Rafael Leónidas Trujillo
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- This article is about Rafael L. Trujillo, former dictator of the Dominican Republic. For other persons see Rafael Trujillo (disambiguation).
Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina (October 24, 1891–May 30, 1961) was the head of state of the Dominican Republic from 1930 until 1961, occupying the office of President of the Republic in 1930–38 and 1942–52. At the end of his final term, he engineered his continued rule of the country as de facto head of state, or dictator. Trujillo was commonly nicknamed, by the country's citizens, "El Chivo" ("the Goat," it being a promiscuous animal) in allusion to his many adulterous relationships.
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[edit] Rise to power
During the United States occupation (1916–1924), Trujillo joined the National Guard, trained by the United States Marines to maintain order after the occupation. Quickly rising to high rank, Trujillo overthrew President Horacio Vásquez in 1930. After a devastating hurricane destroyed much of Santo Domingo, Trujillo devised a rebuilding plan to modernize the city, which he renamed Ciudad Trujillo (Trujillo City). He also renamed the highest point of the country Pico Trujillo (Trujillo Peak) after himself. Statues of himself were everywhere in the Republic. Trujillo used his political control to obtain great personal wealth. He achieved support from the United States by becoming one of Latin America's leading anti-communists.
He ruled with absolute authority. Until his demise, Dominican schoolchildren recited daily prayers for "God, country, and Trujillo," many households were required to post plaques professing allegiance to the official state party, Partido Dominicano, and travel by Dominicans within their country was surveiled or prohibited. His secret police (SIM, for Military Intelligence Service) jailed, tortured, or killed any opposition.
[edit] Family life
Trujillo's first wife, Aminta Ledesma, came from his hometown and they married in 1913. They had two children; one died early, and one was a daughter named Flor de Oro. He divorced her to marry a more socially acceptable woman, Bienvenida Ricardo, of a provincial aristocratic family. In 1937 he divorced again (his wife then being pregnant with a girl, who would be named Odette); his third wife was María Martínez, the daughter of Spanish immigrants. María bore him three children: sons Ramfis and Rhadamés, named after characters in Aida, and daughter Angelita. Trujillo was well-known for his adulterous affairs; for instance, he had a rather controversial one with Lina Lovatón Pittaluga, an upper-class debutante, just after marrying Martínez.[1]
[edit] Constitutionality of reign
Trujillo legitimized his absolute power over the country by passing new constitutions and by winning elections in which only he and members of his party, Partido Dominicano, were running.
[edit] International policies
Trujillo gained international attention for his rather open policy of allowing Jewish immigration from Europe in the 1930s, at a time when larger and wealthy nations were turning back Jewish refugees. After the Spanish Civil War, he also encouraged the immigration of Republican exiles. Some historians regard these gestures as a public relations ploy and perhaps as an attempt by Trujillo to "whiten" the predominantly mixed-race nation, a policy called blanquismo.
Trujillo sided with the Allies during World War II, and his anti-Communist policies initially gained the favor of the United States.
Trujillo's demise was partially brought about by his poorly concealed, almost clumsy involvement in an attempt on the life of Venezuelan President Rómulo Betancourt (publicly announced on Dominican radio half an hour before it actually took place), which led to economic sanctions from the United States and other Latin American countries. By 1960, the Organization of American States had unanimously approved attempts to destabilize the Trujillo regime by enforcing harsh sanctions and ending diplomatic ties.[2]
[edit] The Parsley Massacre
In pursuing blanquismo, (whitening the population) he allegedly ordered Dominican troops to massacre 20,000 dark-skinned Haitian sugar cane workers in 1937, an action that he claimed was a sovereign response to the Haitian government's support of exiled Dominicans who were working to overthrow him. One other problem was that to consolidate his authority on the ill-defined border between the two countries, Trujillo was in need of vacating the foreign squatters who in many cases were illegaly occupying the land. The US demanded that Trujillo pay reparations, which Trujillo bargained down to $500,000. The Haitian workers were identified as immigrants, and then murdered by the truckload, if they could not pronounce the letter r in "perejil", the Spanish word for parsley. This action firmly established the Haitian-Dominican border at Río Massacre, or Massacre River (a river that was in fact named after the slaughter of French Pirates in the 17th century). He then settled the border region with Haiti, relocating Dominican families to new agricultural developments there.
US Poet Laureate Rita Dove wrote of the massacre in her poem, Parsley:
There is a parrot imitating Spring
in the palae, its feathers parsley green.
Out of the swamp the cane appears ...
El General has found his word: perejil.
Who says it, lives. He laughs, teeth appearing
out of the swamp. The cane appears
in our dreams, lashed by wind and streaming.
And we lie down. For every drop of blood
there is a parrot imitating spring.
Out of the swamp the cane appears.
[edit] Domestic policies
Trujillo oversaw the modernization of the Dominican Republic. Under his reign, a middle class of professionals and technocrats was created, along with scores of other public services such as a school system and a health system. He expanded and maintained the telecommunications and transportation infrastructure that had been created under the US occupation earlier in the century.
Trujillo undertook many public works projects and openly encouraged foreign investment, and the country prospered. During his regime, the country saw growth in key agricultural sectors, especially sugar; steadily declining infant mortality rates; rapid population growth, and, by many measures increasing quality of life. Since Trujillo owned many of the profitable businesses, either directly or through proxies, development of the country meant his personal enrichment. Jared Diamond's Collapse mentions Trujillo's protection of the Dominican environment, much enlarged later by Joaquín Balaguer, as one of the reasons for the better state of Dominican nature over the Haitian one. Dominican historians such as Bernardo Vega argue that most of the economic boom of the era was a result of external causes. After World War II many developing nations profitted from a surge in agricultural sales. Supporters of Trujillo constantly point out that during his reign the national debt was paid in full, but Vega points out that Haiti achieved the same feat during the time.
Trujillo strongly supported the music form merengue, which was largely a music of the rural barrios. Under Trujillo's patronage, merengue became the national music of the nation, and the talented Luis Alberti was made to form the Orquesta Presidente Trujillo, providing dance music in the ballrooms of the capital, much to the chagrin of city elites. Merengue was given a European coloration (in keeping with blanquismo) by highlighting the thin veneer of jazz and european influence. It is told that Trujillo himself was a good dancer. His brother Petán Trujillo also supported a number of merengue bands at his radio station.[3]
[edit] Death
With the rug pulled from under his regime, Trujillo was shot dead by members of his own armed forces on May 30, 1961 while traveling in an automobile. It has been said that his killers uttered the words "This is the end, Bottlecap" just before the assassination ("Bottlecap", is the English for the original Spanish nickname, "Chapitas", Trujillo's nickname,based in the fact of the General indiscriminate use of medals, bottlecaps were used by Dominican kids as medals, one that El Jefe ['The Head'/'The Chief'] hated with a passion). He was shot five times at point-blank range, then his body was thrown into the trunk of the killer's car and taken from the scene. The CIA had provided weapons, which were kept by Simon Thomas Stocker, an American citizen, code named "Hector" by the CIA, and resident of the Dominican Republic since 1942, who willingly declined CIA monetary compensation for his efforts. The weapons were hidden for more than two months, at his own risk, inside a small closet in his personal study, at his private residence (recently demolished), previously located on the south side of Independecia Avenue, near the crossing with General Máximo Gómez Avenue.
It is suggested that the CIA hoped to create the possibility of the formation of a less reactionary government, fearing that Trujillo's repressive tactics could lead to another "revolutionary situation" as had occurred in nearby Cuba.
Trujillo was buried in the famous Parisian cemetery, Cimetière du Père Lachaise, at the request of his many relatives who had fled into exile in Canada, France, and Spain. [1]
[edit] Dominican Republic after his death
His son Ramfis Trujillo took power, brutally repressing any elements believed to be connected with his father's death. Former Trujillistas maintained much of their power within the country until the early 1990s within the many terms served by the former Trujillo protégé Joaquín Balaguer
[edit] Legacy
Because of the general economic downturn since the 1960s, some rural Dominicans feel nostalgia for the Trujillato and the reign of Balaguer. Among Dominicans, there is still discussion as to the merits of his rule. He modernized the country, and oversaw the creation of basic services that Dominicans enjoy today, but in doing so, brutally tortured or silenced all opposition. In his efforts to gain complete control over the country, not only did he kill many Dominicans, he also destroyed churches and other sites of religious significance to the populace. The repression of the actual Dominican police is considered a big problem in the country, and it is often said that such repression is part of Trujillo's legacy.
[edit] In popular culture
Mario Vargas Llosa wrote a historical novel, The Feast of the Goat, published in 1996, about Trujillo and his hold over the country. Luis Llosa directed a movie of the same name, based on the novel and released in 2005.
In 1986 a Spanish movie about Jesús Galíndez, El misterio Galíndez, was released. The movie is based on a novel by Spanish writer Manuel Vázquez Montalbán and focuses in the abduction, torture and death of Galíndez. Trujillo appears in several scenes and is played by Cuban actor Enrique Almirante.
Edwidge Danticat wrote a historical novel about the massacre of Haitians, The Farming of Bones.
In the 2001 motion picture In the Time of the Butterflies, based on the novel by Julia Álvarez of the same name. Trujillo is played by Edward James Olmos. The story is about the Mirabal sisters.
In the film The Day of the Jackal, it is portrayed that the Jackal is the same assassin who killed Patrice Lumumba and Rafael Leónidas Trujillo before attempting to murder Charles de Gaulle.
Eric Ambler's classic suspense novel, Doctor Frigo (1974), is set in a tropical-island dictatorship very much inspired by Trujillo's Santo Domingo.
In the American TV show The X-Files, the episode "Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man" suggests that the episode's namesake was involved in Trujillo's assassination.
[edit] References
- ^ "The Dictator's Seduction: Gender and State Spectacle during the Trujillo Regime", by Lauren Derby, Callaloo, v. 23 n. 3 (2000), pp. 1112-1146.
- ^ http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35639.htm
- ^ Paul Austerlitz (1997). Merengue, Dominican Music and Dominican Identity. Temple University Press.
[edit] Bibliography
| Preceded by: Rafael Estrella Ureña (acting) |
President of the Dominican Republic 1930–1938 |
Succeeded by: Jacinto Bienvenido Peynado |
| Preceded by: Manuel de Jesús Troncoso de la Concha |
President of the Dominican Republic 1942–1952 |
Succeeded by: Héctor Trujillo |
