Rafael Trujillo

This article is about the former ruler of the Dominican Republic. For other persons see Rafael Trujillo (disambiguation).

Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina
File:Rafael Leonidas Trujillo.jpg
36th & 39th President of the Dominican Republic
In office August 16, 1930 – May 30, 1938 May 18, 1942 – August 16, 1952
Preceded by	Horacio Vásquez Manuel Troncoso de la Concha
Succeeded by	Jacinto Peynado Héctor Trujillo
Personal details
Born	October 24, 1891 (1891-10-24) San Cristóbal, Dominican Republic
Died	May 30, 1961 (1961-05-31) (aged 69) Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Nationality	Dominican
Political party	Dominican Party
Spouse	Maria Martínez de Trujillo
Residence	Santo Domingo
Profession	soldier

Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina or "El Jefe." (October 24, 1891 – May 30, 1961) ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961. He officially served as president from 1930 to 1938 and again from 1942 to 1952, ruling for the rest of his tenure in office as an unelected military strongman. His tyranny, historically known as "La Era de Trujillo" or "The Trujillo Era," is considered one of the bloodiest of the 20th century, as well as a time of a classic personality cult, when monuments to Rafael Trujillo were in abundance.

Family

Trujillo was born and raised in San Cristóbal to José Trujillo Valdez, a small retailer possibly of Canarian origin, and Altagracia Julia Molina Chevalier, later known as Mamá Julia, whose mother was half-Haitian. Trujillo later suppressed knowledge of his mother's ancestry due to his ordered massacre of Haitians. He was also related to the Abreus family. He was the third of eleven children. 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.

Trujillo with his second wife Bienvenida in 1934.

On August 13, 1913, at the age of 22 Trujillo married Aminta Ledesma, a reputable young girl from his hometown of San Cristobal. They had two daughters; Genoveva who was born, and died, in 1914, and Flor de Oro Trujillo Ledesma, born in 1915, who later married Porfirio Rubirosa. The marriage not mentioned in later official biographies ended in a divorce in 1925.

Trujillo married Bienvenida Ricardo March 30, 1927, a girl from Montecristi and the daughter of Buenaventura Ricardo Heureaux. A year later he met Maria de los Angeles Martínez Alba, la españolita, and had an affair with her. She gave birth to Rafael Leonidas Ramfis on June 5, 1929. He divorced Bienvenida in 1935 and married Martínez. A year later he had a daughter with Bienvenida, Odette Trujillo Ricardo.

Trujillo's second child with Maria Martínez was María de los Angeles, Angelita, born in Paris on June 10, 1939, and Leonidas Rhadamés, born on December 1, 1942. Ramfis and Rhadamés were named after characters in Giuseppe Verdi's opera Aida.

In 1937, Trujillo met Lina Lovatón Pittaluga, an upper-class debutante with whom he had two children, Yolanda in 1939, and Rafael born on June 20, 1943.

Two of Trujillo's brothers, Héctor and José Arismendy, held positions in his 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.

Early life

His childhood passed relatively without incidents. His basic education was irregular and quite limited. At six he was registered in the school of Juan Hilario Meriño. One year later he transferred to the school of Broughton, 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 unintelligent.

At sixteen Trujillo got a job as a Morse code telegraph operator. He became a member of, "The 44", a small gang based in Dominica.

In 1916 Trujillo worked for two years in the sugar industry eventually as a guarda campestre.

In 1916, the U.S. occupied the island due to threats of defaulting on foreign debts. The occupying force soon established a Dominican army constabulary to restore order. Seeing opportunity Trujillo impressed the recruiters and was soon promoted through the ranks. When U.S. troops left the island in 1924, they left Trujillo in charge.

Rise to power

File:PartidodeTrujillo.jpg

Poster of Trujillo, representing the Dominican Party.

The rebellion against President Vázquez broke out in 1930 in Santiago, and the rebels marched toward Santo Domingo. Trujillo was ordered to subdue the rebellion, but when the mutineers arrived to the capital on February 26, they encountered no resistance. Rebel leader Rafael Estrella was proclaimed as acting-president when Vázquez resigned. Trujillo then became the nominee of the newly-formed Dominican Party in the 1930 presidential election. He won on May 16, officially registering 95 percent of the vote — an implausibly high total that could have only been obtained by means of massive fraud. A judge actually declared the election fraudulent, but was forced to flee. On August 16, the then 38-year-old general took office, wearing a sash with the motto, "Dios y Trujillo" (God & Trujillo). He immediately assumed dictatorial powers.

Trujillo government

Three weeks later, the destructive San Zenon hurricane hit Santo Domingo and left more than 3,000 dead. With relief money from the American Red Cross, Trujillo rebuilt the city. On August 16, 1931, the first anniversary of his inauguration, Trujillo made the Dominican Party the sole legal political party. However, the country had effectively been a one-party state since Trujillo had been sworn in. Government employees were required to "donate" 10 percent of their salary to the national treasury, and there was strong pressure on adult citizens to join the party. Party members were required to carry a membership card, the "palmita," and a person could be arrested for vagrancy without the card. Those who did not contribute, or join the party, did so at their own risk. Opponents of the regime were mysteriously killed. In 1934, Trujillo, who had promoted himself to generalissimo of the army, was up for re-election. Although he would have won in any case as there was virtually no organized opposition left in the country, Trujillo dispensed even with these formalities. Instead, he relied upon "civic reviews," with large crowds shouting their loyalty to the government.

Cult of personality

At the suggestion of Mario Fermín Cabral, Congress voted overwhelmingly in 1936 to rename the capital from Santo Domingo to Ciudad Trujillo. The province of San Cristobal was created as "Trujillo," and the nation's highest peak, Pico Duarte, was renamed in his honor. Statues of "El Jefe" were mass produced and erected across the Republic, and bridges and public buildings were named in his honor. The nation's newspapers now had praise for Trujillo as part of the front page, and license plates included the slogan "Viva Trujillo!" An electric sign was erected in Ciudad Trujillo so that "Dios y Trujillo" could be seen at night as well as in the day. Eventually, even churches were required to post the slogan, "Dios en cielo, Trujillo en tierra" (God in Heaven, Trujillo on Earth). As time went on, the order was reversed (Trujillo on Earth, God in Heaven). Trujillo was recommended for the Nobel Peace Prize by his admirers, but the committee declined the suggestion. When he received (or summoned) a visitor, his four bodyguards would have submachineguns trained upon the "guest" during a meeting.

Trujillo was eligible to run again in 1938, but, citing the U.S. example of two presidential terms, he stated that "I voluntarily, and against the wishes of my people, refuse re-election to the high office." The Dominican Party nominated Trujillo's handpicked successor, 71 year old vice-president Jacinto Bienvenido Peynado. As the government had banned all other political parties, the election of Peynado and Manuel de Jesús Troncoso was merely a formality. Meanwhile, Trujillo limited himself to being the "Generalisimo" while only nominally ceding control to President Peynado. Peynado increased the size of the electric "Dios y Trujillo" sign and died on March 7, 1940, with Troncoso serving out the rest of the term. In 1942, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt having run for a third term in the United States, Trujillo ran for president again and won overwhelmingly. He served two terms, having lengthened a presidential term to five years. In 1952, his brother, Héctor Trujillo, nominally assumed the presidency.

His daughter Angelita was designated "queen" of the 1955 Fair of Peace and Fraternity of the Free World, a pompous event that cost US$30 million. Fair organizers declared Trujillo's semi-literate wife María Martínez a 'writer and philosopher'.

Oppression

Brutal oppression of actual or perceived members of any opposition was a key feature of Trujillo's rule right from the beginning in 1930 when his gang, "The 42", under its leader Miguel Angel Paulino drove through the street in their red Packard death car (carro de la muerte). Imprisonments and killings were later handled by the SIM, the secret police, efficiently organized by Johnny Abbes. Some cases reached international attention such as the Galindez case and the murder of the Mirabal sisters.

Immigration

Trujillo was known for his open-door policy, accepting Jewish refugees from Europe, Japanese migration during the 1930s, and exiles from Spain following its civil war. He developed a uniquely Dominican policy of racial discrimination, Antihaitianismo ("anti-Haitian"), targeting the mostly-black inhabitants of his neighboring country. At the 1938 Evian Conference the Dominican Republic was the only country willing to accept many Jews and offering to accept up to 100,000 refugees on generous terms. In 1940 an agreement was signed and Trujillo donated 26,000 acres of his properties for settlements. The first settlers arrived in May 1940; eventually some 800 settlers came to Susua and most moved later on to the United States.

Refugees from Europe broadened the Dominican Republic's tax base and "whiten[ed]" the mixed-race nation. The government favored Caucasian refugees over others while Dominican troops expelled illegal aliens, resulting in the 1937 Parsley Massacre of Haitian immigrants.

Environmental policy

The Trujillo regime greatly expanded the Vedado del Yaque a nature reserve around the Yaque del Sur River. In 1934 he created the nation's first national park, banned the slash and burn method of clearing land for agriculture, set up a forest warden agency to protect the park system, and banned the logging of pine trees without his permission. While he acted in the name of environmentalism, he probably wanted to create logging monopolies for his private companies. In the 1950s the Trujillo regime commissioned a study on the hydro-electric potential of damming Dominica's waterways. The commission concluded that only forested waterways could support hydroelectric dams so Trujillo banned logging in potential river watersheds. After his assassination in 1961, logging resumed in the Dominican Republic. Squatters burned down the forests for agriculture, logging companies clear cut parks, and potential hydro electrical watersheds thus reducing the Dominican Republic's potential generation of hydro-electric energy. In 1967, Joaquín Balaguer launched military strikes against illegal logging.

Foreign policy

Trujillo's anti-communism tended toward a peaceful coexistence with the United States government. During World War II Trujillo sided with the Allies and declared war on Germany and Japan on December 11, 1941. While there was no military participation the Dominican Republic thus became a founding member of the United Nations. 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 and Venezuela. He maintained friendly relations to Franco of Spain, Peron of Argentina, and Somoza of Nicaragua. Towards the end of his rule, his relationship with the United States deteriorated.

Trujillo paid special attention to improving the armed forces. Military personnel received generous pay and perks under his rule, and their ranks as well as 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 establishment of state monopolies over all major enterprises in the country brought riches to the Trujillos through price manipulation and embezzlement.

Hull-Trujillo Treaty

Early on Trujillo determined that the financial affairs of the Dominican Republic needed to be put in order and that included the termination of the role of the United States as the administrator of Dominican customs and finances, - a situation that had existed since 1924. Negotiations started in 1936 and lasted four years. On September 24, 1940, Trujillo and Cordell Hull signed the Hull-Trujillo Treaty whereby the Untited States relinquished its control of customs and the Dominican Republic made arrangements to repay its debts.

Haiti

Haiti, the smaller but more densely populated country of the island, had invaded and occupied the Dominican Republic from 1822-44. Encroachment by Haiti was an ongoing process, and when Trujillo took over specifically the northeast border region became more and more "Haitinized". The actual border itself was poorly defined. In 1933 Trujillo met the Haitian President Stenio Vincent to settle the border issue. By 1936 a settlement was reached and signed. At the same time, Trujillo tried to plot against the Haitian government by linking up with General Calixte, Commander of the Garde d'Haiti and Elie Lescot, at that time the Haitian ambassador in Cuidad Trujillo (Santo Domingo). When after the settlement further border incursions occurred the Parsley massacre was initiated by Trujillo.

Parsley Massacre

Main article: Parsley Massacre

In 1937, claiming that Haiti was harboring his former Dominican opponents, Trujillo ordered an attack on the border, slaughtering tens of thousands of Haitians as they tried to escape. The number of the dead is still unknown, though it is now calculated between 20,000 and 30,000.

Trujillo hoped for a war with Haiti and control over the entire island of Hispaniola. The Haitian response was muted, but eventually called for an international investigation. Under pressure from Washington, Trujillo agreed to a reparation settlement in January 1938 that involved the payment of US$750,000. By the next year the amount had been reduced to US$ 525,000 (US$ 11,127,083.33 in 2025); 30 dollars per victim, of which only 2 cents were given to survivors, due to corruption in the Haitian bureaucracy.

In 1941, Lescot who had received financial support from Trujillo succeeded Vincent as President of Haiti. Trujillo expected Lescot to be a puppet, but Lescot turned against him. Trujillo unsuccessfully tried to assassinate him in a 1944 plot, and then published their correspondence and discredited him. Lescot was exiled after a 1946 palace coup.

Cuba

In 1947 Dominican exiles, including Juan Bosch, had concentrated in Cuba. With the approval and support of the Grau government an expedition force was trained with the intent to invade the Dominican Republic and overthrow Trujillo. However, international pressure including from the United States led to the abortion of the expedition. In turn, when Fulgencio Batista was in power, Trujillo supported initially anti-Batista supporters of Prio in Oriente in 1955, however weapons he sent were soon inherited by Castro's insurgents when Prio allied with Castro. After 1956, when Trujillo saw that Castro was gaining ground, he started to support Batista with money, planes, equipment, and men. Trujillo, convinced that Batista would prevail, was very surprised when he showed up as a fugitive after his ouster. Trujillo kept Batista until August 1959 as a "virtual prisoner". Only after paying between three to four million dollars Batista could leave for Portugal which had granted him a visa.

Castro made threats to overthrow Trujillo, and Trujillo responded by increasing the budget for national defense. A foreign legion was formed to defend Haiti as it was expected that Castro might invade the Haitian part of the island first and remove Duvalier as well. A Cuban plane with 56 fighting men landed near Constanza on June 14, 1959, and six days later more invaders brought by two yachts landed at the north coast. However, the Dominican Army prevailed.

In turn, in August 1959, Johnny Abbes attempted to support an anti-Castro group led by Escambray near Trinidad, Cuba. The attempt, however, was thwarted when Cuban troops surprised a plane he had sent when it was unloading its cargo.

Betancourt incident

By the late 1950s, opposition to Trujillo's regime was starting to build to a fever pitch. A younger generation of Dominicans had been born who had no memory of the instability and poverty that had preceded him. Many clamored for democratization. The Trujillo regime responded with greater repression. The Military Intelligence Service (SIM) secret police, led by Johnny Abbes, remained as ubiquitous as before. Other nations ostracized the Dominican Republic, compounding the dictator's paranoia.

Trujillo began to interfere more and more into the domestic affairs of other neighboring countries. Trujillo expressed great contempt for Venezuela's president Rómulo Betancourt (1959-64). An established and outspoken opponent of Trujillo, Betancourt associated with Dominicans who had plotted against the dictator. Trujillo developed an obsessive personal hatred of 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 out on June 24, 1960, injured but did not kill the Venezuelan president.

The firestorm caused by the Betancourt incident inflamed world opinion against Trujillo. Outraged OAS members voted unanimously to sever diplomatic relations with Trujillo's government and impose economic sanctions on the Dominican Republic. The brutal November 25, 1960 murder of the three Mirabal sisters, Patria, María and Minerva, who opposed Trujillo's dictatorship, inflamed widespread discontent against his repressive rule. The relationship with the dictator had become an embarrassment to the United States and became fractured after the Betancourt incident.

Assassination

On the night of May 30, 1961, Rafael Trujillo was shot to death on San Cristobal 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 U.S. reporter Bernard Diederich, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) planned the operation to kill the dictator. In a report to the Deputy Attorney General of the United States, 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. 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." A key scholarly book on the Dominican Republic states that "the CIA arranged, planned and executed the assassination" using their elite paramilitary operations officers from the famed Special Activities Division.

Trujillo's family tried to flee with his body upon his boat Angelita, but were turned back. His funeral was that of a statesman with the long procession ending in his hometown of San Cristóbal, where his body was first buried. Then-president Joaquín Balaguer gave the eulogy. After this, the people voted for the Trujillo family to leave the country, so his son, Ramfis Trujillo, came back to relocate his father's body outside of the country. Trujillo was buried in Paris, in Père Lachaise Cemetery, at the request of his relatives.

Personal life

Trujillo's "cental arch" was his instinct for power. This was coupled with an intense desire for money and the realization that money was a source and support of power. He possessed a remarkable level of physical energy. Up at four in the morning, he had exercised, studied the newspaper, read reports, and completed papers prior to breakfast; at the office by nine, he continued his work, and took lunch by noon. After a walk, he continued to work until 7:30 PM. After dinner, he would have attended functions, held discussions, or driven around incognito in the city "observing and remembering." He was methodical, punctual, secretive, and guarded, having no true friends, just associates and acquaintances. For his associates his actions towards them were unpredicatble.

Trujillo and his family amassed enormous wealth. He acquired property including cattle lands on a grand scale, went into meat and milk production, operations that soon evolved into monopolies. Other industries were salt, sugar, tobacco, lumber, and lottery where he or family members held controlling interests or monopolies. Already in 1937 Trujillo's annual income was about $1.5 million.; at the time of his death the state took over 111 Trujillo companies. His love of fine and ostentatious clothing was displayed in elaborate uniforms and fine suits of which he collected almost two thousand. Known to be fond of neckties, he amassed a collection of over ten thousand of them. Trujillo doused himself with perfume and liked gossip.

His sexual appetite was enormous, and he preferred mulatto women with full bodies, later he tended more to "very young" women. Women were supplied and procured by many who sought his favors, and later he had an official on his Palace staff to organize the sessions. Typically encounters lasted once or twice, however, favorites were kept for longer terms. If women were unwilling to submit, Trujillo would know how to apply pressure on the family to get his way.

Trujillo was energetic and fit. Medically, the was quite healthy in general, but suffered from chronic lower urinary infections and, later, prostate problems. In 1934, Dr. Georges Marion was called from Paris to perform 3 urologic procedures on Trujillo.

Over time Trujillo acquired numerous accommodations. His favorite place was Las Caobas on Estancia Fundacion near San Cristobal. He also used Estancia Ramfis (after 1953 it became the Foreign Office), Estancia Rhadames and a home at Playa de Najayo. Other places he owned he frequented rarely such as places in Santiago, Constanza, La Cumbre, San Juan de las Matas, and more. Further, he maintained a penthouse at the Embajador Hotel in the capital.

While Trujillo was a nominally a Catholic, his devotion was limited to a perfunctory role in public affairs; he also placed faith in local superstitions.

Legacy

Trujillo reorganized the state and the economy and left a vast infrastructure to the country. His rule also saw more stability and prosperity than most living Dominicans had previously known. However, this came at a great cost. Civil rights and freedoms were virtually nonexistent, and much of the country's wealth wound up in the hands of his family or close associates.

He was popularly known as El Jefe ("The Chief") or El Benefactor (The Benefactor), but he was privately referred to as Chapitas (Bottlecaps) because of his indiscriminate wearing of medals. Dominican children emulated El Jefe by constructing toy medals from bottle caps. He was also called el chivo (the goat).

Trujillo in media

Media type	Title	Release date	Details
Movie	The Feast of the Goat (*)	2006	Directed by Luis Llosa and Trujillo played by Tomás Milián
TV Movie	In the Time of the Butterflies (film)	2001	Directed by Mariano Barroso and Trujillo played by Edward James Olmos. Based on the novel by Julia Alvarez (1994)
Documentary	El Poder del Jefe III	1998	Directed by René Fortunato
Documentary	El Poder del Jefe II	1996	Directed by René Fortunato
Documentary	El Poder del Jefe I	1994	Directed by René Fortunato
Movie	El Misterio Galíndez - The Galindez File	2003	Gerardo Herrero directed El Misterio Galíndez, a movie about Jesús de Galíndez Suárez, activist of the PNV party and Basque Diplomat who disappeared in 1956; allegedly because of his opposition to Trujillo`s regime.
Book	La era de Trujillo: un estudio casuístico de dictadura hispanoamericana	1990	Manuel Vazquez Montalbán, a Catalan writer, wrote about Galíndez en 1990. The book is a fictional recreation of the life and disappearance of the diplomat.
Book	The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao	2007	Junot Diaz, a native of Santo Domingo wrote Pulitzer Prize Winning book about a dysfunctional Dominican/American family. The book is a fictional account of the family's misfortunes experienced as a result of the atrocities of Trujillo's regime.
Book	The Feast of the Goat	2000	A book by Mario Vargas Llosa, set in the Dominican Republic and portraying the assassination of the Dominican dictator, and its aftermath, from two distinct standpoints a generation apart: during and immediately after the assassination itself, in May 1961; and thirty years later, in 1996.

Bibliography

Notes

References

• G. Pope Atkins (Author), Larman C. Wilson (Author). The Dominican Republic and the United States: From Imperialism to Transnationalism (January 1998 ed.). University of Georgia Press. ISBN 0820319317. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help) - Total pages: 288
• Madison Smartt Bell. A Hidden Haitian World - New York Review of Books - Volume 55, Number 12 (July 17th, 2008 ed.). New York Review of Books. pp. 4039 words.
• Maxine Block (Author), E. Mary Trow (Editor). Current Biography Who's News and Why 1941 (January 1, 1941 ed.). The H. W. Wilson Company. p. 976. ISBN 9997376676. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)
• Alan Cambeira. Quisqueya la bella (October 1996 ed.). M.E. Sharpe. p. 182. ISBN 1563249367. - Total pages: 286
• Robert D. Crassweller. Trujillo: The Life and Times of a Caribbean Dictator. MacMillan, New York (1966). - Total pages: 468
• Jared Diamond. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (December 27, 2005 ed.). Penguin (Non-Classics). ISBN 0143036556. - Total pages: 575
• Bernard Diederich. Trujillo: The Death of the Goat (1978 ed.). Little, Brown; 1st edition. p. 13. ISBN 0316184403. - Total pages: 264
  Pg 13-With only a few years of formal schooling, at sixteen the quick witted youth became a Morse code telegraph operator. Soon Rafael was trying his hand at less savory employment. As a member of a gang of hoodlums known as "The 44"
• Lauren Derby. The Dictator's Seduction: Gender and State Spectacle during the Trujillo Regime (2000 ed.). Callaloo v. 23 n. 3.
• Robert Pack, Jay Parini. Introspections (1997 ed.). University Press of New England. p. 78. ISBN 0874517737. - Total pages: 329
• Richard Lee Turits, Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in Dominican History, Stanford University Press 2004, ISBN 0804751056
• Secretaría de Estado de las Fuerzas Armandas In Spanish
• Ignacio López-Calvo, “God and Trujillo”: Literary and Cultural Representations of the Dominican Dictator, University Press of Florida, 2005, ISBN 0-8130-2823-X

External links

• Biography - In Spanish