Rafael Trujillo

The longtime dictator of the Dominican Republic, Rafael Trujillo got his start in politics as a teenager when he joined the Dominican National Guard. The Guard had been created as an internal police force by the US government, which was occupying the country at the time. Trujillo joined it in 1918 and rose quickly through the ranks as he and the Guard helped US troops crush a Dominican resistance movement. When the US left the country in 1924 it placed Trujillo in charge of the Guard. He solidified his power over the next several years and ran for president in the 1930 election. Although the results showed that he lost, he claimed that 95% of Dominicans voted for him, and used the National Guard to force his way into the presidency in 1931. Once in power he established a secret police force in addition to the National Guard to keep an eye on potential threats to his rule (while also using the secret police to keep an eye on the Guard and vice-versa). In 1937 he sent the army to the border with Haiti to eject tens of thousands of Haitians who had fled the violence and instability in their own country, or who were just working in the Dominican sugar cane fields. The army, on Trujillo's orders, engaged in a policy of wholesale rape and murder, resulting in the massacre of over 20,000 Haitians. Trujillo was a fervent admirer of Spanish fascist dictator Francisco Franco and modeled his regime after Franco's. He also fostered a personality cult that literally put him on an equal footing with God; he insisted that he be called "El Jefe"--The Chief--and his "philosophy" was called Trujilloism, which all Dominicans were "encouraged" to learn. He changed the name of the country's capital city from Santo Domingo to Ciudad Trujillo ("Trujillo City"), had opponents (both real and imagined) jailed, tortured and/or killed, and used his position to loot the country and enrich himself, his family and his supporters. He spent millions of dollars throwing huge parties to honor himself and spent millions more building monuments to himself all over the country, while most Dominicans barely eked out a living in squalid, abject poverty. He made sure to stay on the good side of the US government by giving American corporations huge contracts and major concessions to do business in the country--such as quickly crushing any organized-labor movement--and portraying himself as a bulwark against "Communist subversion" in Central and South America. Although many US political leaders didn't care for Trujillo or his tactics, their attitude was summed up by Secretary of State Cordell Hull, who famously said of Trujillo, "He may be a son of a bitch, but he's OUR son of a bitch." The violence, political repression, dire economic straits of most Dominicans and the massive corruption of Trujillo's regime led to several uprisings in the 1940s and 1950s. When Fidel Castro took over Cuba in January of 1959, he helped to arm and train some Dominican rebel groups, which launched an invasion of the country from Cuba later that year. The invaders were quickly defeated by Trujillo's forces, with most of the rebels either being killed outright or captured and executed shortly afterward. Trujillo used the invasion as an excuse to request even more American military aid to protect his country from "Communist infiltration" by expanding his army and secret police force, and he promptly got it. The brutal violence and crushing repression that Trujillo continued to use against his own people began to backfire, however. More and more Dominicans formed rebel groups or joined existing ones, and this time they weren't just poor peasants but businessmen, educators, students, wealthy exiles and even some priests. The Catholic Church, which had for years been a staunch supporter of Trujillo because of his supposed "anti-Communist" stance, began to back away from him after he arrested, tortured and deported several priests he accused of aiding rebels. He also began to lose the support of the US government, which was worried that the many rebel groups, both existing ones that were expanding and new ones that were springing up, would turn to Fidel Castro for help. Relations between the two governments sunk to an even lower point when it was discovered that Trujillo had attempted to have the president of Venezuela, who made no secret of the fact that he detested Trujillo, assassinated. The US eventually decided that it was time for Trujillo to go and began secret talks with several rebel groups and some Trujillo loyalists who were still in power. The CIA was in contact with a group of Dominican army officers and politicians who had decided to assassinate Trujillo, and the agency supplied them with weapons and promises of protection after the deed was done. On May 30, 1961, Trujillo was traveling on a stretch of deserted highway when his car was ambushed by the group. He was riddled with bullets and died at the scene.