will spend their vacation dollars where they feel wanted and safe. Aruba is NOT the place.

Even the Dutch could not believe the inept and fraud involved in the investigation as Dave Holloway and Beth Twitty spent months in Aruba attempting to organize a search for their daughter who is presumed dead.

Three young men, Joran van der Sloot, Deepak and Satish Kalpoe were arrested after being allowed to roam the island freely for 10 days, even though they were identified within 24 hours as being the last people seen with Natalee. All three have conflicting stories that have never stood up to day light.

Aruban officials continue their lip service by counting all the money they have spent on the investigation but give no account of the vast amount of evidence that has either been "lost" or thrown away.

This is a refreshing story of a Corporation that rethought its advertising promotion after writers indicated they felt it was inappropriate; and then did the right thing.

Several posters at Scared Monkeys Blog took the time and effort to write to Curves about their current promotion offering the winner a vacation in Aruba. Curves image is promotion for women and their health with a "yes, you can" attitude.

Apparently the second round of letters reached CEO Gary Heavin who responded that not only will Curves discontinue promotion of the contest but also offer the winner the opportunity to take cash instead of a vacation in Aruba. This shows a gutsy CEO willing to admit when the company has made a mistake and also shows that the Curves images is more than lip service.

ArubaDirtyPolice provides the full letter of Gary Heavin and Curves policy. In part Mr. Heavin writes:

"Curves was founded and built on the principle of strengthening women and helping them live happier, healthier lives. While we didn't create the promotion or develop or pay for the ad featuring the Aruba sweepstakes, I agree that any association between Curves and Aruba at this time is unnecessary and regrettable."

"To this end, I've instructed our marketing department to make sure that any future advertising related to this promotion is cancelled and that any prize winners have the option of accepting a cash equivalent to the featured trip."

Hats off to Curves and CEO Gary Heavin!

The Alabama NewspaperThe Meridian Star ran an article yesterday regarding the the disappearance of Natalee Holloway and the subsequent cover-up by Aruban investigating authorities.

Mentioning that Aruba has become the poster child for safety when traveling, they write:

Americans should kick butt and take names. Few Americans doubt Aruban complicity in luring youthful Natalee away with drinks, drugs and deception. Fewer still doubt Aruban law enforcements ineptitude and complicity. Ineptitude or callous indifference allowed the perpetrators to abduct, rape and murder with impunity. To avoid prosecution, conspirators disposed of Natalee. Aruban judges shielded them, even as they acted."

We so agree. In fact Americans with children should be charged with child endangerment if they travel to Aruba with those children. It's nothing less than allowing your children to play in traffic.

As far as Aruba's tourism: we know that Natalee's perpetrators ARE responsible, at least for what they did to Natalee and the havoc and dispair they have put on her family since that fateful day. The responsibilities for the down hill spirial in tourism, along with the family's pain can be dealt out to those who involved in the cover-up, lies and deception. That goes all the way to the top because while it's plainly obvious as to what has happened, no one from the Queen, PM or any other high government official have done anything to put an end to it all. In fact the Prime Minister announced he was "tired" of the case.

And Aruba really thinks this can all be swept under the rug with some more security cameras, increased presense of the beach patrol, etc.? I dont care of they call out their army and provide private escorts - it's not going away until Beth and Dave have full and complete answers.