TERROR
MARKS SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF U.S. INVASION OF SANTO DOMINGO
Santo Domingo
On April 24 Dominicans commemorated the second anniversary of their revolution. On April 28 they commemorated the second anniversary of the U.S. imperialist invasion. The week was replete with terrorism, assassinations, police repression and rumors of a coup d'état.
Col. Francisco Alberto Caamafio, in exile in London with the post of military attaché, declared that his future activities are subject to the decisions of the Dominican people.
"I will do only what the people ask and demand of me," Caamafio said in response to questions on his future perspectives in public life.
Caamafio sharply criticized the military intervention of the United States which paralyzed the rebellion initiated with the toppling of the Triumvi-~ rate headed by Donald Read Cabral.
Speaking for the Partido Revolucionario Social Cristiano, of which he is secretary general, Caonabo Javier Castillo said, "The April revolution was a popular movement that aimed at wi the people's political rights which had been denied them since September 25, 1963."
The Partido Comunista de la Repéblica Dominicana, the Juventud Comunista Dominicana and the Movimiento Popular Dominicano, all pro-Peking in tendency, said that the April war demonstrated the impossibility of the liberal bourgeoisie "directing the democratic revolution in the epoch of imperialisn.'
. The Partido Comunista Dominicano (pro-Moscow) held that the causes of the April revolution "remain active and accentuated and a new explosion will be necessary and inevitable."
For the PCD, the results of the war can be listed as follows:
(1) Understanding of the imperialist enemy.
(2) Understanding of the necessity of defeating this enemy militarily.
(3) Experience in armed struggle. (4) Confidence in the possibility of defeating the national repressive machinery. (5) Understanding of the need to’ — incorporate the broad oppressed masses in the city and countryside in combats ona national level.
José Francisco Pefia Gémez, general secretary of the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano, stated that "the police repression and disregard of human rights" are worse than during the regime of the | Triumvirate.
Pefia G6mez maintained that the major part of the causes that gave rise to the revolution "continue to bear down ever more ominously" on the democratic aspirations of the Dominican people.
The police banned a march projected by the PRD, the party of the former President Juan Bosch.
More than twenty persons were arrested by the police April 24. Many of them were beaten.
The Provincial Committee of La Romana, a sugar center east of Santo Domingo, charged April 22 that Carmen Tavdrez and Rafaela Figueroa were arrested when they put up notices of the Federation of Dominican Women commemorating the April revolution.
"Both of them were beaten, kicked and handied as in the worst days of the Trujillo regime. The police threatened to rape Carmen Tav4rez. They told her that the next woman they caught in La Romana carrying on agitation would be raped.
"Yesterday evening (April 27), after firing at him several times, the police arrested and brutally beat Julio Morales (Julin), a delegate of the nightwatchmen of the Central Romana and the Sindicato Unido. He is at present in the hospital because of the beating.
"The jails are full of prisoners whose only offense is walking on the streets (of La Romana) after seven in the evening.
In Santiago, the second largest city in the country, two civilians were killed by the police April 23. The excuse was that they had resisted arrest.
The Movimiento Revolucionario 14 de Junio (1-J-4) charged the government with inciting violence and repression in order to block observance of the two significant actions in the April war.
According to the Movimiento, as a result of a "macabre plan" put into effect by the regime, "the activities of the repressive podies -have been expanding throughout the country."
The Movimiento charged that in San Pedro de Macoris (a sugar center 75 kilometers east of here) members of the 14 de Junio have been jailed or shot by the police.
During meetings on April 24, more than 24 persons were detained in Santo Domingo.
Various persons have reported that the police are carrying out a “harsh repression" against the youth of San Juan de la Maguana, a town located in the west of the country. The PRD charged April 27 that a repressive campaign had been unleashed by sectors of the government.
The PRD stated that more than 40 leaders of subcommittees and other bodies had been detained in the capital and the interior.
On April 28 unidentified assailants shot and killed the head of the maintenance men in the customs at Santo Domingo and also a member of the police. A U.S. teacher, Stewart James, was likewise killed with a grenade thrown from a motorbike.
The day before unknown persons also killed an agent of the police.
In addition, leaders of the Partido Reformista -- the government party -charged that certain sectors were plotting to overthrow the government.
The journalist Radhamés Gémez, chief of the editorial board of El Nacional, stated in his newspaper that an "attempt is being made to overthrow the government."
ALREADY IN THE INITIAL PHASE OF WORLD WAR III?
At a luncheon gathering of United Nations correspondents May 11, Secretary General Thant voiced his foreboding that the war in Vietnam