Comedy & Public Violence

Among other things, President Hector Garcia-Godoy and his beleaguered provisional government could use a good laugh. Last week they got at least a chuckle--from a bloodless, sadly undernourished attempted coup that looked like something out of Gilbert and Sullivan.

The government knew the coup attempt was being plotted, but hardly anybody took it seriously. Shortly before 2 a.m. one day last week, Dr. T. Alcibiades Espinosa, a gynecologist and nabob of a small, far-right group with almost no support among the military, marched into the National Historical Archives Building in the inland city of Santiago, followed by a corporal's guard of 60 men armed with machetes, baseball bats and a few ancient rifles.

Espinosa proclaimed himself President, decreed a Christmas bonus for all work ers, and broadcast a call for popular revolt. Santiago's police chief politely invited Espinosa over to the Police Palace for "friendly talks," then unceremoniously tossed him into jail, thus ending the affair.

Terrorism by Night. Comic opera though it may have been, the pocket revolt reflected the continuing unease in the Dominican Republic. President Garcia-Godoy's government is under mounting pressure from all sides, and survives primarily because he has 9,200 OAS troops behind him. The country's military is increasingly bitter about the leftists in the Cabinet, and last week forced Garcia-Godoy to oust a key minister: Attorney General Manuel Ramon Morel Cerda, who is accused in sworn testimony of being a Communist--which he denies though he makes no secret of his partiality for ex-President Juan Bosch and the rebels who originally triggered the civil war.

Another sore point is Garcia-Godoy's failure to round up rebel-held arms in downtown Santo Domingo. By night, political terrorists patrol the streets in speeding cars, blasting away with machine guns and hurling hand grenades at their enemies. Last week Garcia-Godoy was even considering bribery to encourage Dominicans to turn in their weapons--up to $80 for a pistol, $55 for a rifle, $250 for a machine gun.

Flag Burning by Day. Meanwhile, there has been a sudden, militant reemergence of the far left. For months Castroites and Communists had been lying low. Then two weeks ago, they formed a "United Anti-Imperialist Front" and launched a series of violent public demonstrations and marches. Twice in seven days, leftist students set a U.S. flag ablaze in front of the National Palace, trying to bait OAS troops into an incident.

Garcia-Godoy will consider it a victory if he can hold the country together until elections, tentatively planned for late May. "On that day," he says wearily, "I will make a speech and then someone else will be President, and I will be the happiest man in the world."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.