DOMREP

Mission of the Representative of the Secretary-General in the Dominican Republic
	A Marine sniper monitors the international neutral corridor from a rooftop in Santo Domingo.
Abbreviation	DOMREP
Formation	1965
Type	Peacekeeping force
Legal status	Completed
Purpose	Observe the ceasefire agreement
Headquarters	Santo Domingo
Location	Dominican Republic ;
Secretary General	U Thant
Head of Mission	José Antonio Mayobre
Military advisor	Indar Jit Rikhye
Parent organization	Department of Peacekeeping Operations
Expenses	$275,831
Staff	4 including upto to 2 military observers from Brazil, Canada and Ecuador.
Website	https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/domrep/

Last updated November 02, 2023

The Mission of the Representative of the Secretary-General in the Dominican Republic (DOMREP) was a peacekeeping operation established in 1965 by the UN to observe the ceasefire agreement between the two de facto authorities in the Dominican Republic during the Dominican Civil War.^[1] DOMREP was instructed to report any breaches of the agreements between the Constitutionalists led by Juan Bosch and Francisco Caamaño, and Loyalists commanded by Elías Wessin y Wessin and backed by the United States.^[1] Once the new Dominican constitutional government was formed, DOMREP withdrew.^[1]

Following the outbreak of civil war three weeks prior in the country, and the subsequent intervention of the United States – under the codename Operation Power Pack –, the United Nations Security Council organized DOMREP to oversee a ceasefire and free elections in the Dominican Republic.^[2] The Secretary-General of the United Nations U Thant appointed Mr José Antonio Mayobre to oversee the mission until completion.^[3] The UN DOMREP mission was significant because it marked the only peacekeeping mission to occur in the Western Hemisphere and in the sphere of American influence in the Cold War era.^[4] General elections were held on 1 June 1966, resulting in victory for Joaquín Balaguer, and initiating the withdrawal of the peacekeeping operations in September 1966.^[2]

Background

Under Trujillo's rule

The Dominican Republic has been successively colonized by the Spanish, the French, the Haitians and the British since the 15th century, though temporarily gaining independence in the late 19th century. Following the establishment of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, the United States had directly or indirectly intervened in the politics, economy and society of Latin America, seeking to place the entire continent under its own sphere of influence by supporting puppet regimes.^[5] Since 1930, the Dominican Republic had been under the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo and his family, who were backed by the U.S in order to control Dominica politically and economically.^[6] Trujillo's dictatorship isolated the Dominican Republic both financially and diplomatically, with efforts of state-sponsored terrorism angering the Republic's Latin American neighbours. Following Trujillo's attempted assassination of the US-Backed Venezuelan President Rómulo Betancourt, the Eisenhower Administration approved a CIA-Backed assassination of Trujillo by various Dominican business leaders and military officers on 30 May 1961.^[7] Trujillo's family failed to maintain control of the country, and fled following the Rebellion of the Pilots on 19 November 1961.

Elections & first coup

In 1962, long-time Dominican opposition leader, Juan Emilio Bosch Gaviño won the first free election in the Republic's history.^[8] Bosch's government pursued an agenda of civilian control of the military, a secular constitution and widespread popular land reforms. This agenda angered both the Dominican Military and Dominican landholders, ending Bosch's government in a Coup d'état on 25 September 1963. From December 1963 to April 1965, the Dominican Republic became a military junta under a triumvirate led by Donald Reid Cabral.

Counter-coup & Civil War

Medical Service officers of the American army conferring near Santo Domingo in early May 1965. Domrep-f2.jpg — Medical Service officers of the American army conferring near Santo Domingo in early May 1965.

By 1965, however, discontentment following failed reform at stabilizing the country led to a military counter-coup (headed by Francisco Caamaño) to removed the junta from power.^[9] Loyalists towards Reid, led by General Elías Wessin y Wessin attempted a second counter-coup, beginning the Dominican Civil War. On the advice of the US ambassador to the Dominican Republic, William Tapley Bennett Jr.,^[10] who urged that the U.S should act before an international coalition ever had the time to form, US President Lyndon B. Johnson organized Operation Power Pack, allowing the occupation of the country under the Organization of American States (OAS) by the mobilized Inter-American Peace Force (IAPF).

Operation

DOMREP was formed both to help broker the ceasefire between the Constitutionalists and Loyalists, as well as to act as a balance against US influence in the Republic under the OAS.^[6] Initial US intervention had witnessed strong opposition from neighbouring Latin American states, along with France and the Soviet Union. The latter claimed that the OAS Force was the usage of an International Organization to legitimize American imperialism.^[11] The Soviet Union led efforts through the Security Council on 1 May 1965 to authorize DOMREP. The Mission called for and observed a ceasefire between the Constitutionalist and Loyalist factions of the Dominican military.

DOMREP was authorized on 14 May 1965, however, the UN lacked 'boots on the ground'. The UN Peacekeeping Mission had no real troops assigned to guarantee the ceasefire compliance, counting only with a small team of observers from Brazil, Canada, and Ecuador.^[12] Instead, the UN gave the OAS responsibility of providing the military force. Country members of the OAS organized a task force of 12,400 US personnel and 1,763 soldiers from various Latin American countries.^[3]

UN Security Council Resolutions 203 and 205 placed the country under Security Council observation, and requested the OAS to inform the UN of its actions within the Dominican Republic.^[13]^[14] Venezuelan Executive Secretary José Antonio Mayobre acted as the representative of the UN Secretary-General, accompanied by the Indian Major-General Indar Jit Rikhye as a military advisor.^[15] The mission faced early criticism. Dominican Foreign Minister Horacio Vicioso Soto complained that DOMREP did not allow the Dominican Republic police to act in a sovereign manner in the conflict zone, bringing criticism of UN and OAS violation of the Dominican Republic's status as an independent state.^[1]

DOMREP involvement came to an end following the signing of the Act of Dominican Reconciliation on 31 August 1965, led by the OAS. The act agreed on free elections throughout the country to end the conflict. The elections saw the victory of President Joaquín Balaguer against Bosch. The last troops of both the OAS-led IAPF and UN-led DOMREP withdrew on 21 September 1966.^[2]

Personnel in action

IAPF Forces:
Country^[3]	Number of Soldiers	Special Represesentative
United States	12,400	Lieutenant-General Bruce Palmer Jr.
Brazil	1.152	General Hugo Panasco Alvim
Honduras	250
Paraguay	178
Nicaragua	159
Costa Rica	21 Military police
El Salvador	3 Officers

Reactions

The United States had presented their mission as fait accompli (accomplished fact), and were also aware that DOMREP was acting as an observer mission with no peace-keeping forces assigned. The United States, therefore, did not raise its concerns about DOMREP in the United Nations, although there was a lack of a proper working relationship between the DOMREP mission and the OAS mission, contributing to long drawn-out violations with regard to human rights in addition to the ceasefire.^[16] The mission, although relatively small, had been one of considerable complexity, specifically regarding the unilateral role of the United States and the later role of the IAPF. Despite this, the United Nations also benefited from the presence of the regional organization in the Dominican Republic, by not having to allocate financial resources for a military presence as well as maintaining a legal precedent over all operations in the country. They were further benefited by the reception of Dominican authorities who recognised the UN's commitment to achieving peace and harmony in the region while also repudiating the IAPF in letters that voice strong criticism of their role.^[17]

Legacy

Bernardo Rodrigues dos Santos argues that DOMREP could be viewed as a success from the perspective of having successfully completed its Security Council Mandate.^[18] Unlike many of the preceding UN peacekeeping missions, DOMREP was engaged in a mission taking place in the military presence of one of the Cold War powers at the time, without having UN military personnel on the ground. Even though not expressly against the rules of the UN Charter, the United States had initially sent a military intervention without the authorization of the Security Council, which was required in such a circumstance. DOMREP also marked the first occasion in which a UN Peacekeeping Mission was confronted with operating alongside another regional organization pursuing the same objective - in this case the OAS. By checking the power of the United States in their own geopolitical sphere of influence, the mission overall was argued to be a relatively successful attempt of the UN in dealing with unilateral interventionism by one of its own Security Council Permanent Members.^[18]

DOMREP has been argued as both a means of US legitimization of their earlier intervention under the OAS, and as a Soviet response to limit US influence in the Dominican Republic.

Related Research Articles

The recorded history of the Dominican Republic began in 1492 when the Genoa-born navigator Christopher Columbus, working for the Crown of Castile, happened upon a large island in the region of the western Atlantic Ocean that later came to be known as the Caribbean. It was inhabited by the Taíno, an Arawakan people, who called the eastern part of the island Quisqueya (Kiskeya), meaning "mother of all lands." Columbus promptly claimed the island for the Spanish Crown, naming it La Isla Española, later Latinized to Hispaniola. After 25 years of Spanish occupation, the Taíno population in the Spanish-dominated parts of the island drastically decreased through genocide. With fewer than 50,000 remaining, the survivors intermixed with Spaniards, Africans, and others, forming the present-day tripartite Dominican population. What would become the Dominican Republic was the Spanish Captaincy General of Santo Domingo until 1821, except for a time as a French colony from 1795 to 1809. It was then part of a unified Hispaniola with Haiti from 1822 until 1844. In 1844, Dominican independence was proclaimed and the republic, which was often known as Santo Domingo until the early 20th century, maintained its independence except for a short Spanish occupation from 1861 to 1865 and occupation by the United States from 1916 to 1924.

The United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) is an organization founded on 29 May 1948 for peacekeeping in the Middle East. Established amidst the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, its primary task was initially to provide the military command structure to the peacekeeping forces in the Middle East to enable the peacekeepers to observe and maintain the ceasefire, and in assisting the parties to the Armistice Agreements in the supervision of the application and observance of the terms of those Agreements. The organization's structure and role has evolved over time as a result of the various conflicts in the region and at times UNTSO personnel have been used to rapidly deploy to other areas of the Middle East in support of other United Nations operations. The command structure of the UNTSO was maintained to cover the later peacekeeping organisations of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) to which UNTSO continues to provide military observers.

Juan Emilio Bosch Gaviño was a Dominican politician, historian, writer, essayist, educator, and the first democratically elected president of the Dominican Republic for a brief time in 1963. Previously, he had been the leader of the Dominican opposition in exile to the dictatorial regime of Rafael Trujillo for over 25 years. To this day, he is remembered as an honest politician and regarded as one of the most prominent writers in Dominican literature. He founded both the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) in 1939 and the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) in 1973.

The United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or MONUSCO, an acronym based on its French name Mission de l'Organisation des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation en République démocratique du Congo, is a United Nations peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) which was established by the United Nations Security Council in resolutions 1279 (1999) and 1291 (2000) to monitor the peace process of the Second Congo War, though much of its focus subsequently turned to the Ituri conflict, the Kivu conflict and the Dongo conflict. The mission was known as the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo or MONUC, an acronym of its French name Mission de l'Organisation des Nations Unies en République démocratique du Congo, until 2010.

The Purple Line was the ceasefire line between Israel and Syria after the 1967 Six-Day War and serves as the de facto border between the two countries.

United Nations Operation in Somalia I was the first part of a United Nations (UN) sponsored effort to provide, facilitate, and secure humanitarian relief in Somalia, as well as to monitor the first UN-brokered ceasefire of the Somali Civil War conflict in the early 1990s.

The Inter-American Peace Force (IAPF) was a peacekeeping force in the Dominican Republic from several countries from the Americas that was formed towards the end of the Dominican Civil War. It was established by the Organization of American States (OAS) on 23 May 1965 following the United States' initial intervention in the war. Brazil later assumed command from the United States in 1966 and in 1967, the IAPF was ultimately disbanded.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Nations Disengagement Observer Force</span> Peacekeeping mission overseeing Israeli–Syrian ceasefire

The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) is a United Nations peacekeeping mission tasked with maintaining the ceasefire between Israel and Syria in the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The mission was established by United Nations Security Council Resolution 350 on 31 May 1974, to implement Resolution 338 (1973) which called for an immediate ceasefire and implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242.

The Department of Peace Operations (DPO) is a department of the United Nations charged with the planning, preparation, management and direction of UN peacekeeping operations. Previously known as the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), it was created in March 1992, as part of a restructuring of the UN's peace and security apparatus. The DPO retains the core functions and responsibilities of its predecessor, with a greater emphasis on cohesion, integrating different resources and knowledge, and promoting human rights.

Major General Indar Jit Rikhye was an Indian Army General, United Nations official, peace advocate and author.

The United Nations Peacekeeping efforts began in 1948. Its first activity was in the Middle East to observe and maintain the ceasefire during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Since then, United Nations peacekeepers have taken part in a total of 72 missions around the globe, 12 of which continue today. The peacekeeping force as a whole received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988.

The Dominican Civil War, also known as the April Revolution, took place between April 24, 1965, and September 3, 1965, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. It started when civilian and military supporters of the overthrown democratically-elected president Juan Bosch ousted the militarily-installed president Donald Reid Cabral from office. The second coup prompted General Elías Wessin y Wessin to organize elements of the military loyal to President Reid ("loyalists"), initiating an armed campaign against the "constitutionalist" rebels. Allegations of communist support for the rebels led to a United States intervention in the conflict, which later transformed into an Organization of American States occupation of the country by the Inter-American Peace Force. Americans and rebel Dominicans skirmished several times but fought only one battle, which occurred on June 15–16, 1965, in the rebel-held Ciudad Nueva area of the city, where the 82nd Airborne Division lost 5 KIA, 31 WIA, and 3 DOW, while inflicting casualties of 67 KIA and 165 WIA on the rebels. Elections were held in 1966, in the aftermath of which Joaquín Balaguer was elected into the presidential seat. Later in the same year, foreign troops departed from the country. The conflict resulted in around 6,000 Dominican casualties and 350 U.S. casualties.

Elías Wessin y Wessin was a Dominican politician and Dominican Air Force general. Wessin led the military coup which ousted the government of Dominican President Juan Bosch in 1963, replacing it with a triumvirate. Wessin was also a key figure in the ensuing Dominican Civil War, which led to a United States military intervention into and occupation of the Dominican Republic in 1965.

The United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic, more commonly known as MINURCA was a United Nations peacekeeping force in the Central African Republic. The 1350-troop mission was established by the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1159 in March 1998. It was replaced in 2000 after the Central African Republic conducted two peaceful elections, with the entirely civilian composed UN Peace-Building Support Office in the Central African Republic (BONUCA).

The Peacekeeping Unit is a battalion of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army Ground Force tasked with peacekeeping missions overseas and assigning personnel contributed by Iran to the United Nations peacekeeping.

The United Nations Observation Group in Lebanon (UNOGIL) was established by United Nations through Security Council Resolution 128 on 11 June 1958 in response to the 1958 Lebanon crisis. The group was deployed between June and December 1958 in an observation and reporting capacity only, providing assurance that no weapons or personnel were infiltrating into Lebanon from Syria.

The United Nations Aouzou Strip Observer Group (UNASOG) was a United Nations observation mission that was deployed to the Aouzou Strip, in the Republic of Chad. Established in the wake of the Aouzou Strip dispute under Security Council Resolution 915 of 4 April 1994, the mission's mandate was "to verify the withdrawal of the Libyan administration and forces from the Aouzou Strip in accordance with the decision of the International Court of Justice".

The 1963 Dominican coup d'état was a Coup d'état that took place on 25 September 1963 against President Juan Bosch in the Dominican Republic.

María Paula Acevedo Guzmán, known as Chichita and Chichita Caamaño, was a Dominican activist and First Lady of the Dominican Republic from May 4, 1965, to August 30, 1965. Acevedo was the wife of Colonel Francisco Caamaño, who became the constitutional President of the Dominican Republic during the Dominican Civil War of 1965. Caamaño was one of the leaders of the movement to restore the democratically elected former president, Juan Bosch, who had been overthrown in a military coup d'état in September 1963.

The United Nations Civilian Police Support Group (UNPSG) was a United Nations peacekeeping operation monitoring the performance of the Croatian police in the Danube region from 16 January 1998 to 15 October 1998. The mission was active in the same area of the former parallel Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Syrmia which was previously directly governed by the UNTAES transitional administration between 1996 and 1998. The mission took over vehicles, equipment and other support assets from UNTAES. UNPSG was not the first CIVPOL engagement in the region as earlier missions of UNPROFOR, UNCRO and UNTAES all included civilian police components.

References

1 2 3 4 dos Santos, Bernardo Rodrigues (2015). Koops, Joachim A; Tardy, Thierry; MacQueen, Norrie; Williams, Paul D (eds.). Mission of the Representative of the Secretary-General in the Dominican Republic(DOMREP). Oxford University Press. p. 5. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199686049.013.25. ISBN 978-0-19-968604-9.
1 2 3 dos Santos, Bernardo Rodrigues (2015). Koops, Joachim A; Tardy, Thierry; MacQueen, Norrie; Williams, Paul D (eds.). Mission of the Representative of the Secretary-General in the Dominican Republic(DOMREP). Oxford University Press. p. 6. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199686049.013.25. ISBN 978-0-19-968604-9.
1 2 3 dos Santos, Bernardo Rodrigues (2015). Koops, Joachim A; Tardy, Thierry; MacQueen, Norrie; Williams, Paul D (eds.). Mission of the Representative of the Secretary-General in the Dominican Republic(DOMREP). Oxford University Press. p. 2. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199686049.013.25. ISBN 978-0-19-968604-9.
↑ Neack, Laura (1995). "UN Peace-Keeping: In the Interest of Community or Self?". Journal of Peace Research. 32 (2): 189. doi:10.1177/0022343395032002005. ISSN 0022-3433. S2CID 109964846.
↑ Grant, Ulysses S. (1967). The papers of Ulysses S. Grant. John Y. Simon, John F. Marszalek, Ulysses S. Grant Association. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 0-8093-0248-9. OCLC 382397.
1 2 Bothe, Michael (2021). Doerschel, Thomas (ed.). UN Peacekeeping: A Documentary Introduction. Brill Nijhoff. p. 159. doi:10.1163/9789004480247. ISBN 978-90-04-48024-7.
↑ Central Intelligence Agency. (1972). "The Kaplans of the CIA - Approved For Release 2001/03/06 CIA-RDP84-00499R001000100003-2" (PDF). pp. 3–6, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/
↑ Nohlen, Dieter (2005). Elections in the Americas: a data handbook. New York. p. 247. ISBN 0-19-925358-7. OCLC 58051010.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
↑ James Fearon (June 26, 2006). "Dominican Republic" (PDF). Stanford University. Retrieved June 27, 2015.
↑ Palmer, Bruce Jr. (1989). Intervention in the Caribbean: the Dominican crisis of 1965. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-8131-5002-4. OCLC 644614080.
↑ Fortna, Virginia Page (1993). Regional Organizations and Peacekeeping: Experiences in Latin America and Africa. Washington DC: Henry L. Stinson Center. p. 1.
↑ United Nations. (2003). Facts and Figures. "Mission of the Representative of the Secretary-General in the Dominican Republic".
↑ United Nations Security Council. (1965). "Resolution 203". United Nations Digital Library System.
↑ "Security Council Resolution 205 - UNSCR". unscr.com. 1965. Retrieved 2021-03-09.
↑ Rikhye, Indar Jit (2002). Trumpets and tumults: the memoirs of a peacekeeper. Delhi: Manohar. p. 12. ISBN 81-7304-409-0. OCLC 49332887.
↑ Wainhouse, David W. (1975). "The Thin Blue Line: International Peacekeeping and Its Future. By Indar Jit Rikhye, Michael Harbottle, Bjøfrn Egge. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1974. Pp. xvi, 353. Index. $12.50.)". American Journal of International Law. 69 (3): 153. doi:10.2307/2199935. ISSN 0002-9300. JSTOR 2199935. S2CID 150216942.
↑ "DOMREP - Background". peacekeeping.un.org. Retrieved 2022-03-18.
1 2 dos Santos, Bernardo Rodrigues (2015). Koops, Joachim A; Tardy, Thierry; MacQueen, Norrie; Williams, Paul D (eds.). Mission of the Representative of the Secretary-General in the Dominican Republic(DOMREP). Oxford University Press. p. 7. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199686049.013.25. ISBN 978-0-19-968604-9.