MILITARY AID OR KILLER DEAL: U.S. WEAPONS TRADE AND MILITARY TRAINING IN THE CARIBBEAN, 1790 - 2001 Guest Speaker: Dr. Humberto Garcia Muñiz

THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC AND THE SCHOOL OF ASSASSINS

Notice that the Dominican Republic here has a total 12,530 graduates. That is 51% of all the soldiers that were trained and in the 47 years of the donation of this program. 35% were trained under the Balaguer regime. Let me tell you a personal experience of this aspect. When I was dong this research, I remember that in 1974 a newspaper journalist called Orlando Martínez was assassinated by Balaguer in the Dominican Republic. He was the most important journalist easily in the Spanish Caribbean. The only one who could compare to him was in the English-speaking Caribbean which was Ricky Singh from Guyana. He edited a magazine called Ahora and was a columnist in the paper El Nacional, a daily. He could really write and really analyze. He was murdered in 1974 and nobody was punished. His brother tried to get into it and he was murdered too. So that blank space is there and it is so blank that in the latest memoir of Balaguer he leaves a blank page saying that when he dies he has a friend who will say who killed Orlando Martínez -- Memorias de un cortesano.

<< back to lecture excerpt list