ABSTRACT
In the Dominican Republic guerrilla warfare characterized political conflict for hundreds of years. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries nationalists deployed guerrilla tactics against foreign interventions—Haitian, Spanish, and North American. After 1930 Dominicans of different political tendencies saw armed struggle as their best option to overthrow the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo (1930-1961) and the authoritarian regime of Joaquín Balaguer (1966-1978). The success of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 privileged the foco strategy by the Dominican left, with small groups of trained rebels taking to the mountains to trigger a broad insurrection. While the foquista strategy failed repeatedly, the sacrifice made by guerrillas inspired broader resistance to Trujillo and Balaguer. Ironically, armed resistance had its moment of greatest success in 1965, when guerrillas led the fight against the armed forces (backed by the United States) in the capital city of Santo Domingo, not in the countryside. Interviews with survivors of the guerrilla movements provide a reflection on the impact of armed struggle on Dominican political history.
