Page 281 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo II

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The first years of this attempt at rebuilding the Dominican Republic were soon viewed
by many in the U.S., the Dominican Republic, and greater Latin America as something of
a fiasco. One of the key difficulties afflicting the U.S. military government in the provinces
was the continuance of Dominican social and armed resistance, which waxed and waned in
the early years; social protest would wax large in the final years of the occupation, after 1921,
but armed guerrilla resistance was strongest throughout the early years and hindered the U.S.
military’s ability to consolidate control in some regions. With the geographical and technical
isolation of those regions, Marine commanders forming GND units and trying to maintain
control often had to take the initiative in building civil-military relations in attempts to gain
acceptance for the GND and to fight resistance among the general population. Furthermore,
when the United States entered World War One, the State Department officially declared that
the Department of the Navy would administer the occupation from Santo Domingo. General
orders from the military government, however, often took days or even weeks to reach Ma-
rine outposts throughout the country, and the many Marine groups actually administering the
occupation outside of the capital often had to act without orders from above, outside of local
command, when situations warranted quick action; by the time general orders or responses
arrived, these isolated units had developed their own strategies.
In conjunction with the combination of very heavy rains in some areas throughout the
occupation and poor road systems, military government plans often failed due to lack of
planning for the poor movement through the country, and for inability to administrate from a
centralized headquarters. Thus early occupation promises proved problematic.
In the eastern provinces of San Pedro de Macorís and El Seibo, which suffered the most
armed guerrilla resistance and were among the most poorly connected by roads and infra-
structure, the problem was even more intense; fewer Dominicans were coming forth to join
the GND, and those who did were so likely to take their arms and desert to the side of the
guerrillas that local Marine commanders fought to retain control with under-supplied and
under-manned battalions until as late as 1922. These provinces had traditionally been remote,
and were under the control of a number of regional caudillos since those sugar-wealthy men
had openly rebelled against the central government as early as 1915, before the official occu-
pation began. Resistance against central government continued there until the final years
34
of the occupation, when Marines finally subdued caudillo forces and opened negotiation. In
the meantime, however, the local Marine and GND forces attempting to control the regions
contended with incessant guerrilla warfare.
Marine errors and tensions between Dominicans and Marines in such regions are well-
documented. For example, according to Bruce Calder, whose 1978 article is still the authori-
tative description of the guerrilla warfare in the east,

Abuses ranged from major atrocities to minor, if infuriating, Marine rudeness. If cases such as
that of a Marine captain who allegedly machine-gunned to death as “bandits” some thirty peasants
working a sugar cañaveral (cane field) were exceptional, other incidents such as that involving a
group of armed and uninvited Marines who invaded a party at a social club in Seibo and drank up

34 Bruce Calder, “Caudillos and Gavilleros versus the United States Marines: Guerrilla Insurgency During the
Dominican Intervention, 1916-1924,” Hispanic American Historical Review,(58:4 (November 1978)), 653.