Servicio de Inteligencia Militar

Last updated

The Servicio de Inteligencia Militar (SIM) (English: Military Intelligence Service) was the main secret police force and death squad during the later part of the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo to keep control within the Dominican Republic.

Contents

Operation

Around 1957 the Department of State for Security, headed by General Arturo Espaillat was dissolved, replaced by SIM and its sister agency, the Servicio Central de Inteligencia (SCI). [1] Under the leadership of Johnny Abbes García, SIM employed thousands of people and was involved in immigration, passports, censorship, supervision of aliens, and undercover work. [2] At the Palace of Communications some fifty people intercepted and recorded domestic and foreign phone conversations. [1] Its secret activities used murder, kidnapping, extorsion and terror to achieve its goals. Money was spent to lobby American legislators. [1]

In the population members of SIM were known as "caliés" (Thugs), they patrolled the streets in their black VW beetles called "cepillos" (brushes). Infamous detention centers were La Nueve (The Nine) and La Cuarenta (The Forty) where prisoners were tortured and killed.

SIM was dissolved in 1962, after the fall of the Trujillo regime.

Directors

No.PortraitDirectorTook officeLeft officeTime in office
1
No image.png
Abbes García, JohnnyColonel
Johnny Abbes García
(1924–1967)
195719602–3 years
2
No image.png
Torres, CándidoColonel
Cándido Torres
196019600 years
3
No image.png
Figueroa Carrión, RobertoColonel
Roberto Figueroa Carrión
196119620–1 years

Famous operations

Cultural references

SIM and its leader Johnny Abbes García are frequently mentioned in Mario Vargas Llosa's historical novel, The Feast of the Goat .

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rafael Trujillo</span> Leader of the Dominican Republic from 1930 to 1961

Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina, nicknamed El Jefe, was a Dominican dictator who ruled Dominican Republic from August 1930 until his assassination in May 1961. He served as president from 1930 to 1938 and again from 1942 to 1952, ruling for the rest of the time as an unelected military strongman under figurehead presidents. His rule of 31 years, known to Dominicans as the Trujillo Era, is considered one of the bloodiest and most corrupt regimes in the Western hemisphere, and centered around a personality cult of the ruling family. Trujillo's security forces, including the infamous SIM, were responsible for perhaps as many as 50,000 murders, including between 12,000 and 30,000 Haitians in the infamous Parsley massacre in 1937, which continues to affect Dominican-Haitian relations to this day.

<i>The Autumn of the Patriarch</i> 1975 novel by Gabriel García Márquez

The Autumn of the Patriarch is a 1975 novel by Gabriel García Márquez.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mirabal sisters</span> Dominican political protestors, assassinated in 1960

The Mirabal sisters were four sisters from the Dominican Republic, three of whom opposed the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo and were involved in clandestine activities against his regime. The three sisters were assassinated on 25 November 1960. The last sister, Adela "Dedé", who was not involved in political activities at the time, died of natural causes on 1 February 2014.

<i>The Feast of the Goat</i> Novel by Mario Vargas Llosa

The Feast of the Goat is a novel by the Peruvian Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Mario Vargas Llosa. The book is set in the Dominican Republic and portrays the assassination of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, and its aftermath, from two distinct standpoints a generation apart: during and immediately after the assassination itself, in May 1961; and thirty-five years later, in 1996. Throughout, there is also extensive reflection on the heyday of the dictatorship, in the 1950s, and its significance for the island and its inhabitants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Intelligence Centre (Spain)</span> Spanish official intelligence agency

The National Intelligence Centre is the Spanish official intelligence agency, acting as both its foreign and domestic intelligence agency. Its headquarters are located next to the A-6 motorway near Madrid. The CNI is the successor of the Centro Superior de Información de la Defensa, the Higher Centre for Defence Intelligence. Its main target areas are North Africa and South America and it operates in more than 80 countries. CNI's official budget for 2021 is approximately 300 million euros.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bolivarian Intelligence Service</span> Secret police force of Venezuela

The Bolivarian National Intelligence Service is the premier intelligence agency in Venezuela. SEBIN is an internal security force subordinate to the Vice President of Venezuela since 2012 and is dependent on Vice President Delcy Rodríguez. SEBIN has been described as the political police force of the Bolivarian government.

Johnny Abbes García was the chief of the governmental intelligence office – the Servicio de Inteligencia Militar – during the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. He ruled under Trujillo during the end of the Third Republic, and later served the Duvalier dynasty in Haiti.

Amado García Guerrero was one of the conspirators against, and killers of, Dominican dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ramfis Trujillo</span> Dominican Republic general (1929–1969)

Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Martínez, better known as Ramfis Trujillo Martínez, was the son of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic, after whose 1961 assassination he briefly held power. Nominally an army general, he lived the life of a reckless and spoiled playboy like his friend and sometime brother-in-law Porfirio Rubirosa. Remembered for his ruthlessness and cruelty, he went into exile in Spain, where he died after crashing a sports car.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antonio Imbert Barrera</span> Dominican army general (1920–2016)

Major General Antonio Cosme Imbert Barrera was a Dominican military general of the Dominican Army and was President of the Dominican Republic from May to August 1965.

The Dominican Party was the de facto only permitted political party in the Dominican Republic during the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, who ruled the country from 1930 to 1961. Its symbol was a palm tree.

Antonio de la Maza was a Dominican businessman based in Santo Domingo. He was an opponent of Rafael Trujillo, and was one of the principal conspirators in the assassination of the aforementioned dictator which took place on May 30, 1961.

The Agencia Nacional de Inteligencia (ANI) is the Chilean government national intelligence agency. Created in 2004, its mission is to coordinate, and advise the President on, intelligence. It is attached administratively to the Ministry of the Interior. Its current director is Gonzalo Yuseff Quiroz. The previous director was Gustavo Villalobos, who was also the last director of Directorate of Public Security and Information. ANI's budget is approximately $4 million USD.

Jesús (de) Galíndez Suárez was a Spanish politician, writer and Columbia University international law professor of Basque nationalist ideology who disappeared in New York City. He was allegedly kidnapped and murdered by intelligence operatives of the Servicio de Inteligencia Militar, based on a direct order from Rafael Trujillo, the caudillo of the Dominican Republic.

The Dirección Federal de Seguridad was a Mexican intelligence agency and secret police. It was created in 1947 under Mexican president Miguel Alemán Valdés with the assistance of U.S. intelligence agencies as part of the Truman Doctrine of Soviet Containment, with the duty of "preserving the internal stability of Mexico against all forms subversion and terrorist threats". It was merged into the Centro de Investigación y Seguridad Nacional (CISEN) in 1985.

Radio Mil Diez was a radio station broadcasting from Havana, Cuba, owned by the Popular Socialist Party (PSP). Radio Mil Diez broadcast for five years, between 1943-1948, and played an important role in shaping contemporary Cuban music.

The Rebellion of the Pilots was a military uprising carried out by six members of the Dominican Military Aviation on November 19, 1961 that put a definitive end to the rule of 31 years of the Trujillo dictatorship by forcing the exile of the Trujillo family from the country. It prevented Ramfis Trujillo, José Arismendy Trujillo and Héctor Bienvenido Trujillo Molina from returning to power and restoring the regime led by their brother Rafael Trujillo.

The Feast of the Goat is a 2005 Dominican-Spanish-British drama film directed by Luis Llosa and starring Tomas Milian, Isabella Rossellini, Paul Freeman, Juan Diego Botto and Stephanie Leonidas. It is based on Mario Vargas Llosa's 2000 novel of the same name.

Antonia María Teresa Mirabal Reyes de Guzmán was a surveyor and political activist from the Dominican Republic. She was one of three sisters assassinated together at the direction of the country's dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Bernard Diederich. Trujillo. The Death of the Goat. Little, Brown, and Co, 1978. p. 33ff. ISBN   0-316-18440-3.
  2. Crassweller RD. Trujillo. The Life and Times of a Caribbean Dictator. The MacMillan Co, New York (1966). p. 329ff.