CHAPTER 22

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. Since American domination in the 1930s, the United States supported one dictator after another. When General Rafael Trujillo did not cooperate with American foreign policy-makers, he was murdered outside his palace. The CIA had supplied guns and training to the assassins. The agency stated that it was not totally positive that these were the identical weapons which had been used to carry out the murder.

The assassination led to another five years of United States intervention. In order to continue a pro-American rightist regime, the CIA and Dominican Republic military officers organized a training camp of Dominican exiles in Venezuela. The United States continued to furnish the country's paramilitary forces with weapons.

However, in Haiti's first free elections, Juan Bosch was democratically chosen president. He called for land reform, low rent housing, the nationalization of large companies, public works projects, civil liberties for all citizens, and an emphasis on education and health care. American ambassador John Martin urged the use of force in overthrowing the new government. After seven months in office Bosch was overthrown by a CIA sponsored coup. Three years later, the citizens of the Dominican Republic sought to restore Bosch to the presidency. Immediately, Bosch was branded a communist by the United States.

In 1964, Bosch was exiled by the military, and his supporters took to the streets. In 1965, President Johnson sent in 500 marines and two days later they numbered 4,000, and within one year this number climbed to 23,000. American troops remained until September 1966 when Joaquin Belaguer defeated Bosch. Belaguer remained president until 1978 while the rich became richer, while poverty increased, while police brutality soared, and while union organizers were tortured and killed.

JAMAICA Michael Manley helped lead Jamaica to independence from the British in 1962, and ten years later he was elected prime minister on the Labour Party ticket. But he did not follow a pro-Western course, and thus his government became a threat to the United States. The Nixon administration opposed Jamaica's support for a number of reasons. First, Jamaica supported Angola's leftist MPLA guerrillas, Castro's Cuba, and the Soviet Union. Second, Manley proposed democratic socialist reforms. Finally, an American multinational corporation operated an aluminum plant on the island, and the White House believed that Manley would move to nationalize it. However, Manley promised to allow the American company to continue to stay in the private sector -- and in return the American ambassador to Jamaica promised Manley that the United States would not interfere in his government.

In December 1975, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger visited Jamaica and told Manley that his government would have to make some changes if it were to receive trade credits. At the time of the Kissinger-Manley meeting, the CIA was already making covert plans to topple his government. The agency began clandestine shipments of weapons to conservative opposition groups in Jamaica. The CIA used a number of pro-Castro Cubans, one of whom was Luis Posada Carriles who had been an officer in Batista's secret police before the 1959 revolution.

A month after Kissinger's visit, the United States increased its embassy staff in Kingston by seven people. The CIA also orchestrated a series of strikes in the transportation, electricity, and telephone industries in an effort to further destabilize Manley's government. In addition, the CIA hoped to instill more havoc by poisoning a shipment of flour from Germany. As the economy weakened and social unrest rocked the island, the American multinational firm, Revere Copper and Brass, shut down after just four years of operation in Kingston.

The CIA secretly funded the conservative Jamaica Labour Party which opposed Manley. The CIA planned anti-government demonstrations. The agency also infiltrated Jamaica's security forces, often times bribing members in an effort to assassinate the prime minister. Three attempts to murder Manley failed in the last half of 1976. James Holt, a CIA officer, was accused of plotting with the military to overthrow the government.

Nevertheless, Manley was reelected in 1976. However, in the next four years, Jamaica's economy continued to plummet. After much bloodshed in 1980, Manley was defeated in his reelection bid in by Edward Seaga of the CIA-sponsored Jamaica Labour Party.