rafael leonidas trujillo

Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina (October 24, 1891–May 30, 1961) was a dictator of the Dominican Republic from 1930 until 1961, occupying the Presidency of the Republic from 1930 until 1938 and again from 1942 until 1952, but always holding absolute power over all Dominican territory. His tyranny, historically known as "La Era de Trujillo" or "The Trujillo Era", is considered one of the bloodiest of the 20th century. Popularly, he was known as "El Jefe" or "The Chief", or by some derisive nicknames as "The Goat" or "Chapitas", the latter because of his indiscriminate use of medals, referring to the use of bottlecaps (chapitas) as toy medals by Dominican children.
Contents[hide]
1 Family and early life
2 Military Rising
3 The Beginning of an Era
4 His Government
5 The Downfall and Assassination
6 Legacy
7 His Family
8 In popular culture
9 References
10 Bibliography
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[edit] Family and early life
Trujillo was born in San Cristóbal, in the southwest of the Dominican Republic. His parents were José Trujillo Valdez, a small retailer possibly of Canary origin, and Altagracia Julia Molina Chevalier (later known as Mamá Julia), whose mother was half-Haitian (which would later be suppressed due to his ordered massacre of Haitian's in the Dominican Republic) [1]. His siblings were Rosa María Julieta, Virgilio, José "Petán" Arismendy, Amable "Pipi" Romero, Aníbal Julio, Nieves Luisa, Pedro Vetilio, Ofelia Japonesa and Héctor "Negro" Bienvenido Trujillo Molina.
The childhood of Trujillo passed relatively without incidents. His basic education was irregular and quite limited. At six he was registered in the school of Juan Hilario Meriño, where he acquired elementary literacy. After a year, he transferred to the school of Pablo Barinas, who was a disciple of Eugenio María de Hostos, and remained there for three or four years. They said that Trujillo was a normal student, and their professors thought that he was intelligent.
When Trujillo was 16 years-old, his maternal uncle Plinio Pina Chevalier got him a job as telegrapher, with a monthly salary of US$25. Between 1910 and 1916 it was rumored that Trujillo engaged with his brother Jose Arismendy (Petán), in criminal activities such as cattle robbery, among others. In some occasions he was convicted by falsification of checks and promissory notes. He was also linked to the disappearance of certain sums of money in the postal office of Santo Domingo.

[edit] Military Rising
The participation of Trujillo in the public life begins more or less by those years when he declares himself "horacista", that is, a partisan with the political leader and future president Horacio Vásquez. By 1916 he comprised a criminal band known as "The 44", which assaulted warehouses that supplied the workers in the sugar plantations and, in addition, practiced blackmail and all type of violence. Trujillo was 25 years old when he began working in the sugar mill of San Isidro in a American property. He worked as weighter in charge of a scale in a loading base. Later he went to the mill of Boca Chica, where he took a job of guardacampestre, receiving a pay of thirty dollars monthly.
With the American intervention, Trujillo was removed from his job, taking the first steps in his political and military career. In 1918 the American Military Government disarmed the people and came to create the National Guard. By means of a letter that Trujillo wrote to colonel C. F. Williams, commander of this body, and with a letter of recommendation from the Central Boca Chica, Trujillo asked for a position in the newly created military force. His request was approved on 27 December 1918. Trujillo was quickly promoted to second lieutenant, rendering oath on 11 January 1919. He became lieutenant number 15 of the 16 who existed then in the National Guard, and ascended in the hierarchic scale over the officers that rose against the intervention.
In 1921 Rafael Trujillo enrolled in a Military school that founded the Occupation army in Haina and on the 22nd of December of that same year, he was designated to command the headquarters at San Pedro de Macorís. He was transferred to the Cibao in 1922 and, while in San Francisco de Macorís was promoted to captain without being in the rank of first lieutenant, something irregular but explicable due to the "services" lent by Trujillo to the American invaders. This ascent was accompanied by the reorganization of the National Guard, who became the Dominican National Police, in which Trujillo took the control of the 10th company. By 1924 Trujillo was temporarily promoted to command the North Department. In September he received the definitive appointment, being ascended to the rank of Major. When General Horacio Vásquez won the elections that followed the North American troops' departure that same year, Trujillo was requested to remain as Chief of the National Police. On December 6th, President Vásquez promoted Trujillo to Lieutenant Colonel and Chief of Staff, and by 1927, he was promoted to Brigadier General, with full powers to topple the unstable and deteriorated government.

[edit] The Beginning of an Era
Supported by the United States legation, a military-civilian movement was organized in Santiago to overthrow President Vásquez's government. The civilian representative was Rafael Estrella, and Rafael Trujillo, then Chief of the Army and Brigadier General, the military man. The rebels made an assault in the Headquarters of Santiago, after which they marched towards Santo Domingo. President Vásquez ordered Trujillo to face the situation, but he alleged "illness". Vásquez named Colonel José Alfonseca to direct the military actions, but Trujillo replaced him with Simón Diaz, who did not attack the rebels. A few days after this comedy, specifically the 26th of February, the rebellious troops under the command of general José Estrella (uncle of Rafael Estrella), entered the capital without encountering resistance and shouting slogans in favor of Rafael Estrella and Trujillo. After some negotiations, it was announced the resignation of President Vásquez and the formation of a new government, with Rafael Estrella as president, although it was Trujillo who really controlled the situation by appointing his henchmen in key positions. Although he had promised that he would not aspire to the presidency of the country, Trujillo was proclaimed candidate on March 18, 1930 and elected president on May 16, with more than 95% of the votes.
Political opposition was eliminated by means of murders, bribes and persecutions. From its beginnings, the regime of Trujillo was characterized openly as a tyranny. One of the first acts of barbarism was the murder of Virgilio Martinez Reyna and his wife. Martinez Reyna, a prominent man of great reputation that had been close to former Vice-president José Dolores Alfonseca, had advised Alfonseca to get rid of Trujillo when the man was gaining power. A group of assassins arrived at his house on June 1st, 1930, and after shooting him mutilated his body with machetes. While they committed the crime, his wife, who was heavily pregnant at the time, entered the room and received two shots in the belly. Thus it was left as an example of the treatment that every man and woman would receive who would become an opponent to the new strong man in Latin America.
An event of nature gave Trujillo a chance to begin an extensive program of infrastructure works throughout the country. The San Zenon Hurricane, which devastasted the island in September of 1930, left more than 3,000 dead and incalculable damages in its wake. At the same time, Trujillo seized the moment to proclaim himself as a modern man, but monopolizing all political activity with the creation of his own party: the Dominican Party, the only party.
Using psychological pressures and manipulating the fear of the population, the new Party obtained a great amount of registered members, including some of his more fervent opponents. The political mission of such organization was nothing other than to materialize the desires of Trujillo. The worship to his personality was one of the fundamental aspects, next to the historical justification of his arrival to the political power. Most of these reasons were elaborated by some of the most enlightened minds, who provided their talents to Trujillo sometimes without hesitation, and sometimes even in truly embarrassing ways.
"Flatter" as an art-form grew, as did its "artists" whose main interest seemed to be feeding the ego of Trujillo. One of the best examples was Mario Fermín Cabral, who proposed that the traditional name of the capital of the country be changed from "Santo Domingo" to "Ciudad Trujillo," and the Congress dutifully issued a proclamation announcing the change. Fermín Cabral also devised the symbol of the palmita that later identified the Dominican Party, becoming practically an identity card that everybody had to carry at all times, or face being jailed.
In the terms of establishing a cult to himself, Trujillo and his circle made sure that every Dominican felt and believed that they needed a messianic and almost superhuman conductor to lead their destiny. For instance, there was the immense production of statues and busts with the figure or the face of the president (a fact even registered in the Guinness Book of Records), the daily homages to his name and his family's (many public buildings were named after him, his mother, his father, his sons, or his brothers), and many homes had badges with the slogan "God and Trujillo". He even commanded signboards to be put in churches that read "God in the sky, Trujillo in the Earth." Later, when his deliriums of emperor were more excited than ever, the phrases were reversed: "Trujillo in the Earth, God in the sky".
His daughter Angelita was designated "Queen" of the "International Fair of Peace and Fraternity of the World" in 1955, a pompous event that cost US$30 millions, and his wife María Martínez, a semi-illiterate woman, was declared a writer and philosopher.

[edit] His Government
After he left office in 1938, Trujillo occupied the Presidency again from 1942 to 1952. Nevertheless, during the interim periods he exercised absolute power, while leaving the ceremonial affairs of state to puppet presidents such as Jacinto Peynado, his own brother Héctor Trujillo, who occupied the National Palace from 1952 to 1960, and Joaquín Balaguer, an intellectual and scholar who served from 1960 to 1961. Since the beginning, Trujillo became known for his open door policies toward Jewish refugees at a time when they were being turned away from the wealthier countries, and then toward exiles from the Spanish Civil War. He helped develop the policy of racial discrimination known as Antihaitianismo which is "anti-Haitian." These are viewed by historians as public relations ploys and attempts to "whiten" the predominantly mixed-race nation. He favored the arrival of White or Caucasian people over the rest, in a methodical attempt to increase the White population. In pursuing this policy, he allegedly ordered Dominican troops to expel "all illegal people from the country", but the real orders were to massacre the Haitians sugar cane workers, who were black illegal immigrants, in their majority. Thus, in 1937, as a result of an action that Trujillo claimed was a sovereign response to the Haitian government's support of exiled Dominicans working to overthrow him, thousands of Haitians were slaughtered while trying to escape. The number of the dead is still unknown, though it is now calculated between 8,000 and 15,000. Later, Trujillo was forced to pay $525,000 in reparations.
One of Trujillo's main goals was to equip the Armed forces. The personnel received generous pay and perquisites under his rule, and their ranks and equipment inventories expanded. Trujillo maintained control over the officer corps through fear, patronage, and the frequent rotation of assignments, which inhibited the development of strong personal followings. The other leading beneficiaries of the dictatorship--aside from Trujillo himself and his family--were those who associated themselves with the regime both politically and economically. The establishment of state monopolies over all major enterprises in the country brought riches to the Trujillos through the manipulation of prices and inventories as well as the outright embezzlement of funds.
Ideologically, Trujillo leaned toward capitalism. Basically, however, Trujillo was not an ideologue, but a Dominican caudillo expanded to monstrous proportions by his absolute control of the nation's resources. His anti-communism tended toward a peaceful coexistence with Washington; during World War II Trujillo had sided with the Allies.
As always, self-interest and the need to maintain his personal power guided Trujillo's actions. Trujillo encouraged diplomatic and economic ties with the U.S., but his policies often caused friction with other nations of Latin America, especially Costa Rica, with José Figueres, and Venezuela, with Rómulo Betancourt.

[edit] The Downfall and Assassination
The year 1957 was the beginning of the end. With Johnny Abbes, an obscure and heinous man directing the Intelligence Military Service (the secret police), the regime became more violent and increasingly isolated from other nations. This isolation compounded the dictator's paranoia, prompting him to worsen his foreign interventionism. Months before, the Spaniard Jesús de Galíndez, a professor in the Columbia University in New York, had been kidnapped and murdered in the Dominican Republic.
To be sure, Trujillo did have cause to resent the leaders of some nations, such as Cuba's Fidel Castro, who assisted a small, abortive invasion attempt by dissident Dominicans in 1959. Trujillo, however, expressed greater concern over Venezuela's president Rómulo Betancourt (1959-64). An established and outspoken opponent of Trujillo, Betancourt had been associated with some individual Dominicans who had plotted against the dictator. Trujillo developed an obsessive personal hatred towards Betancourt and supported numerous plots of Venezuelan exiles to overthrow him. This pattern of intervention led the Venezuelan government to take its case against Trujillo to the Organization of American States (OAS). This development infuriated Trujillo, who ordered his foreign agents to plant a bomb inside Betancourt's car. The assassination attempt, carried on June 24, 1960, injured but did not kill the Venezuelan president.
The firestorm caused from the incident inflamed world opinion against Trujillo. The members of the OAS, expressing this outrage, voted unanimously to sever diplomatic relations and to impose strong economic sanctions on the Dominican Republic.
Finally on the night of the May 30 1961, Rafael Trujillo was shot to death in the street on George Washington Avenue, Santo Domingo. He was the victim of an ambush plotted by Modesto Diaz, Salvador Estrella Sadhalá, Antonio de la Maza, Amado García Guerrero, Manuel Cáceres Michel (Tunti), Juan Tomás Diaz, Roberto Pastoriza, Luis Amiama Tió, Antonio Imbert Barrera, Pedro Livio Cedeño, and Huáscar Tejeda. According to American reporter Bernard Diedrich, the CIA had supplied some of the guns used to kill the president. In a report to the Deputy Attorney General, CIA officials described the agency as having "no active part" in the assassination and only a "faint connection" with the groups that planned the killing.[1] However, an internal CIA memorandum states that an Office of Inspector General investigation into Trujillo's murder disclosed "quite extensive Agency involvement with the plotters." [2]
His funeral was that of a man of state, with the long procession ending in his hometown of San Cristóbal. The then-president Joaquín Balaguer pronounced the last words in his memory. Trujillo was buried in Paris, in the cemetery Cimetière du Père Lachaise, at the request of his relatives. [2]

[edit] Legacy
As most dictators, Trujillo reorganized the state and the economy and left a vast infrastructure to the country. But personal freedoms and rights were virtually nonexistent, and the democracy and politics suffered under his regime.
To this day, Trujillism's influence in bureaucracy, military and some aspects of the culture is still concrete. Incredibly, a few families and men who became powerful -or already were- during the regime, are untouchable, even if they are related to crimes or illegally possesses money or lands. One of the best examples is "Pechito" León Estévez, Trujillo's ex son-in-law.
There are Dominicans who still defend Trujillo, longing for the times of order and peace, even if the price could be tortures or their own lives, or their families'.

[edit] His Family

Trujillo with his second wife Bienvenida in 1934.
In 1913, at the age of 22, Rafael Trujillo married Aminta Ledesma. Her parents, poor farmers of San Cristóbal, unwillingly allowed the marriage of their daughter with Trujillo, already of questioned reputation, because the young woman was pregnant of who would the first daughter of Trujillo, Flor de Oro Trujillo. By 1924 they had divorced. Trujillo, who had now a better social rank, married in 1925 to Bienvenida Ricardo, a young woman from a rich family in Montecristi, which did not prevent him to continue his extramarital love affairs.
The marriage fell into severe crisis when Trujillo fell with which would be his third and last wife, María Martínez, from a respected family although of low social scale. In 1937 Trujillo divorced Bienvenida (then pregnant with a girl, Odette) and married María.
María bore him three children: two sons Ramfis and Rhadamés, named after characters in Verdi's opera Aida, and one daughter Angelita. Also, throughout all this marriage his adulterous escapades were well-known and documented, and he made no effort to hide them from anyone. An example of this was his love affair with Lina Lovatón Pittaluga, an upper-class debutant, shortly after marrying Martínez.[3] But María Martínez was a dangerous woman, and Lovatón almost died poisoned when it became known that Trujillo wanted to marry her.
Two of Trujillo's brothers, Héctor and José Arismendy, were also involved in the government. José Arismendy Trujillo oversaw the creation of "La Voz Dominicana", the main radio station and later, the television station which became the fourth in the continent.

[edit] In popular culture
Merengue tipico artist Fefita La Grande wrote a merengue called "Homenaje al Jefe", literally "Homage to the Chief", because of Rafael Trujillo's promotion of the merengue dance and musical style.
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 2003 a Spanish film 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. The book, on a few occasions, refers to Trujillo as 'El Jefe'.
Álvarez also depicted the last years of Trujillo's rule in her work of juvenile fiction, Before We Were Free.
In the film The Day of the Jackal, it is portrayed that the Jackal is the same assassin who killed Patrice Lumumba and Rafael Leonidas Trujillo before attempting to murder Charles de Gaulle.
Trujillo himself had a cameo in the 1942 film Casablanca. He can be seen in the background of the famous airport tarmac scene starting a silver-colored airplane's propeller on the right-hand side of the screen.[4]
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