El Caribe newspaper reports that the Dominican National Academy of History has demanded that the monument to soldiers who fought against the opponents to Trujillo’s regime in 1959 be torn down. Speaking for the academic institution, eminent historian Roberto Cass? expressed incredulity that the events of 1959 should be presented as a foreign invasion and not, in his words, “what it really was: a patriotic expedition”. He claimed that such a monument amounted to a justification of the tortures and killings of the invaders, who in June 1959 entered the country from exile with the aim of overthrowing the Trujillo system. The attempt failed, however, and resulted in heavy fatalities and a wave of repression of those opposed to the tyranny. Defenders of the controversial monument, which was erected in Constanza by order of the Armed Forces Minister Jos? Miguel Soto Jim?nez, argue that it honors all the fallen combatants on both sides of the conflict.