Closure on Balaguer

[A.Hidalgo]

Originally Posted by Chirimoya

errrm... you lost me there. I suggest you re-check your historical facts.

You are right Chiri. Spanish civil war was fought about 40 years before Franco designated Prince Juan Carlos to lead the country in the late 60's. Otherwise interesting post.

[bilijou]

Originally Posted by Chris

If one accepts that some kind of societal 'closure' or 'purging' of old values is needed before this country can make a successful transition to some kind of democracy....

Countless threads complaining about how politicians have no boundaries scream for the “purging” of old values. As long as we don’t reach a consensus on our past, in which we identify and condemn the deeds of the Balaguer and Trujillo’s regimes, we won’t have this closure. Politicians admire how Balaguer handled business, and this shouldn’t be. This is evident by the fact that they all mention his “intelligence” in handling the Dominican people as the admirable trait. I would be rich if I had a penny every time I’ve heard Dominicans called Balaguer a perfect politician for his ability to stay in power throughout his life no matter what.

Originally Posted by Chris

Then one also has to accept that the DR society is in a place where they are the victims of wheel spinning.

This is the problem. We can’t call them all victims.

The case of DR’s authoritarian regimes (Trujillo’s and Balaguer’s) has an eerie similarity with the recent case of Austrian girl, Natascha Kampusch, who was abducted at 10 and kept locked in a room. Though initially terrified, she later developed affection for him. Stockholm syndrome. When released, she couldn’t say anything bad about the man. Today, a decade after Balaguer’s last administration, there are mixed feelings about him. He was good, but bad at the same time.
I ask, “Why was he good?”
Dominicans reply just as now 18 year old Natascha would. They downplay how bad the regime was and say that they don’t blame him for anything he did. As Natascha, they don’t see themselves as victims either.

Luckily, a country evolves different than a person. Every generation reassesses the past and has a different conclusion. I don’t know when, but one day, there will be a Dominican generation that will understand how damaging these figures were for our development. How much of a setback it was, is and will be for the next decades. They will be strong and fight any authoritarian government, pushing for democracy at all costs. We will have closure.

[A.Hidalgo]

Does anybody remember the JRAD ( Juventud Reformista Anticomunista Democratica) ( Reformist Anticomminist Democratic Youth) aka "la Banda". They were composed of elements from the lumpenproletariat. These fellas were the henchmen for Balaguer's government. Although not officialy a branch of it, carried out their activities with impunity. The JRAD administered the white terror (The members cars were painted white) as an indirect appendage of the regime. They attacked and killed people, destroyed properties, and also took prisoners.

With this kind of history Balaguer is not on my list of whom I would consider to be credited with leaving a legacy of democracy in the DR.


PS Behind all the machinations in the years after Trujillo's assasination the fingerprints of the CIA are all over the place. Any advancement towards a democracy was truncated.

[Ogre of the Caribbean]

Originally Posted by Squat

Balaguer was a fantastic transition between hardcore dictatorship and nowadays regular "democracy".

That can't be done without a certain curve when starting from such a regime as Trujillo's.

Have a look at our closest neighbour's dictators. The Duvalliers from Haiti. Instead of having a smart man to perform the transition between François Duvallier and a future stable regime, Haiti had Jean-Claude Duvallier, an inept rich kid, more interested in racing his sports car than in taking care of his native land. His lack of capacities are part of the roots of todays Haiti's turmoil.

My point is that Balaguer was indeed a regular human being : yes, there was political murders and big corruption while he was in power, and no, he was not a gentle "grand-father-like" saint. But he made a great job.

Keep in mind Balaguer was also the one who started the reforestation of our nation. He made illegal to cut down trees, and introduced a subsidized propane-gas and stove for average dominicans.

And it sounds very hypocritical to state that today's corruption among dominicans politics is coming only from Balaguer's time. It is plain false ! Corrupted politics is a way of life in America Latina, Balaguer is not the one who invented it ! Please wake up...

I think balaguer is one of the few great leader of the Dominican Republic of all times.

Interesting Point.

I"m currently reading through the book, Collapse. How societies choose to fail or succeed by Jared Diamond. He spends an entire chapter discussing the diffferences between Haiti and The Dominican Republic. He credits Balaguer with saving the DR's enviroment and keeping the DR from becoming a deforested wasteland like Haiti. But I think more to the point, men like Balaguer and Trujillo were not your standard dictators. As I have posted numerous times on this message board, both of these men contributed greatly to the country. They were men of very real achievements.

Yes, Balaguer had a lot of people killed. Yes, he rigged elections. But he also did some postive things for the country. Dictators like Papa Doc and Idi Amin did little except rob their countries blind and allow the infastructure to collapse. Most of the men(Dictators) who came before Trujillo and Balaguer did little to improve the country. Lillis Hereaux was known more for his brutality, corruption, and repression than building railroads. He also left the country in financial ruins.

As for the common Dominican, most did not suffer under Trujillo and Balaguer. They might have lacked freedom of expression, but under Trujillo that had a strong economy and extremely low crime. They received something in return for the Trujillo Dictatorship. The reality is that very few Dominicans were killed(relative to the population). Yes, it was thousands, but there are millions of Dominicans.

The masses in the DR have always been poor. And probably always will be. What benefits them are things like low crime rates and the a protected enviroment(especially when they can look across the river and see the Haitian moonscape). You can read over the quotes I posted from interviews(by Richard Lee Turits) with Trujillo Era Dominicans on the "Dominican History" thread in the government section. Yes, there was repression, but the campesinos didn't really seem to care. They want security and a relatively healthy economy.

As long as Balaguer and Trujillo's accomplishments can be factually pointed out, especially in light of todays political failures, there will always be nostalgia for men like Trujillo and Balaguer.

I think it is interesting to read on DR1 that a postage stamp was just issued by the Dominican government with Balaguers face on it.

[Squat]

Pacheco is right...

You guys can't seriously compare DR with Spain or East Germany...

Check out our closest neighbour, Haiti, for a decent comparaison.

Papa Doc & Trujillo, then Balaguer & Baby Doc...

My point is that would Haiti have had such a figure as Balaguer to conduct an "after François Duvallier" era, this nation might not be what it is today, with 2 US interventions, and the UN occupying the land so it is not a perpetual civil war.

As of Juan Bosch, he is a very interesting figure, but out of our subject since he has not been long enough in power to be of any historical relevance, versus the 25 years of "El Doctor".

I am against "sainthood" in politics, as Rick was mentionning. I am against making Duarte, Sanchez & Mella like holy figures, since we don't know enough of them apart from the major propaganda... Because when we look at the 3 "new saints" of our times : Balaguer, Bosch & Peña Gomez, we can really view it is just a big scam...

That said, "El Doctor" was absolutely not a saint, but he has been a great leader for the nation, one of the greatest I would say.

[Chirimoya]

I like bilijou's 'Stockholm syndrome' analogy. It makes absolute sense.

Originally Posted by joel pacheco

Interesting Point.

I"m currently reading through the book, Collapse. How societies choose to fail or succeed by Jared Diamond. He spends an entire chapter discussing the diffferences between Haiti and The Dominican Republic. He credits Balaguer with saving the DR's enviroment and keeping the DR from becoming a deforested wasteland like Haiti. But I think more to the point, men like Balaguer and Trujillo were not your standard dictators. As I have posted numerous times on this message board, both of these men contributed greatly to the country. They were men of very real achievements.

Yes, Balaguer had a lot of people killed. Yes, he rigged elections. But he also did some postive things for the country. Dictators like Papa Doc and Idi Amin did little except rob their countries blind and allow the infastructure to collapse. Most of the men(Dictators) who came before Trujillo and Balaguer did little to improve the country. Lillis Hereaux was known more for his brutality, corruption, and repression than building railroads. He also left the country in financial ruins.

As for the common Dominican, most did not suffer under Trujillo and Balaguer. They might have lacked freedom of expression, but under Trujillo that had a strong economy and extremely low crime. They received something in return for the Trujillo Dictatorship. The reality is that very few Dominicans were killed(relative to the population). Yes, it was thousands, but there are millions of Dominicans.

The masses in the DR have always been poor. And probably always will be. What benefits them are things like low crime rates and the a protected enviroment(especially when they can look across the river and see the Haitian moonscape). You can read over the quotes I posted from interviews(by Richard Lee Turits) with Trujillo Era Dominicans on the "Dominican History" thread in the government section. Yes, there was repression, but the campesinos didn't really seem to care. They want security and a relatively healthy economy.

As long as Balaguer and Trujillo's accomplishments can be factually pointed out, especially in light of todays political failures, there will always be nostalgia for men like Trujillo and Balaguer.

It's those trains again.

I think it is interesting to read on DR1 that a postage stamp was just issued by the Dominican government with Balaguers face on it.

This is the perfect homage to Balaguer (and to be fair, the same would go for most other Dominican politicians). The post office is a government institution that has a substantial budget, but doesn't actually fulfil its apparent function. Its only purpose is to employ as many party faithful as possible.

[qgrande]

Originally Posted by Chirimoya

History is full of examples of countries that emerged from dictatorship and made a successful transition to democracy. Spain has already been mentioned, and ignored by all the posters who said you can't go from dictatorship to democracy overnight. Spain managed it in less than a decade. Here in the DR we're in the fifth post-Trujillo decade and still counting. What is so different about the two cases? BTW I'm not asking that rhetorically - I think the cases are similar but wonder about the differences between the two societies and their economies as well as the post-dictator leadership/government style that caused Spain to flourish and the DR to flounder.

Post-WW2 (West) Germany is another example. Some of the former eastern bloc countries like the Czech Republic are doing OK. Then again there are also a number of disasters, as seen in the Balkans, but the reasons for this are not analogous to the DR's case.

As I said I don't know what all the crucial factors are, but having a truly visionary leader has to be among them.

Instead of only making comparisons with Haiti and what went wrong there to paint a favorable picture, there are valuable lessons to be learned from the smooth transition to democracy in Spain after Franco for any country coming out of authoritarianism (One should hope they take notice in Cuba). Some of the differences lie in the peculiarities of the Spanish case. It wasn't a complete transformation overnight; already in the 1960s the Franco regime had started to relax in some ways and open the country, with for instance a massive amounts of tourists coming in as a result. Also, Franco died of natural causes, and was not assassinated like Trujillo (although perhaps the assassination by ETA of Luis Carrero Blanco, the president under Franco to be his successor and pretty close ideologically is a parallel). And, if you look at the consolidation of democracy in Spain, and 5 problematic decades in the DR, the fact that Spain joined the EU, with the economic development and political and legal integration that comes with it, just 11 years after Franco's death counts as well I think.

[Rick Snyder]

As the DR is a near-Third World country most people have been struggling with poverty and a deep sense of helplessness in the face of continued economic stagnation. There has always been widespread corruption and the majority of the government leaders are people whose chief interest is not the welfare of the nation but rather their own personal gain. Most people in the DR feel hopeless and cheated to have to live here, and many of them scramble to find a way out. They realize the country is in a big mess and feel it's not going to get any better anytime soon.

With that kind of background, there are few things for Dominicans to be proud of in their native land. Their history may be one of the few things they cling to in an attempt to project a sense of pride as Dominicans. Also, it seems that many teachers overemphasize the positive and downplay or fail to mention the negative aspects of their national history. Part of that comes from 30-something years of Trujilloism followed by the 20-something years of Balaguerism when they were only allowed to say that everything was good and the government was doing everything well, and so forth. This concept is still being followed today as can be evidenced in this thread even though the restraints as to what can be said about and against the government have been lifted.

So, when you put those two things together, I can better understand where the consensus is coming from. I suspect those personal feelings are strongly influenced by the factors outlined above. On the one hand they admit Trujillo and Balaguer did all that they are accused of and on the other hand they give the impression they were not evil. If they were asked I am sure their definition of evil would not be too much different from mine. But in spite of their quick thinking their minds seem to refuse to put two and two together and simply admit that these two desperados were downright evil.

My point is not so much to try to prove that these two men were indeed evil. Rather, my major point is that this present perspective is representative of a larger mindset common to a lot of Dominican people who are not willing to admit darker aspects of their own history. My analysis is that the pain and the hopelessness brought on by present circumstances forces them to look for something else to be proud of.

It amuses me to read comments by those that say the DR isn’t a democracy. I think now is a good time to bring this word out to the forefront to better establish the validity as to whether the DR is a democratic country. I suppose the first step would be to look at the universal definition of the word. Would it be safe to say that the DR has a government by the people? As elections are the determining factor for choosing the representatives of this government and the participation of the people is required for that choosing then that would equate to a government by the people. This choosing is in fact determined by a majority of the votes cast and this rule of majority vote is also used in both houses of congress in the dealings with the agendas before them. Democracy could not exist without the concept of equality and due to the constitution and other laws on the books the DR has a system of social equality implemented.

Remember that there are many forms of democracy. Due to the vote of the Dominican people determining who its leaders are it can’t be said that the DR is an autocracy, anarchy or one of the many other forms of government there are other then a democracy. The fact that the politicians and political parties know how to spend the monies so that they are victorious in the elections doesn’t detract from the type of government that the DR has in place. It only proves that those in the echelons of power have failed to implement the necessary requirements to turn the government into a better democracy which would turn the DR into a more prosperous country and would make all the people more prosperous.

I will now expand into my pet peeve. The desire for freedom isn’t innate. The knowledge of how democracy functions must be taught and learned. Any society that wants to be free needs to ensure that its citizens are well educated in the theory and practice of democracy. A part of this responsibility for such education lies with the public schools, which may teach children not only through the formal curriculum, but also through the conduct of their institutional affairs. Formal schooling is not the only educational influence in a free society. Courses and workshops for adults, programs on television and radio, articles in newspapers and magazines, activities organized by community groups can also help citizens of all ages learn about democracy.

The discussion about totalitarian and authoritarian governments has appeared in many posts here and anyone who doubts the political importance of education would do well to note how vigorously totalitarian and authoritarian governments work to control the information that is passed through the schools, media, and other sources. As has been stated the absence of a totalitarian government does not magically give rise to a strong, stable, and effective democracy.

Democracy does not teach itself. If the strengths, benefits, and responsibilities of democracy are not made clear to the Dominicans, they will be ill-equipped to defend it. Education for democracy, therefore, must be approached in a conscious and serious manner and that is lacking here.

Rick

[bob saunders]

Good Post Rick. It's true in most countries that the darker parts of the country's history are downplayed and the more heroic history is given a great part that it really played. Kind of like Washington crossing the potomic(sp), but ignoring the years of slavery and killing of the indians. Democracy has to be taught, hopefully with as much emphasis put on responsibilities as rights.

[suarezn]

My biggest problem with Balaguer is that he could have done so much and didn't, because his only real ambition was to maintain power by all means necessary.

Even though I was a kid then I remember his Twelve years regime and the palpable fear that existed then. There were Calies everywhere and people dissapearing left and right. La Banda Colora doing whatever they felt like doing with complete impunity. My uncle who was known to be a PRD sympathizer went through a period of time where he wouldn't sleep in the same house twice as he got wind that La Banda was looking for him. In my hometown priests would hide people in churches and safehouses. I know of people who were dragged from their houses and shot right in front of their families.

He did do some good things for the environment, nobody can dispute that, but to me Balaguer is no father of democracy...