The Hemisphere: Democracy for Dominicans

For 48 hours last week, the Dominican Republic’s fragile new democracy disappeared beneath a military dictatorship that promised to be a throwback to the days of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. In a bold coup, Armed Forces Secretary Pedro Ramon Rodriguez Echavarria, a 37-year-old Trujillo leftover, dismissed the civilian Council of State and proclaimed his own tame junta. In Miami, two exiled Trujillos, brothers of the assassinated dictator, started cashing their cached U.S. dollars into pesos for the trip home. But having once tasted freedom after 31 years of tyranny, the 3,000,000 Dominicans were not to be so easily denied. An angry public refused to surrender, and with a timely nudge from the U.S., a counter-coup put down the dictator.

For months Rodriguez Echavarria, a onetime jet pilot, had seemed the very model of a penitent military man. He even became something of a hero for helping break up an attempted comeback by the dead dictator’s brothers last November. But the popularity soon waned, and before long Dominicans were demanding his resignation along with that of Puppet President Joaquin Balaguer, who had agreed to step down on or before Feb. 27. The general had other ideas.

Point-Blank. Warning darkly of a “Communist plot,” Rodriguez Echavarria sent air force troops into the streets of Santo Domingo last week with orders to shoot to kill in case of trouble. They found trouble at the headquarters of the National Civic Union (U.C.N.), the country’s strongest anti-Trujillo organization.

From the balcony, loudspeakers blared out anti-Balaguer and anti-Rodriguez slogans as four light tanks drew up before the building. Soldiers climbed a ladder to cut off the loudspeakers. A car drove up, and Rafael Bonnelly, the mild-looking lawyer and U.C.N. leader who was scheduled to succeed Balaguer as President, stepped out to protest. “Without warning,” says a witness, “gunners on top of the tanks opened fire point-blank at the people.” Soldiers pointed their guns at Bonnelly and shouted to their commanding officer to “get out of the way so we can shoot!” Bonnelly’s aides pushed him into his car and raced away. Behind in the street lay five dead, 20 wounded.

As the news spread, mobs smashed street lights and threw up barricades. At the palace Rodriguez Echavarria arrived to face the Council with 100 troops and an ultimatum: “The Council is not working very well. I have no confidence in it.” His men leveled their guns at the Council members, hustled them off to a house at Santo Domingo’s San Isidro airbase.

No Aid. Along the sea wall in Santo Domingo crowds hopefully awaited the return of U.S. Navy warships, which once before guaranteed the republic’s budding democracy. But in Washington, with the Punta del Este meeting on Cuba about to begin, President Kennedy decided on less conspicuous muscle flexing. U.S. Charge d’Affaires John Calvin Hill Jr., who was in Washington to advise on resuming help to the Dominicans, was sent back to his post with orders to put pressure on Rodriguez Echavarria.

At San Isidro airbase, Hill delivered his blunt message to the general. The U.S. would not recognize his puppet junta. The U.S. would provide no Alliance for Progress help. The U.S. would close down its training program for Dominican military officers. The U.S. would cancel $55 million worth of sugar-quota imports.

No Waiting. Next day Rodriguez Echavarria, his hopes dwindling, went to visit the Council of State hostages imprisoned at the airfield. He offered a deal: they could have the government back if they kept him on as Armed Forces Secretary. As he pleaded, a group of his fellow officers marched into the room, told him that he was “under arrest.” “Wait,” he said, but there was no waiting. Stripped of sidearms, he was marched off and imprisoned.

At the palace, Council Chief Rafael Bonnelly formally reconvened the Council and announced: “I am the President of the Republic and of the Council of State.” He accepted the resignation of Balaguer (who had prudently taken asylum in the residence of the papal nuncio), and then came the cheers, the backslaps and embraces. The only foreign diplomat invited to the celebration: able young (40) Charge Hill, representing the U.S.

In the streets outside, pleasure reigned. Youths on motorcycles rattled along the littered avenues dragging steel street signs and pots and pans that threw up showers of sparks from the pavement. Boys and girls sang and waved palm fronds in triumph. And trucks, cars and delivery scooters jammed into central El Conde Street, their rapturous passengers pounding hoods, fenders and roofs in an endless two-long, three-short rhythm for “En-fin, Libertad! [At last, Liberty!].”