SUMMARY
(Note to reader: this Country page primarily contains brief information about state-based violence during the period 1946-1974, and to some extent 1975-1988. For more detailed information on organized violence after 1989, please consult the specific Conflict and Dyad pages available on the left-hand side of this page. These pages contain more detailed information regarding all three categories of organized violence in this country from 1989 and onwards (when applicable), as well as detailed information about state-based violence 1975-1988. The left-hand side menu also contains links to Actor pages for all groups involved in organized violence since 1989 in this country, as well as actors involved in state-based violence 1975-1988.)
The Dominican Republic became a sovereign state in 1865. During the 20th century, governance oscillated between political upheavals and autocracy. The era of dictatorship was entrenched with Rafael Trujillo’s ascent to power in 1930.
Upon Trujillo’s 1961 assassination, the country’s first multi-party elections were held in 1962, which the Dominican Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Domincano, PRD) led by Juan Bosch won. Under Bosch presidency, a new constitution was ratified in 1963 and a land reform was implemented. These changes struck conservative landholders and military officers as radical and threatening. The military leadership and the economic elite also feared communist influence in the republic. The result of these concerns was a bloodless military coup in 1963 which installed a civilian junta, known as the Triumvirate. The popular dissatisfaction with the Triumvariate coupled with lingering loyalties to PRD and Bosch produced a revolution that turned into an intra-state conflict in April 1965.
The vanguards of the 1965 revolution were primarily the perredeistas (members of the PRD) and the reformist military who collectively called themselves Constitutionalists (a reference to their support for the 1963 constitution). Colonel Francisco Caamaño led this group as they took to the streets on April 24, seized the National Palace, and installed a provisional president. The conservative military forces (the Loyalists) struck back against the Constitutionalists, but the latter managed to hold their positions in the capital. Both sides were heavily armed and many civilians were caught in the crossfire.
When the Loyalists failed to gain control of the capital, the USA intervened on April 28 as a secondary warring party. President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered in around 20,000 troops, to secure the capital and to restore order. Johnson had acted in the stated belief that the Constitutionalists were dominated by communists who could not be allowed to come to power. The intervention was subsequently granted some measure of hemispheric approval by the creation of an OAS-sponsored peace keeping force, which supplemented the United States military presence in the republic. Most of the US troops left when a truce was declared between the warring parties on 31 August 1965. However, violent skirmishes between Loyalists and Constitutionalists went on sporadically until elections were organized in 1966.
Since 1946 the Dominican Republic has experienced the intra-state category of UCDP organised violence.
