Joaquín Balaguer

Joaquín Balaguer (1977)

Joaquín Antonio Balaguer Ricardo (born September 1, 1906 in Villa Navarrete , Santiago Province , Dominican Republic , † July 14, 2002 in Santo Domingo , Dominican Republic) was a Dominican politician , President of the Dominican Republic and writer .

Joaquín Balaguer is one of the most colorful politicians in the Dominican Republic. At the age of 24 he entered the service of Trujillo - dictatorship , which (as president last) to the end loyalty held from 1930 to 1961, the country dominated and he. After a few years in exile in the United States , he became President of the Dominican Republic again - with an interruption from 1978 to 1986 - until his resignation in 1996. Even after that, he played an important role as the gray eminence of Dominican politics until his death.

Life

Until the end of the Trujillo dictatorship

Balaguer came from a well-off family of Catalan descent. He attended schools first in his hometown, later in Santiago de los Caballeros , where he began his law studies, which he successfully completed in Santo Domingo in 1929 .

In 1930 Balaguer participated in the overthrow of President Horacio Vásquez , who brought Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina to power. In the new Trujillos government, he assumed a high position in the legal civil service. In 1932 he went to Madrid as first secretary of the Dominican embassy , a year later to Paris in the same function and again to Madrid in 1934. In 1935 he was appointed Undersecretary of State for Public Education and Culture and in 1936 Undersecretary of State in the Presidential Office in Santo Domingo. In 1938 he took over a professorship for constitutional and civil law at the University of Santo Domingo .

From 1940 Balaguer embarked on a diplomatic career and represented his country as ambassador to Colombia , Honduras and Mexico . In 1953 he became foreign minister. In 1954, in the presence of dictator Trujillo, he signed the Concordat between the Holy See and the Dominican Republic in the Vatican . In 1957 he became vice president of the country.

After the dictator Trujillo carried out a (unsuccessful) assassination attempt on the President of Venezuela, Rómulo Betancourt , in June 1960 , the Dominican Republic came under increasing international pressure. The Organization of American States (OAS) imposed sanctions and decided to break off diplomatic relations. In this situation Trujillo felt compelled to dismiss his brother, Hector Bienvenido Trujillo Molina , who had been formally elevated to the presidency in 1952 . He was succeeded on August 3, 1960 by Joaquín Balaguer in his function as Vice President in accordance with the constitution in the presidency.

The exile in the USA and the Dominican Civil War

On May 30, 1961, Rafael Leónidas Trujillo was assassinated. In the unrest and turmoil that followed, Balaguer was initially able to hold onto his office as president.

After the hated Trujillo was eliminated and his family and favorites were exiled, political forces formed in the country who demanded a new state order and the democratization of the country. In January 1962 a Council of State was convened to draw up a democratic constitution and prepare for free elections. Balaguer opposed this, whereupon he was ousted in March 1962. He fled to the Apostolic Nunciature and went into exile in the USA (until June 1965).

In the meantime, the first free elections were held, from which the respected writer Juan Bosch Gaviño (1909–2001) emerged as the winner and took office on February 27, 1963. But just a few months later, on September 25, 1963, Bosch was overthrown with the support of the American secret service CIA in a military coup led by General Elías Wessin y Wessin . This was followed by a period of arbitrariness and instability by the state, which culminated in a popular uprising against the dictatorship and for a return of Juan Bosch to his presidency in the spring of 1965, which ultimately led to the Dominican civil war and the resignation of junta leader Donald Reid Cabral . The United States then sent 42,000 Marines and Air Force units to occupy the country and prevent Bosch, who had been defamed as a “communist”, from returning. The American occupiers ordered new elections for 1966. Until then, Pedro Bartolomé Benoit (May 1, 1965 to May 7, 1965) and Antonio Imbert Barrera (May 7 to August 30, 1965) took over the interim presidency on the part of the junta , while the supporters of Busch's José Rafael Molina Ureña (25 April 1965 to April 27, 1965) and Francisco Alberto Caamaño (May 4, 1965 to September 3, 1965) as provisional presidents. On September 3, 1965, a peace treaty was signed and Héctor García Godoy was installed as President.

Presidency 1966–1978

On June 1, 1966, in the face of a massive campaign of repression by the military , the police and with the support of the USA, Joaquín Balaguer, who had hastily returned from the States, won the presidency in rigged elections. The American intervention troops then left the country.

From 1966 to 1974 political unrest and sustained guerrilla activity dominated the scene. Balaguer terrorized the opponents of his policy with a nationwide operating private army ("La Banda"), which killed thousands of people.

1970–1978 Balaguer was confirmed in office in two consecutive terms without opposing candidates and using military terror. But in 1978 he was surprisingly defeated by the opposing candidate Antonio Guzmán Fernández . Attempts by Balaguers' supporters to prevent the election result failed due to massive pressure from abroad. In 1982, Salvador Jorge Blanco, another representative of the opposition, came to power.

From 1986 until death

In 1986 Balaguer stood again in the elections and, as before, won them under questionable circumstances. In 1990, when Balaguer's old opponent and former head of state, Juan Bosch, faced the challenge again, Balaguer won a controversial result with an allegedly razor-thin majority.

The game was repeated in 1994 when Balaguer, aged and almost blind , ran for the highest office of the State against the candidate of the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD), José Francisco Peña Gómez . Again Balaguer won after a dubious election result. But the opposition now raised massive objections because of electoral fraud and ensured that Balaguer could only remain in office for two years (seventh term). In the following years, representatives of the opposition won the elections with Leonel Fernández (1996) and Hipólito Mejía (2000).

After his resignation as president (1996) Balaguer continued to work as the "gray eminence" of Dominican politics until he died on July 14, 2002 in Santo Domingo at the age of 95.

Political importance

Together with his spiritual foster father and mentor , Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, Joaquín Balaguer determined the fate of the Dominican Republic like no other politician. Nevertheless, Balaguer was of a very different nature than Trujillo. In contrast to this, he was not interested in personal enrichment and bombastic pomp. Balaguer was strictly Catholic and of a sober, inconspicuous, calm, even brittle nature. He remained a bachelor throughout his life and let his sisters look after him. He never lived in a luxurious presidential palace, but stayed in his relatively modest family home. He was a quiet and hard worker who did his job with meticulous assiduity. Balaguer disdained merengue , the Dominican national music, and baseball , the national sport . In many ways he was the pure opposite of the Latin American macho and thus contradicted the self-image of the Dominican population.

The only thing that connected him to Trujillo was his will to power and the ability to manipulate his followers and opponents. In order to come to power and keep it, he behaved very skillfully and opportunistically. He knew how to secure his power base with manipulation, intrigues, intrigues, repression, gifts, empty promises, real and false votes, populism, American support, oligarchic sympathy and the blessing of the church. In contrast to Trujillo, he remained a civilian through and through, who also knew how to keep the military in check.

In contrast to Trujillo, Balaguer was highly educated and in his essence a real aesthetician. He wrote around two dozen books and, like his eternal counterpart, Juan Bosch, was one of the most famous writers in the Spanish-speaking world.

While Balaguer initially remained in power with police terrorism, this subsided in the mid-1970s, and democratic and constitutional structures could slowly develop in the country . During this time, the Dominican Republic experienced a noticeable economic upturn thanks to intensive American aid.

Balaguer's commitment to nature conservation is also remarkable . Under his leadership, an exemplary nature conservation and national park program for Latin America was initiated and comprehensive measures to protect the forests were carried out. Today over 30% of the country's area is protected. One consequence of this is that the Dominican Republic suffers from significantly fewer ecological problems compared to neighboring Haiti. However, it must also be noted that these measures were implemented using undemocratic means and in some cases by force of arms.

Literary work

Balaguer's literary work includes poetry, a novel, essays (primarily on historical, biographical and literary topics) as well as countless lectures and speeches.

Poetry

• Salmos paganos . Santiago 1922
• Claro de Luna . Santiago 1922
• Tebaida lírica . Santiago 1924
• Cruces iluminadas . Santo Domingo 1974
• La cruz de cristal . Santo Domingo 1976
• Huerto sellado. Versos de juventud . Barcelona 1980
• Gallery heroica . Barcelona 1984
• Voz silente . Santo Domingo 1992
• La venda transparent . Santo Domingo 1987
• Antología poética (español – francés) . Santo Domingo 1995
• Poemario . Santo Domingo 2001

novel

• Los carpinteros . Santo Domingo 1984

Essays

• Nociones de métrica castellana . Santiago de los Caballeros 1930
• Heredia, verbo de la libertad . Santiago 1939
• Azul en los charcos . Bogotá 1941
• The Trujillo-Hull Square and the Liberación Financiera de la República Dominicana . Bogotá 1941
• Guía emocional de la ciudad romántica . Santiago de los Caballeros 1944
• Letras dominicanas . Santiago 1944
• Palabras con dos acentos rítmicos . Bogotá 1946
• Los próceres escritores . Buenos Aires 1947
• Semblanzas literarias . Buenos Aires 1948
• El Cristo de la libertad . Buenos Aires 1950
• Literatura dominicana . Buenos Aires 1950
• Apuntes para una prosódica de la métrica castellana . Madrid 1954
• F García Godoy . Santo Domingo 1951
• El pensamiento vivo de Trujillo . Santo Domingo 1955
• Historia de la literatura dominicana . Ciudad Trujillo 1956
• Cristóbal Colón: precursor literario . Buenos Aires 1958
• El centinela de la frontera, vida y hazañas de Antonio Duvergé El Cristo de la libertad . Buenos Aires 1962
• Reformismo: filosofía política de la revolución sin sangre . Santo Domingo 1966
• Con Dios, con la patria y con la libertad . Santo Domingo 1971
• Conjura develada . Santo Domingo 1971
• Ante la tumba de mi madre . Santo Domingo 1972
• La marcha hacia el Capotillo . México 1973
• Martí, crítica e interpretación . Santo Domingo 1975
• Juan Antonio Alix, crítica e interpretación . Santiago de los Caballeros 1977
• La isla al revés Fundación José Antonio Caro , 1983
• Semblanzas literarias Editorial de la Cruz Aybar , 1985
• Memorias de un cortesano en la “Era de Trujillo” . Santo Domingo 1988
• Romance del caminante sin destino (Enrique Blanco) . Santo Domingo 1990
• De vuelta al Capitolio 1986-1992 . Santo Domingo 1993
• Discursos, mensajes and opinions about the Quinto Centenario . Santo Domingo 1993
• Yo y mis condiscípulos . Santo Domingo 1996
• España infinita . Santo Domingo 1997
• Grecia eterna . Santo Domingo 1999
• La raza inglesa . Santo Domingo 2000

Lectures and speeches (selection)

• Discursos: panegíricos, educación y política internacional . Madrid 1957
• Misión de los intelectuales: discurso de incorporación del Sr Dr Joaquín Balaguer a la cátedra de estudios americanistas Víctor Andrés Belaunde . Santo Domingo 1967
• La Marcha hacia el Capitolio . Santo Domingo 1973
• Discursos: temas históricos y literarios . Barcelona 1973
• Temas educativos y actividades diplomáticas . Barcelona 1973
• La Palabra Encadenada . 1975
• Discurso pronunciado por el Presidente Constitucional de la República en el develamiento de la estatua del poeta Fabio Fiallo . Santo Domingo 1977
• Mensajes Presidenciales . Barcelona 1979
• Pedestales: discursos históricos . Santo Domingo 1979
• Mensajes al Pueblo Dominicano . 1983
• Entre la sangre del 30 de mayo and la de 24 de april . Barcelona 1983
• La Voz del Capitolio . Barcelona 1984
• Discursos, mensajes and opinions about the Quinto Centenario . Santo Domingo 1993

Web links

Wikiquote: Joaquín Balaguer  - Quotes (Spanish)

• Literature by and about Joaquín Balaguer in the catalog of the Ibero-American Institute of Prussian Cultural Heritage, Berlin
• Joaquín Balaguer: El Cristo de la Libertad. Santo Domingo 2000 (biography of Juan Pablo Duarte (span.)). In: monografias.com.

predecessor	Office	successor
Hector B. Trujillo	President of the Dominican Republic 1960–1961	Rafael Filiberto Bonelly
Héctor García Godoy	President of the Dominican Republic 1966–1978	Antonio Guzmán Fernández
Salvador Jorge Blanco	President of the Dominican Republic 1986–1996	Leonel Fernández