Maneuvering to Stay

One month after the Organization of American States voted sanctions against the Dominican Republic in an effort to topple Dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, 69, the strongman is still in charge. Billboards dot the Dominican countryside with sycophantic testimonials: "Trujillo, Greatest Man of the Continent," "Trujillo, Dominican Glory," "Trujillo, Your People Adore You."

Yet Trujillo is hurting and putting in long days to stay in power. Economically, the OAS sanctions intensify a recession already under way because of declining commodity prices and vastly increased spending for arms. With the political future clouded, private investment has almost stopped. The rich are holding onto their money and trying to convert pesos into dollars in the black market.

In downtown El Conde and Arzobispo Nouel, Ciudad Trujillo's principal shopping streets, the stores are almost empty, and many would close if the government would let them. The third of the capital's population that lives in filthy hovels, mostly along the Ozama River, is largely unemployed, and government food kitchens supply a daily meal of rice and bananas to the hungry. The customary public works projects have been cut to the bone to relieve a $70 million budget deficit, putting thousands more out of work.

Byzantine Intrigue. Initially, Trujillo responded to the possibility of OAS action against his dictatorship by trying to camouflage the regime. Oppositionists were encouraged to participate in next year's elections. Trujillo removed himself from the palace, his brother Hector from the presidency, his son Ramfis from the chairmanship of the combined chiefs of staff. He turned over the regime to Vice President Joaquin Balaguer, an old henchman.

As in any dictatorship, Trujillo's totalitarian regime has within itself extremist and moderate wings, and they are engaged in Byzantine intriguing. Balaguer was a moderate, and for the moment Trujillo knowingly freed him to act. As the new president, Balaguer took office saying that his main job would be "continuing the process of democratization" and promised to seek a general amnesty for political prisoners.

After the OAS voted sanctions, the extremists, led by Trujillo's onetime secret police chief, John Abbes Garcia, gained the ascendancy. Abbes, a combination court assassin and court jester who knows how to fawn on Trujillo's ego, took the bit in his teeth as Trujillo gave him rein. Powerful Radio Caribe, an ostensibly private radio station actually run by Abbes' henchmen, began attacking the Balaguer regime for being weak-kneed against the OAS. With the afternoon newspaper La Nacion, also linked to Abbes, it "demanded" that Trujillo take over the presidency and that Balaguer step down.

Watching the game from on high, Trujillo intervened to announce his confidence in Balaguer but suspended the "democratization" masquerade. Mobs sacked the headquarters of the pro-Castro Popular Dominican Movement and the "loyal opposition" Quisqueyano Party, and the legal opposition ended. Balaguer's amnesty bill is dying in Congress.

Scaring Washington. After watching the second longest-lived dictatorship in hemisphere history (the first: Mexico's Porfirio Diaz, 1877-1910), Trujillo's followers know well how to play on his suspicions, how to capitalize on his fear of plots and his appetite for quick and easy solutions--and above all, how far to go. Currently Abbes has the go-ahead, and his line is to have Radio Caribe and La Nacion call for a leftist, pro-Castro position that is supposed to scare Washington. Foreign Minister Herrera Baez's statement that his government would continue standing with the West brought a Radio Caribe blast that "all he did was lick the boots of the aggressive imperialists." But at the same time Trujillo allowed Herrera Baez to visit London, Paris, Madrid and The Hague to line up Western support and let him promise that the Dominicans would not expel the U.S. missile-tracking station in Trujillo's country.

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