62 years after the coup that overthrew Juan Bosch

SANTO DOMINGO, R.D. – September 25, 1963, was marked as one of the most tragic episodes in Dominican political history: the military coup that overthrew President Juan Bosch, just seven months after assuming power. 62 years after that event, its memory remains a symbol of the struggle for democracy and social justice in the country. Bosch, leader of the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), had been elected in December 1962 after the fall of the dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo. His government bet on progressive reforms: redistribution of land, strengthening of labor rights, transparency in public management, educational impulse and reduction of prices in the basic basket.

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These initiatives generated resistance among military, economic, and conservative sectors, who ended up supporting the coup. The movement, led by Colonel Elías Wessin y Wessin, justified its intervention by alleging a supposed communist infiltration in the government, in a context of Cold War and fear after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. Before going into exile, Bosch wrote a letter —published on September 26, 1963— in which he defended his management and reaffirmed his commitment to freedom, social justice, and transparency: “In seven months of government we have not shed a drop of blood nor have we ordered a torture nor have we accepted that a penny of the people went to the hands of thieves”. The coup opened a stage of instability that led to the April Revolution of 1965, a civic-military uprising that sought the return of Bosch and that provoked the military intervention of the United States. Today, six decades later, Bosch’s legacy lives on in the Dominican collective memory, as an example of honesty and democratic commitment. His brief government is remembered as a before and after in national political history.