Juan E. Bosch born 30 June 1909, La Vega
– deceased 1 November 2001, Santo Domingo was a politician,
historian,
short story
writer, essayist,
educator,
and the first cleanly elected president of the Dominican Republic for a brief time in 1963.
Previously, he had been the leader of the Dominican opposition in exile to the
dictatorial regime of Rafael Trujillo for over 25 years. 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.
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.
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.
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.
On February 27,
1963, was elected President of the Dominican Republic Bosch immediately launched
a deep restructuring of the country. On April 29, he promulgated a new liberal
constitution. The new document granted the people freedoms they had never
known. Among other things, it declared specific labor 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 over secularize the country. Industrialists did
not like the new Constitution's guarantees for the working class.
The military, who previously 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 military
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, with United States assistance in the civil war dispatching
42,000 troops to the island 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 and believing he'd be thrown out of office by the
military again if he won. 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.
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.
After placing
third in the 1994 election, Bosch retired from politics. He was already 83
years old and presumably suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Juan Bosch died on
November 1, 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.
Partido De La Liberacion Dominicana Official Site
“Servir al Partido para Servir al Pueblo”
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