Dominican Republic 1965
Written: 1965;
First published: May 7, 1965;
Source: Peking Review, No. 19,1965, p. 12-13;
Transcribed: by Amaury Rodriguez, 2014.
Following is a translation of the May 3 statement of the Government of the People’s Republic of China.
– Ed.
A COUP D'ETAT against the traitorous dictatorial regime of Reid Cabral broke out in the Dominican Republic on April 24. [2] The United States has been sending its marines and airborne troops to suppress the coup there since April 28. So far, more than 14,000 U.S. troops have been sent. The patriotic Dominican people are waging a brave anti-U.S. struggle.
The dispatch by the U.S. Johnson administration of large contingents of armed forces to invade the Dominican Republic and interfere in its internal affairs while frantically carrying on aggression in Viet Nam adds one more shameless and sanguinary instance to the innumerable crimes committed by U.S. imperialism in its aggression against the Latin American countries. The Chinese Government and people strongly condemn the U.S. Government’s barbarous intervention and aggression against the Dominican Republic and express their firm support for the Dominican people in their patriotic and just anti-U.S. struggle.
It is the inviolable, sacred right of the Dominican people, oppressed and plundered beyond endurance by the stooges of U.S. imperialism, to rise and overthrow the traitorous dictatorial regime in their country. The United States has not justification whatsoever to interfere. The assertion by the Johnson Administration that troops have been sent to the Dominican Republic to “protect the lives and ensure the safety of American nationals,” to “preserve law and order” and to “establish an international zone of refuge” is nothing but a pretext habitually used by imperialist gangsters. This only serves to reveal once again that U.S. imperialism is the common enemy of the people of the Dominican Republic and other Latin American countries as well as all people of the world who cherish peace, independence and freedom. The sanguinary intervention and aggression against the Dominican Republic by U.S. imperialism show once more that there can be no peaceful coexistence between the countries subjected to U.S. imperialist aggression and the U.S. gangsters.
Having audaciously dispatched thousands of troops to the Dominican Republic, the Johnson Administration sanctimoniously notified the United Nations of it. The United States has acted in the same way as it did when committing aggression in Korea a dozen or more years ago. This was obviously a U.S. attempt to legalize its bloody crime of aggression against the Dominican Republic and to ward off direct condemnation of the U.S. Government by the people throughout the world. But this is not all to the U.S. scheme. In turning the plain fact of its aggression against the Dominican Republic into a topic for endless discussion in the United Nations, the United States hopes that while such discussion go on indefinitely it can carry on its interventions and aggression against the Dominican Republic unhampered. The United Nations has long been an instrument of the United States for aggression. It seems that there will be no exception this time. If the United Nations does want to do some good, it must condemn the United States as an outright oppressor, halt the bloody U.S. intervention and aggression against the Dominican people, call on all nations that love peace and oppose aggression to apply effective sanctions against the United States, and it must compel the U.S. aggressors to withdraw immediately and completely from the Dominican Republic. Otherwise, it can only reveal itself once again as a pliant tool of the U.S. aggressors.
In hastily sending such large numbers of troops to the Dominican Republic, the Johnson Administration revealed itself to be weak rather than strong. The 3 million and more Dominican people are by no means alone in their patriotic anti-U.S. struggle. The other Latin American peoples support you. The 650 million Chinese people support you. The other peoples in the socialist camp support you. The heroic Vietnamese people are hitting the U.S. imperialists hard. The new campaign of anti-U.S. revolutionary struggles being unfolded in Asia is a support to you. The Arab people support you with their struggle against Israel, the U.S. tool for aggression. The African people support you. And so do all peoples engaged in anti-U.S. struggles. U.S. imperialism is heavily besieged by the people of the world, and no struggle however desperate can save it from ultimate defeat.
U.S. imperialism will surely fail!
The people of the Dominican Republic and other Latin American countries will surely win!
1. Donald Reid Cabral (1923-2006), a former collaborator of the Trujillo dictatorship, became the head of the coup regime known as the triumvirate when Emilio de los Santos (1903-1986) resigned from it in protest for the death of leftist guerillas at the hand of the military. See Dominican Junta Murders Leading Anti-Trujillo Fighter.
2. On September 25th 1963, the Dominican armed forces deposed Juan Bosch (1909-2001) from power. Soon after, students, workers and other popular sectors mobilized against the right wing coup. On April 24th 1965, the Constitutionalist Movement – comprised of radical military officers and activists from Bosch’s party, the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) – launched a counter-coup to restore the former constitutional regime, setting the stage for a popular revolt that became known as the April Revolution or Constitutionalist Revolt.