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JOHNSON OPENS A SECOND FRONT IN SANTO DOMINGO
By Joseph Hansen
With his "measured escalation" of the war in Vietnam proceeding according to Pentagon blueprints, Johnson turned towards the rebellious-looking expanse of Latin America and on April 28 opened a second front in Santo Domingo, Within a few days some 19,000 Marines and paratroopers, with a fantastic amount of military equipment had occupied the tiny country.
Johnson's first excuse for ordering American troops to occupy the Dominican Republic was the hoary one of "protecting American . lives and property." This was not believed by anyone anywhere since not a single American civilian had been. killed or even wounded and no one had threatened to expropriate any of Wall Street's sacred holdings in the island.
On May 2, Johnson hastily switched his public excuse. He said he had gent the Marines and bavatroopers to "prevent another Communist state in this hemisphere."
Juan D. Bosch, the exiled Dominican president, put it more accurately ina bitter protest May 2 against the landing of Marines. "T have lost my homeland," he said, "My country is occupied,"
In. opening his second front, Johnson tore up a solem. international agreement as casually as either Hitler or the Kaiser before him. Article 15 of the Charter of the Organization of American States reads specifically: "No state or group of states has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other state."
The real reason for Johnson's move was no secret. The May. 3 New York Times summarized it in a single brief front-page headline: my.S.Steps Were Inspired by Fear of Another Cuba."
It was, indeed, the fear of revolution that caused Johnson to respond with a military reflex although all that had occurred ‘in Santo Domingo was the toppling of the junta that came to power in 1963 through a coup d'état that overthrew the legally elected government of the liberal Juan D. Bosch.
The popular uprising began April 25 when army officers ousted the regime of Donald Reid Cabral, key figure in the American-supported ruling triumvirate, and called for the restoration of the constitutional government.
General Elias Wessin y Wessin sought to maintain the military dictatorship representing the continuation of the Trujillo dynasty
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and moved tanks and infantry into Santo Domingo April 27, The Navy and Air Force joined this counterrevolutionary effort. Planes strafed the capital. Casualties among the civilian population » were listed as high as.2,000, including 400 deaths. .
However, the "Constitutionalists," as the pro-Bosch forces call themselves, fought back courageously. They were joined by the army garrison in Santo Domingo and arms were distributed from the arsenals to some 10,000 citizens.
‘The forces of General Wessin y Wessin retreated in disorder and. some of them went over to the "Constitutionalists" (or "rebels" -as the State Department calls them).
Although Washington had previously declared that the "Communist" or "Castroite" component among the pro-Bosch forces was negligible (the top figure given out by government sources in Washington was fifty-three), Johnson now suddenly decided that things had got out of hand,
On April 30, in a television address, Johnson said, "there are signs that people trained outside the Dominican Republic are seeking to gain control." And on May 2 this was expanded into the -claim that “a democratic revolution...committed to democracy and -soclal. justice" had "moved into the hands of a. band of Communist conspirators,"
What had happened, however, was merely that the ordinary people. of Santo Domingo had joined in the fight against the State Department's man, General Wessin y Wessin, and-had blocked any immediate possibility of setting up a new military dictatorship to continue Trujillism in Santo Domingo,
The strategists in charge of the preservation and advancement of American imperialism read the events quite correctly. In Santo Domingo a popular revolution had begun. The opening stage of this revolution clearly did not go beyond the demand for the restoration of constitutional government, All it asked for was democratic rights. But these, once gained, are not sufficient to solve the grave economic and. social problems of a poverty-stricken country like Santo Domingo that has suffered a half century-of American domination and one of the most brutal dictatorships of modern times. ~ Such a revolution therefore tends to continue until it reaches the "take off" of a workers! government that can end capitalism and set up a planned economy, All the signs showed the beginning of such a process,
The White House answer to this was instantaneous -- crush it in the egg!
The reversion to Theodore Roosevelt's policy of the "Big
Stick" was noted throughout the world. This was the first time American Marines had been sent into a Latin-American country since 1928 when they landed in Nicaragua to fight Sandino's guerrilla forces, It was held to mean the end of Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Good Neighbor" policy, initiated in 1933 with the withdrawal of the Marines from Nicaragua,
These analogies are worth studying. However, they leave out something. The "Big Stick" policy was applied during the rise of American imperialism to world power, It accompanied the conquest of Latin America for Wall Street. Undertaken sometimes on the flimsiest of excuses, such as compelling the payment of debts to American interests, one of its purposes was to install governments of the most servile kind. The Somosas, the Batistas and Trujillos were the product.
Today the excuse has changed. It is to keep Latin America safe from "Communism"; i.e., safe for North American investments in the vast area extending below the Rio Grande. Wall Street and its political representatives in Washington are fighting to maintain a key sector of the American empire in an era when the peoples of the entire earth are on the march for political and economic freedom,
Against these mighty historic forces, not even the colossal economic and military power of the United States can hold out indefinitely. This is the explanation for the fear and the fury with which Washington reacts to revolutionary events in the smallest countries on the globe,
While American troops dug in, the Dominicans gave Johnson fresh cause to squirm, The Congress of the Dominican Republic elec-~ ted Col. Francisco Caamano Deno as provisional president May 3.
He took the oath of office in downtown Independence Square in the heart of the Dominican capital. Thousands cheered him to the ery of "Yankees, get out!" Juan D. Bosch approved this move and gave Caamano his backing.
From Santo Domingo, Max Clos, the special correspondent of © the Paris daily Le Figaro sent a graphic dispatch dated May 4. "It is a strange war, e reports, "that little resembles what the Americans imagine. I have just come from the rebel base, that is, the center of the city. It is not at all a hell seething with anarchy."
Good public services have been set up. Patrols guard the streets, and while most of the stores are closed, there has been little looting. Garbage is collected and burned in the middle of the street.
"In the old city people express violent hostility toward the. Americans," When an American jet flew low over the houses, a man shouted, "Look at that dirty son of a bitch!" "then from all the
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roofs, from all the balconies, came a fantastic fusillade" from people shooting at the plane. Everybody seems to be armed. :
"The headquarters of the rebellion is in the palace of justice. It is hustling and bustling with. people, gesticulating and very agitated. They challenge each other. No one knows exactly who is in command. In fact, it is a kind of spontaneous revolution, without cadres and without a precise program. All this hardly. resembles a Communist movement,
"In reality, it seems that the massive arrival of American » troops touched off a mass uprising of all tendencies against a com=mon foe, In this armed crowd, some organized centers are emerging. First of all are the frog-men in charge of actions against the American embassy. There are also movements of a Castroite coloration who are visibly trying to rake in the chestnuts from the fire. But it is probable that none of these movements could have brought out more than a few thousand armed men into the streets without the American.intervention."
"What is certain in this whole affair," continues the French correspondent, “is that the Americans are treating the Dominicans as enemies. and vice versa, The former feel threatened and are conducting themselves exactly like foreign troops occupying a hostile city." As yet, however, they have not sought to reduce the city by force,
The American spokesmen keep repeating, "We have no intention to conquer the old city. We want a democratic political situation."
To this the Dominicans reply: "To send ten thousand armed men here is a strange way of preparing a democratic solution,"
Max Clos ends by reporting a “rather strange scene." He went with a truck to deliver American provisions to the people in a poor area. The food consisted of beans and powdered milk. The milk was in a plastic bag in a carton bearing the inscription in fifteen languages: “Gift of the people of the United States,"
The people in the area stood aside, hesitant and mistrustful. An American photographer asked three men to come forward and lift their arms towards the cartons of food: “You understand," he said, “theytve got to look like they're begging. That makes a better photograph,"
But two men came forward, shouting: “Don't take that dirty American food. We have enough to eat. All the Americans have to do is go home and leave us in peace,"
"Then," reports Max Clos, “they tore open the hags of powdered milk and threw it at the distributors like a film produced by Mack Sennett."