This stupid idiot has been saying the same things for years, just trying to gain political benefit from his lastname. Who cares who stole Trujillo's assets? Trujillo stole them in the first place...
A new wave of revisionist historians, with little credibility or morals, except among DR's pendejos have propagated the myth about Trujillo's dictatorship as a period of repression, turmoil and poverty.
But these historians were not born, or lived thru Trujillo's Era. They're like parrots who repeat what his enemies have turned to dogma.
But why? My guess is they're afraid of the truth. They have forced prohibition of Trujillo's history. They have erased 30 years of history to cover up their real intent.
I lived in Trujillo's era. I came from a middle class family. We lived in peace, prosperity and security. We left our windows open. Like youth today we freely went to parties, chased girls, drank, and wore cool fashions. I listened to American music thru radio from USA. I was an avid listener of the World Wide Hit Parade. I went bananas the first time I heard Tommy Roe singing " Sheila". I used to follow Mantle, Maris' Yankees. I witnessed Lew Burdette, Whitey Ford pitching thru radio. Life was good, simple. We had copper pennies like America, silver & gold coins.
Trujillo paid the national debt. We were the only true sovereign nation in Latin America.
We never needed BID, World Bank, FMI.
Trujillo's administration was impeccable. Government offices operated like clockwork. Everything was properly institutionalized. The proof is that most government today operate under Trujillo's organizational schemes in some of the same offices he left.
As long as you paid your cedula tax of $2 you were fine. Other than that I never heard of taxes.
I drove my father's car at 14 without a license. Never stopped! We used to party like crazy. The mountains were green, rivers flowing with clean water.
The phone company CDT charged $5 a month with limitless minutes. You could talk forever and only pay $5.
I don't recall ever a blackout. Garbage was collected daily. The streets in Santo Domingo were swept with sweepers.
We had the finest highways and paved streets. The pavement of Autopista Duarte was airport quality concrete, just like the beautiful Malecon, unlike today's cheap mixed asphalt.
Potholes? Where?
Trujillo built Duarte Bridge to last 50 years. It is in better shape than Bosch's Bridge built decades later. It has outlived its tenure.
I climbed all the way to Camp David Ranch El Generalisimo resort hotel near Santiago very high up the mountain. You can see Santiago from there. It looks like a small speck from the impressive view of the valley. The one thing you can see from the vastness is a monument that stands tall signifying what Santiago is all about. Without it, Santiago is just another town full of motoconchos. Trujillo's monument is Santiago.
Food was plentiful. We used to shop at Wimpy's, today's equivalent of Jumbo, but smaller.
Having lived every generation since Trujillo, I venture to say my youth was better under Trujillo than at any time. We had social networks. I was part of the Dominican Band Stand dancing rockNRoll & Twist channel 7. We listened to Pedro Maria Santana rock music programs, Elvis, Paul Anka, Buddy Holly, Frankie Valon's Venus. It was wonderful!
But what is the picture painted by pseudo- historians like Juan Daniel Balcacer, Hector Lachapelle, Moya Pons and Franklin Franco? One of desolation, crimes against humanity and poverty.
What do these historians have in common?
They're all PLD/PRD government paid mouthpieces who get paychecks, juicy expense accounts, travel expenses, exhonerations and military pensions in some cases.
If I didn't know them well, I would have kept silent. But judge for yourself.
Balcacer is the current minister for "Efemerides". His job is to print paper flags @ organized florals for national holidays. He's a self-made historian of sorts, because he was a member of my neighborhood group in NYC, Washington Heights & while I was going to college, he was standing in the streets doing nothing. Including his own resume & biography, he never shows any degree in any college or history major. I graduated. He didn't.
If he did when did he get it. I graduated & he was still jus hanging around Audubon Avenue. I knew his girlfriend from the Nanita family.
I picked up a DR paper 20 years later and like magic, he is the most recognized historian!!
I challenged him several times publicly to tell me how he became historian. He stopped writing me.
Take Moya Pons. He's another Leonel boy who miserably served as minister of enviroment. A nerdy balding guy who used to spend his time sitting in rocking chairs at a Ciudad Nueva Library talking politics with guys like Miguel de Camps. He is a self-serving historian who plans to elevate Leonel to glory. Has anyone asked about his pension?
Take LaChapelle. Here's a lowly captain from Barrio Mejoramiento Social whose claim to fame in my neighborhood at the time was a girl chaser with the uniform. He takes advantage of the '65 revolt, climbs aboard a tank, crosses the Duarte bridge, shoots at buildings and after LBJ cleans house he ends up being a two star revolutionary general and historian.
Franklin Franco was always a communist bon vivant from the most expensive Gazcue neighborhood, who smokes a cigarette like if he were a French Count. He still lives in the same sprawling mansion near Maximo Gomez like a national hero. He hated Trujillo. He's alive & well isn't he? Living like a king.
Be aware that these are not pass me down stories. These guys were my neighbors. Lachapelle lived right across from the Borrom? brothers, near now General Cesar Bolivar Asiatico and Captain Miguel Puente, whose son was my schoolmate.
How dare they change history like this?
Worst off is the new generation of revisionists who follow these people, like Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Diaz. Those who read his award winning fiction "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" will note his claim to fame was badmouthing Trujillo with more footnotes than actual writing. I read the whole book, and his new piece of junk "This Is How to Lose Her" and this guy in both books uses the same wasted anecdotes about Trujillo and talks about DR as if he really knows crap.
I saw Junot Diaz here in DR. I heard him speak in front of a student/ parent assembly at CMS. The man is a neighborhood punk who used foul language just like he uses in both books. That shows you how much he knows about DR customs.
But even his last book about stories in his New Jersey enviroment & his desire to prove he used to lay every girl he laid eyes on like typical Dominican, are bogus. True, his books are fiction. But he draws his characters from his own life. Notice, he was Oscar Wao!
It turns out, by reason of destiny, that I know, perhaps as good as him or better the neighborhoods in Jersey where this story was written & where he lived. I tried to picture my days in New Brunswick, Edison, Piscataway, Princeton, the Raritan, Highway US1 where I used to drive my muscle car often and what he describes doesn't seem plausible.
I used to commute daily to Edison from Chatham, NJ an upper middle class area where I lived near Summit from my house at Chatham Glen townhouses by the river. I know New Brunswick & Piscataway like the palm of my hands. I was a member of the Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce. I used to lunch with Phil Levitan a major trucking owner from Piscataway. I dated girls at Piscataway's Park and the movies.
He paints a picture of what is not. He did the same with Trujillo.
Time will tell. Trujillo looks better everyday compared to the thieves and robbers who govern DR.
The youth is beginning to ask themselves what can be worst than Leonel?
I challenge anybody to tell me how life was under Trujillo. And unless you opposed him and plotted against him, there was no reason not to enjoy life.
Trujillo never forced me to go to his military parades at the Malec?n. I loved it.
His army was the best in America, professional, respectful, well groomed, unlike this organized crime unit we have now.
The previous Leonel Fernandez police chief was credited with over 3000 deaths in indiscriminate shootings by Human Rights groups. I never saw a dead body before I returned to DR in 1993. It seems dead bodies are everywhere in the greatest crime wave in history.