Amado García Guerrero

Amado García Guerrero (June 2 1931 – June 2 1961) was one of the conspirators against, and killers of, Dominican Dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina. He was a soldier in the Dominican Republic. A member of the Military Aides-de-Camp of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, he was the person who informed the other conspirators that Trujillo would later leave that night for San Cristóbal. He also was one of the assasins in the ambush on the highway. The story of the revolutionaries and their personal motivations for participating in the assassination of Trujillo, serves to writers as Mario Vargas Llosa, as an excellent example of the experiences with atrocities of the general population suffered during the Trujillo's regime.

The reasons for Amado García's actions against Trujillo were:
# Trujillo officially denied García permission to marry the girl a loved, Luisa, because she happened to be sister of René Gil a “ dangerous communist rebel” (who really just happened to search for refuge in a foreign embassy in Santo Domingo). [http://fred.ccsu.edu:8000/archive/00000121/01/etd-2004-29.html]
# Military police forced García to kill a young prisoner, who he later discovered was the brother of his fiancée.

As is described by Vargas Llosa in "La Fiesta del Chivo" Amado García Guerrero was a soldier who, due to a capricious test of his loyalty, executed a man with the bandaged eyes. Soon, he was told that the man he just executed was the brother of his ex-fiancée. Later, Salvador Sahalá tried to console him by saying, “It's a lie, Amadito... It could be any other [man] . He deceived you... Forget about what was said to you. Forget about what you did."

According to Bernard Diederich, the reason for Trujillo's refusal of García's marriage request was that his fiancé's brother had looked for asylum in a foreiegn embassy in the capital. Later, Amadito received the order to shoot (some say to merely watch the execution of) a victim seated in the jail of the SIM. García followed orders, hoping that it would save himself and the man further torture. Later, García recounted his troubles to Sadalá Star and swore to assassinate Trujillo (Diederich 74).Following this oath, Amado, youngest of the conspirators, joined his new commrades in a plan to kill Trujillo.

On May 30, 1961, the men regrouped and awaited Trujillo on the side of a highway, where they knew from inside intelligence that the dictator would be passing by on his way to visit a girl (Trujillo was famous for his extramarital affairs).The men were:Modesto Díaz QuezadaLuis Manuel Cáceres MichelJuan Tomás DiazManuel de Ovín Filpo (Spaniard immigrant and agronomist technician)Salvador Estrella Sadhalá (a.k.a. "El Turco")Huáscar Antonio Tejeda PimentelLuis Amiama TióAntonio Imbert BarreraAntonio de la MazaRoberto Pastoriza NeretPedro Livio Cedeño Herreraand of course Amado García Guerrero.

There, on San Cristóbal Highway in Santo Domingo, the men ambushed Trujillo's car and successfully assassinated the dictator of over 30 years.

On June 2, agents of the Military Intelligence Service (SIM; the secret police) entered house #59 of Avenue San Martín, (a residence owned by García's relatives) and found Lieutenant Amado García Guerrero in hiding, where he was discovered by a female supporter from Trujillo. After bravely responding to the attacks of the SIM agents, García finally was mortally founded and died at the age of 30.

References

Addis, Mary Kathryn. “The Novel of the Dictator: History and Narrative Form.” Diss. U of California, 1984.Alvarez, Julia. In the Time of the Butterflies. New York: Penguin Group, 1994.Crassweller, Robert. Trujillo: The Life and Times of a Caribbean Dictator. New York: Macmillan, 1966.De Besault, Lawrence. President Trujillo: His Work and the Dominican Republic. USA: The Washington Publishing Company, 1936.Diedrich, Bernard. Trujillo: The Death of the Dictator. New Jersey: Markus Weiner, 2000. Rpt. of The Death of the Goat. 1978.Espaillat, Arturo. Trujillo: The Last Caesar. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1963.Galíndez, Jesús de. The Era of Trujillo, Dominican Dictator. 1956. Arizona: University of Arizona Press, 1973.Hamill, Hugh, editor. Caudillos: Dictators in Spanish America. Oklahoma: U of OK P, 1992.Nanita, Abelardo. Trujillo: The Biography of a Great Leader. New York, Vantage P, 1957.

Ornes, Germán. Trujillo: Little Caesar of the Caribbean. New York, Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1958.

Rodríguez, Juan. A Personal interview. January 12 2003.

Rood, Carlton. A Dominican Chronicle. Santo Domingo, DR: Taller Editions, Isabel la Católica 309, 1989

Roorda, Eric. The Dictator Next Door- The Good Neighbor Policy and the Trujillo Regime in the Dominican Republic 1930 - 1945. Durham: Duke UP, 1998.

Tejada, Máximo e Ive. A Personal interview. 12 January 2003.

Vargas Llosa, Mario. The Feast of the Goat. Trans. Edith Grossman. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001

Vega y Pagán, Ernesto. Military Biography of Generalissimo Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina. Trans. Ida Espaillat. Ciudad Trujillo, RD: Editorial Atenas, 1956.

Wiarda, Howard. Dictatorship and Development: The Methods of Control in Trujillo’s Dominican Republic. Latin American Monographs Ser. 5 Gainsville: U of Florida P, 1970.This is an adaptation of the script of "The Feast of Goat" historical film by Director Luis Llosa. The work was done from numerous interviews, personal searches in publications, governmental archives, documents of the department of North American State declassified, calligraphic transcriptions of personal testimonies of people surrounded in the plot that executed to Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina the 30 of May of the 1961, in Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic. ERNESTO GUERRERO MENESES

http://www.elnacional.com.do/article.aspx?id=3808