Juan Bosch

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Juan Bosch
In office
February 27, 1963 – September 25, 1963
Preceded by Rafael Filiberto Bonnelly
Succeeded by Triumvirate
Born June 30, 1909
La Vega, Dominican Republic
Died November 1, 2001 (aged 92)
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Political party Dominican Revolutionary Party
Dominican Liberation Party

Juan Emilio Bosch Gaviño (30 June 1909, La Vega – 1 November 2001, Santo Domingo) was a politician, historian, short story writer, essayist, educator, and the first democratically elected president of the Dominican Republic after the assassination of dictator Rafael Trujillo in 1961. In 1939 he became the leader of Dominican exiles during Trujillo's regime. To this day he is remembered as an honest politician and regarded as one of the most prominent writers in Dominican literature. He is the founder of both the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) in 1939 and the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) in 1973.

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[edit] Early years

Juan Bosch was born in the town of La Vega, Dominican Republic. His parents were Catalan Juan Bosch and Puerto Rican Angela Gaviño. He lived the first years of his childhood in a small rural community called Río Verde, where he began his primary studies; he attended high school in La Vega. In his youth he went to Santo Domingo and worked in commercial stores. Later he traveled to Spain, Venezuela and some of the Caribbean islands.

He returned in 1931, and published his first short stories book,"Camino Real", the essay "Indios" and the short novel"La Mañosa," about the civil wars in the nineteenth century, which was acclaimed by critics. He created and edited the literary section in the newspaper Listín Diario, becoming a critic and essayist.

In 1934 he married Isabel García, and had two children with her: Leon and Carolina. As Trujillo's dictatorship was getting stronger and meaner, Bosch was jailed for his political ideas, being released after several months. In 1938, knowing that the tyrant wanted to buy him with a position in the Congress, Bosch managed to leave the country, settling in Puerto Rico.

[edit] A Long Exile

By 1939 Bosch had gone to Cuba, where he directed an edition of the completed works of Eugenio María de Hostos, something that defined his patriotic and humanist ideals. In July, with other Dominican expatriates, he founded the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD), which stood out as the most active front against Trujillo outside the Dominican Republic.

Bosch heavily sympathised with leftist ideas, but he always denied any communist affiliation. He collaborated with the Cuban Revolutionary Party and had an important role in the making of the Constitution that was promulgated in 1940.

Bosch married for the second time, this time a Cuban lady, Carmen Quidiello, with whom he had two more children, Patricio and Barbara. At the same time, his literary career was ascending, gaining important acknowledgments like the Hernandez Catá Prize in Havana for short stories written by a Latin American author. His works had a deep social content, among them "La Noche Buena de Encarnación Mendoza", "Luis Pié", "The Masters" and "The Indian Manuel Sicuri", all of them described by critics as masterpieces of the sort.

Bosch was one of the main organizers of the 1949 military conspiracy that landed in Cayo Confites in the north coast of the Dominican Republic, to overthrow the dictatorship of Trujillo. However, the expedition failed, and Bosch fled to Venezuela, continuing his anti-Trujillo campaign. In Cuba, where he returned by requirement of his friends in the Authentic Revolutionary Party, he played a notorious part in the political life of Havana, being recognized as a promoter of social legislation and author of the speech pronounced by President Carlos Prío Socarrás when the body of José Martí was transferred to Santiago de Cuba.

When Fulgencio Batista led a coup d'etat against Prío Socarrás and took over the presidency in 1952, Bosch was jailed by Batista's forces. After being liberated, he left Cuba and headed to Costa Rica, where he dedicated his time to pedagogical tasks, and to his activities as leader of the PRD.

In 1959 the Cuban Revolution took place, led by Fidel Castro, causing a major political, economic and social upheaval in the Caribbean island. Bosch accurately perceived the process that had begun from those events, and wrote a letter to Trujillo, dated February 27, 1961. He told Trujillo that his political role, in historical terms, had concluded in the Dominican Republic.

[edit] Presidency and Opposition

After 23 years in exile, Juan Bosch returned to his homeland when Trujillo was assassinated on May 30, 1961. His presence in the national political life, as the Dominican Revolutionary Party presidential candidate, was a fresh change for the Dominicans. His manner of speaking, direct and simple, especially when addressing the lowest classes, appealed the farmers as much as the people from the cities. Immediately he was accused by the Church and by conservatives of being a communist, but in the electoral match of December 20, 1962, Bosch obtained a sweeping triumph over his main oppositor Viriato Fiallo of the National Civic Union, in what is acknowledged to be the first free election in the country's history.

On February 27, 1963, Juan Bosch and Armando González Tamayo took possession as the new President and Vice President of the Dominican Republic, in a ceremony that was attended by important democratic leaders and personalities, like Luis Muñoz and José Figueres.

Bosch immediately launched a deep restructuring of the country. On April 29, he promulgated a new Constitution, extremely advanced for its time. The Constitution for the first time in dominican history, declared specific labour rights, and mentioned unions, pregnant women, homeless people, the family, rights for the child and the young, for the farmers, and for illegitimate children.

However, Bosch faced powerful enemies. He moved to break up latifundia, drawing the ire of landowners. The Roman Catholic Church thought Bosch was trying to oversecularize the country. Industrialists didn't like the Constitution's guarantees for the working class. The military, who had enjoyed free rein, felt Bosch put them on too short a leash. In addition, the United States was skeptical of even a hint of left-leaning politics in the Caribbean after Fidel Castro openly declared himself a Communist.

On September 25, 1963, after only seven months in office, Bosch was overthrown in a coup led by Colonel Elías Wessin and replaced by a three-man junta. Bosch went back to exile in Puerto Rico.

Less than two years later, growing dissatisfaction generated another military rebellion on April 24, 1965, that demanded Bosch's restoration. The insurgents, commanded by Colonel Francisco Caamaño, removed the junta from power but on April 28, the United States, ostensibly to protect foreigners, intervened in the civil war and dispatched 42,000 troops to the island in Operation Power Pack, just as Caamaño (the leader of the Constitutionalists) said "war would be already over if the U.S. had not intervened." President Lyndon B. Johnson justified the invasion based on fears that the Dominican Republic was turning into "a second Cuba."

An interim government was formed, and elections were fixed for July 1, 1966. Bosch returned to the country and ran as his party's presidential candidate. However, he ran a somewhat muted campaign, fearing for his safety. He was soundly defeated by Joaquín Balaguer, who garnered 57% of the vote.

During the last half of the 1960s, Bosch remained a very prolific writer of essays, both political and historical. He published some of his most important works during this time: "Dominican Social Composition", "Brief History of the Oligarchy in Santo Domingo", "From Christopher Columbus to Fidel Castro", and numerous articles of different sorts.

By 1970, Bosch had the intention of reorganizing the PRD, and turning its members into active, studious militants of the historical and social reality of the country. His project was not accepted by most of the PRD, most of whose members were turning in a more mainstream social democratic direction. Also, given the military repression, and lack of political equality between the PRD and the official Reformist Party, Bosch abstained from the 1970 elections.

The differences and contradictions between Bosch and an important sector of the PRD, as well as the corruption that had started to grow within the party, made him leave the organization in 1973, and thus he founded the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) on December 15 of that same year.

Later he ran unsuccessfully for president as the PLD candidate in 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990, and 1994. He came closest to winning in 1990, but there were serious allegations of fraud against Balaguer.

After placing third in the 1994 election, Bosch retired from politics. He was already 83 years old and suffering from Alzheimer's. In 1996 he was practically carried to the consolidation of the Patriotic Front, an alliance between the PLD and his lifelong opponent Balaguer, as part of the latter's plan to defeat the PRD in the next presidential election.

[edit] Death and Legacy

Juan Bosch -Don Juan, as he is affectionately remembered by many- passed away on November 1st, 2001, in Santo Domingo. As a former President, he received the corresponding honors at the National Palace, and was buried in his hometown of La Vega.

To this day, he is remembered as a man of principles. Over the years, as his luck rose and fell, his political direction oscillated wildly. He described himself as a "non-Communist" and a friend of Fidel Castro, and he told an interviewer in 1988 that he had never been Marxist.

His legacy in politics is more than relevant: his ideals, while mostly forgotten or betrayed by his followers, remain powerful values in public administration. Many believe the Dominican Republic would have flourished both economically and politically without foreign assistance (namely, the U.S.) had Bosch's government been able to fend off the Johnson administration's overt and covert pressures, and to carry out all of his proposed reforms.

The contributions of Professor Bosch to literature through his narratives, novels, short stories and essays made him a role model for several generations of writers, journalists and historians. At one point, Gabriel García Márquez once said that Bosch had been one of his greatest influences.

[edit] Bibliography

Short stories:

  • Camino Real
  • Cuentos escritos antes del exilio
  • Cuentos escritos en el exilio
  • Más cuentos escritos en el exilio

Novels:

  • La mañosa
  • El oro y la paz

Essays:

  • Hostos, el sembrador
  • Cuba, la isla fascinante
  • Judas Iscariote, el calumniado
  • Apuntes sobre el arte de escribir cuentos
  • Trujillo: causas de una tiranía sin ejemplo
  • Simón Bolívar: biografía para escolares
  • David, biografía de un Rey
  • Crisis de la democracia de América
  • Bolívar y la guerra social
  • Pentagonismo, sustituto del imperialismo
  • Dictadura con respaldo popular
  • De Cristóbal Colón a Fidel Castro
  • Breve historia de la oligarquía en Santo Domingo
  • Composición social dominicana
  • La revolución haitiana
  • De México a Kampuchea
  • La guerra de la Restauración en Santo Domingo
  • Capitalismo, democracia y liberación nacional
  • La fortuna de Trujillo
  • La pequeña burguesía en la historia de la Repúblia Dominicana
  • Capitalismo tardío en la República Dominicana
  • El Estado, sus orígenes y desarrollo
  • Pócker de espanto en el Caribe
  • El PLD, un nuevo partido en América
  • Breve historia de los pueblos árabes

[edit] External links


Preceded by
Rafael Bonnelly		 President of the Dominican Republic
February 1963 – September 1963		 Succeeded by
Military Triumvirate