Fifty years ago today, the United States invaded the Dominican Republic, continuing its sordid history in Latin America.
by Rory Fanning
JACOBIN - 4.28.15
Fifty years ago today, four hundred United States Marines landed on
the shores of the Dominican Republic, beginning a fourteen-month
occupation of the country.
Dubbing it “Operation Powerpack,” President Johnson’s administration
sold the invasion with gruesome lies that played off mid-sixties
anticommunist hysteria and a manufactured national security risk. On
April 28, 1965, Johnson alerted the American public of the operation as
it was happening in a brazen White House press conference, saying it was necessary to “protect American lives.”
The US had long viewed Rafael Trujillo, the Dominican Republic’s
brutal dictator, as an ally who helped offset the political influence of
Cuba’s Fidel Castro. But after Trujillo’s assassination, Juan Bosch, a liberal reformer and one-time political prisoner, was elected president.
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