WESSIN HAVE A COUP IN MIND?
Brigadier General Elias Wessin y Wessin, who was banished from the Dominican Republic as part of the settlement of the civil war in 1965, is making moves to end his exile in the United States. Ina January 19 press conference, he said he intends to run for president.
Although the elections are not to be held until 1970, Wessin claimed he already has 400,000 supporters in a newly formed "Quisqueyano Democratic party." He is running, he said, in response to "a gigantic and genuinely democratic movement."
The announcement by the general, who ordered the bombing of Santo Domingo in 1965, annoyed the New York Times. "A Wessin campaign," a Janu 4 editorial said, “would immediately reopen the
wounds of the 1965 civil war if not the
war itself."
The concern of the Times is rather
curious. After all, the elections are two
years off. Perhaps it is worried by some-
thing it does not see fit to print. Wes-
sin's announcement is most likely a move
toward a coup by the rightist military
and police, the real power behind Bala-
guer, the current president. Wessin may
be planning to sit in the "highest office"
well before 1970.
The Times hinted that this may be
the case. "The Dominican armed forces,"
it said, "are now led by the nonpolitical
{sic] Gen. Enrique Perez y Perez, who has
promised to crush any coup against Dr.
Balaguer."