[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 213 (Thursday, December 9, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9090-S9091]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      DOMINICAN REPUBLIC AND CUBA

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have an 
NJ.com article by Roland Armando Alum, titled ``Opinion: Six Decades 
After Dictator's Assassination, Dominican Republic Flourishes While 
Cuba Is Miserable'' be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

    Six Decades After Dictator's Assassination, Dominican Republic 
                   Flourishes While Cuba Is Miserable

                        (By Roland Armando Alum)

       As we commemorate Memorial Day this weekend in the U.S., 
     the Dominican Republic's people mark 60 years since the fall 
     of Rafael Trujillo's dictatorship on May 30, 1961. Considered 
     Latin-America's bloodiest dictator, Trujillo beleaguered 
     Dominicans for 31 years, until a patriots' cabal executed him 
     with the secret assistance of U.S. officials.
       Up to the 1959 rise of the Fidel & Raul Castro brothers in 
     Cuba, Trujillo was unmatched as the despotic model in the 
     Americas, as historian Lauren Derby noted in ``The Dictator's 
     Seduction'' (2009). It behooves us to draw some chronological 
     contrasts from both countries in the last six decades, 
     developments that--incidentally--have affected our own local 
     demographics.
       Indeed, northern New Jersey is home to sizable and dynamic 
     Hispanic communities of Cubans and Dominicans; some of them 
     have attained prominent positions in every walk of life 
     (admittedly, sometimes to the chagrin of self-appointed 
     ``guardians-of-the-gate'').
       Ironically, the geneses of the Dominican and Cuban 
     emigration are opposite. Dominicans began to emigrate en 
     masse after 1961, when freedom of movement became guaranteed; 
     while Cubans fled in disapproval of the Castros' converting 
     the previous Pearl of the Antilles into a bankrupt vassal 
     state of the now defunct Soviet empire. In summer-1980 alone, 
     about 1.5 percent of Cuba's population ``voted with their 
     feet'' via the unprecedented Mariel Freedom Flotilla, many of 
     whose refugees and their descendants flourished in this great 
     Garden State of ours.
       Both countries emerged from traditional militaristic 
     dictatorships around the same time, 1961 for the D.R., and 
     1959 for Cuba, after Afro-Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista 
     fled the island-nation. Cuba's undeniably remarkable economic 
     prosperity was accomplished despite Batista's relatively 
     brief authoritarianism (1952-58) and the pitfalls of the 
     preceding 1902-1952 republican epoch.
       Conversely, conditions were wretched in the D.R. while 
     Trujillo was ruling the country as a private fiefdom. The 
     instability that

[[Page S9091]]

     followed ended with the U.S. military intervention that 
     eventually fostered a classic tripartite constitutional 
     government, with multiple competing political parties 
     alternating in power. Moreover, the jobs-creating business 
     sector and the labor movement thrive. A year ago, Dominicans 
     elected their eighth post-Trujillo president: successful 
     businessman Luis Abinader (born in 1967), D.R.'s first chief 
     executive born after Trujillo's downfall.
       All this sharply contrasts with socialist Cuba, a stagnant, 
     closed society controlled by the Castro family and its hand-
     picked, mostly military, non-elected cronies still chanting 
     discredited Marxist slogans. True, the Castros counted on 
     initial popular support, but it soon vanished as they 
     hijacked the liberal-inspired anti-Batista political 
     rebellion and turned Cuba into a nightmarish dystopia. While 
     the D.R. steered toward the Open Society ideal, Cuba rushed 
     in the opposite direction with the Castros' tropical version 
     of the failed Soviet-Russian mold.
       Dictatorships of all genres customarily attract foreign 
     apologists who, comfortably from abroad, extol alleged 
     relative achievements. Trujillo, who even received an 
     honorary doctorate from a U.S. university, was praised by the 
     same New York Times that characteristically propagates 
     ridiculous excuses for Cuba's oppressors. Likewise, the 
     academic world brims with fake-news reports intent on 
     laundering the Castros' fiascos, while also defaming Cuban-
     Americans.
       As we salute Dominicans upon their celebrating six decades 
     free of despotism, one should commiserate with the Cuban 
     people, still suffering three generations of anachronic 
     totalitarianism; in fact, so far over twice as long as 
     Trujillo's dictatorship lasted.

                          ____________________