10 - Repressive and Corrupt Governments

After poverty, probably the second most common image North Americans and Europeans have of developing countries is of repressive and corrupt governments. Both the Dominican Republic and Haiti have had their share of these. Papa Doc Duvalier and his son, Jean Claude (“Baby Doc”), ruthlessly governed Haiti using a combination of the Voodoo religion and simple terror from 1957 until 1986. The Dominican Republic’s Rafael Trujillo is considered by some historians to have been the last absolute dictator in Latin American.

Trujillo controlled the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961. At the time of his death, he was one of the ten richest men in the world. He was supported in his position by the Western industrialized powers (the first world nations), as, sadly, many dictators and rulers in developing countries have been. One of Franklin Roosevelt’s cabinet members is said to have remarked of Trujillo: “He’s a son-of-a-bitch, but he’s our son-of-a-bitch.” US officials were well aware that Trujillo maintained control of the country by an unscrupulous use of violence, intimidation, assassination, and torture, but they continued to support him because it was considered expedient for US interests to do so.

His excesses, however, eventually brought about his downfall. On the evening of May 30, 1961, members of his own military waited in a car on the coastal highway east of Santo Domingo and ambushed Trujillo as he was being driven to his house in San Cristobal. The assassination was supposed to have led to a coup which did not materialize. Trujillo’s son, Ramfis, assumed control of the government and tracked down most of the conspirators as well as their families, all of whom were imprisoned and brutally tortured. When it was clear that the general population was not going to support his government, Ramfis had the six remaining conspirators tied to trees on his estate, cut into pieces while still alive, and then fed to sharks. The following day, Ramfis was escorted off the island by the US military, and he was given asylum in Europe. This was also considered the expedient thing to do.

A period of political instability followed, and then a popular writer, Juan Bosch, was democratically elected president. Bosch was a moderate socialist, an advocate for land reform and civil liberties. But this made him too radical for traditionalists, and he was overthrown by the military. By 1965, the country was on the brink of civil war. Two army factions sought control of the country; one (called the “Loyalists”) was comprised of older officers from the Trujillo era. The other (called the “Constitutionists”) was led by a group of younger officers who sought to return Bosch to office. The pro-Bosch faction had the support of much of the population of the country, especially in the city of Santo Domingo. The leader of the Constitutionalist forces, Colonel Francisco Caamaño Deñó provided civilians with weapons and they successfully routed Loyalist forces.

Frightened that a Cuban-style revolution was occurring in the Dominican Republic, US President Lyndon Johnson sent Marines to Santo Domingo on April 28, 1965, and the Constitutionists were defeated. It was neither the first nor the last time that the US would take upon itself the right to determine the appropriate government for another country.