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Rafael Trujillo

Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina (24 October 1891 – 30 May 1961), nicknamed El Jefe, was a Dominican military commander and dictator who ruled the 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 his life as an unelected military strongman under figurehead presidents. His rule of 31 years, known to Dominicans as the Trujillo Era (El Trujillato or La Era de Trujillo), was one of the longest for a non-royal leader in the world, and centered around a personality cult of the ruling family. It was also one of the most brutal; Trujillo's security forces, including the infamous SIM, were responsible for perhaps as many as 50,000 murders. These included between 12,000 and 30,000 Haitians in the infamous Parsley massacre in 1937, which continues to affect Dominican-Haitian relations to this day.

During his long rule, the Trujillo government's extensive use of state terrorism was prolific even beyond national borders, including the attempted assassination of Venezuelan President Rómulo Betancourt in 1960, the abduction and disappearance in New York City of the Basque exile Jesús Galíndez in 1956, and the murder of Spanish writer José Almoina in Mexico, also in 1960. These acts, particularly the presumed murder of Galíndez, a naturalized US citizen, the attempted murder of Betancourt, a staunch critic of Trujillo, and the murder of the Mirabal sisters, who were among his most notable opponents, in 1960, eroded relations between the Dominican Republic and the international community and ushered in OAS sanctions and economic and military assistance to Dominican opposition forces. After this momentous year, large segments of the Dominican establishment, including the military, turned against him.

On 30 May 1961, he was assassinated by a group of conspirators led by general Antonio Imbert Barrera. In the immediate aftermath, Trujillo's son Ramfis took temporary control of the country, executing most of the conspirators. By November 1961, the Trujillo family was pressured into exile by the titular president Joaquín Balaguer, who introduced reforms to open up the regime. The murder ushered in civil strife which concluded with the Dominican Civil War and a US-OAS intervention, eventually stabilised under a multi-party system in 1966.

The Trujillo era unfolded in a Hispanic Caribbean environment particularly susceptible to dictators. In the countries of the Caribbean Basin alone, his dictatorship overlapped with those in Cuba, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Venezuela and Haiti. In perspective, the Trujillo dictatorship has been judged more prominent and more brutal than its contemporaries. Trujillo remains a polarizing figure in the Dominican Republic, as the sheer longevity of his rule makes a detached evaluation difficult. While his supporters credit him for bringing long-term stability, economic growth and prosperity, doubling life expectancy of average Dominicans and multiplying the GDP, critics denounce the heavy-handed and violent nature of his regime, including the murder of tens of thousands, and xenophobia towards Haitians, as well as the Trujillo family's nepotism, widespread corruption and looting of the country's natural and economic resources.

Early life
Rafael Leónidas Trujillo y Molina was born on 24 October 1891 in San Cristóbal, Dominican Republic, into a lower-middle class family.

His father was José Trujillo Valdez, the son of Silveria Valdez Méndez of colonial Dominican origin and José Trujillo Monagas, a Canary Islander sergeant who arrived in Santo Domingo as a member of the Spanish reinforcement troops during the annexation era. Trujillo's mother was Altagracia Julia Molina Chevalier, later known as Mamá Julia, daughter of peasant Pedro Molina Peña, also of colonial Dominican origin, and teacher Luisa Erciná Chevalier, whose parents were of creole Haitian origin.

Chevalier, Trujillo's maternal grandmother, was the daughter of Justin Victor Turenne Carrié Blaise, who was of French descent, and Eleonore Juliette Chevallier Moreau, who was part of Haiti's mulatto class. From her mother's side, Chevalier was granddaughter of Louise Moreau and her husband Bernard Chevallier L'Ouverture, a mulatto Haitian high-ranking officer and politician that established in San Cristóbal with the Haitian occupation, from whom countless Dominican families descend, who was the son of French nobleman Jean Baptiste Chevallier, Marquis de Pouilboreau and his wife Marie-Noëlle L'Ouverture, the sister of Toussaint L'Ouverture, the Father of the Nation of Haiti.

Trujillo was the third of eleven children; he also had an adopted brother, Luis Rafael "Nene" Trujillo (1935–2005), who was raised in the home of Trujillo Molina.

In 1897, at the age of six, Trujillo was registered in the school of Juan Hilario Meriño. One year later, he transferred to the school of Pablo Barinas, where he was educated by disciples of Eugenio María de Hostos and remained there for the rest of his primary schooling. As a child, he was obsessed with his appearance and would place bottle caps on his clothes that mimicked military decorations. At the age of 16, Trujillo got a job as a telegraph operator, which he held for about three years. Shortly after Trujillo, aided by his brother José Arismendy Petán, turned to petty crime: cattle rustling, check counterfeiting, and postal robbery. He spent several months in prison, which did not deter him, as he later formed a violent gang of robbers called The 42.

Rise to power
In 1916, the United States began its occupation of the Dominican Republic following 28 revolutions in 50 years. At the time, Trujillo was twenty-five years old and worked as a guarda campestre (overseer) at a sugar cane plantation in Boca Chica. The occupying force soon established a Dominican army constabulary to impose order. Trujillo joined the newly created National Guard in 1918 with the help of his employer along with US Major James J. MacLean, who was his maternal uncle Teódulo Pina Chevalier's friend, and was soon promoted to second lieutenant and began training with the US Marines. Allegations of forgery were ignored when Trujillo applied and he was later acquitted by a panel of Marines following plausible accusations against him, including the alleged rape and subsequent extortion of a 16-year-old girl. Colonel Richard Malcolm Cutts trained Trujillo further and many Marine leaders praised his abilities at the time, approving his rise among the ranks: he was promoted to lieutenant in 1919 and assigned to the San Pedro de Macorís garrison; he was later promoted to captain in 1922 while stationed in San Francisco de Macorís and given command of the National Guard 10th Company. In 1923 he was promoted to major and appointed Inspector of the 1st military district.

President Horacio Vásquez named Trujillo the commander of the National Police in 1924, he was named brigadier general in 1928, Trujillo militarized the police, turning it into an army. It evolved into a de facto independent body under his control. A rebellion or coup d'état against President Vásquez broke out in February 1930 in Santiago. Trujillo secretly cut a deal with the rebel leader Rafael Estrella Ureña. In return for Trujillo letting Estrella take power, Estrella would allow Trujillo to run for president in new elections. As the rebels marched toward Santo Domingo, Vásquez ordered Trujillo to suppress them. However, feigning "neutrality", Trujillo kept his men in barracks, allowing Estrella's rebels to take the capital virtually unopposed. On 3 March, Estrella was proclaimed acting president, with Trujillo confirmed as head of the police and of the army. As per their agreement, Trujillo became the presidential nominee of the Patriotic Coalition of Citizens (Spanish: Coalición patriotica de los ciudadanos), with Estrella as his running mate. The other candidates became targets of harassment by the army. When it became apparent that the army would allow only Trujillo to campaign unhindered, the other candidates pulled out. Ultimately, the Trujillo-Estrella ticket was proclaimed victorious with an implausible 99% of the vote. In a note to the State Department, American ambassador Charles Boyd Curtis wrote that Trujillo received far more votes than there were actual voters. Upon taking office on 16 August, Truijllo assumed dictatorial powers which he retained for the next three decades.

In government
Two and a half weeks after Trujillo ascended to the presidency, the destructive Hurricane San Zenon hit Santo Domingo and left 2000 dead. As a response to the disaster, Trujillo placed the Dominican Republic under martial law and began to rebuild the city. He renamed the rebuilt capital of the Dominican Republic, Ciudad Trujillo ("Trujillo City") in his honor and had streets, monuments, and landmarks to honor him throughout the country.

On 16 August 1931, the first anniversary of his inauguration, Trujillo made the Dominican Party, founded two weeks earlier, the nation's sole legal political party. However, the country had effectively become a one-party state with Trujillo's inauguration. Government employees were required by law to "donate" 10% of their salaries to the national treasury and there was strong pressure on adult citizens to join the party. Members had to carry a membership card, nicknamed the "Palmita" since the cover had a palm tree on it, and a person could be arrested for vagrancy without one. Those who did not join or contribute to the party did so at their own risk. Opponents of the régime were mysteriously killed.

In 1934, Trujillo, who had promoted himself to generalissimo of the army, was up for re-election. By then, there was no organized opposition left in the country, and he was re-elected unopposed. In addition to the widely rigged (and regularly uncontested) elections, he instated "civic reviews" with large crowds shouting their loyalty to the government, which would in turn create more support for Trujillo.

Personality cult
In 1936, at the suggestion of Mario Fermín Cabral, the Congress of the Dominican Republic voted overwhelmingly to change the name of the capital from Santo Domingo to Ciudad Trujillo. The province of San Cristóbal was renamed to "Trujillo" and the nation's highest peak, Pico Duarte to Pico Trujillo. Statues of "El Jefe" were mass-produced and erected across the Dominican Republic, and bridges and public buildings were named in his honor. The nation's newspapers had praise for Trujillo as part of the front page, and license plates included slogans such as "¡Viva Trujillo!" and "Año del Benefactor de la Patria" (Year of the Benefactor of the Nation). An electric sign was erected in Ciudad Trujillo so that "Dios y Trujillo" could be seen at night as well as in the day. Eventually, even churches were required to post the slogan "Dios en el cielo, Trujillo en la tierra" (God in Heaven, Trujillo on Earth). As time went on, the order of the phrases was reversed (Trujillo on Earth, God in Heaven). Trujillo was recommended for the Nobel Peace Prize by his admirers, but the committee declined the suggestion.

Trujillo was eligible to run again in 1938, but, citing the United States example of two presidential terms, he stated, "I voluntarily, and against the wishes of my people, refuse re-election to the high office." In fact, a vigorous re-election campaign had been launched in the middle of 1937 but the international uproar that followed the Haitian massacre later that year forced Trujillo to announce his "return to private life." Consequently, the Dominican Party nominated Trujillo's handpicked successor, 61-year-old vice-president Jacinto Peynado, with Manuel de Jesús Troncoso his running mate. They appeared alone on the ballot in the 1938 election. Trujillo kept his positions as generalissimo of the army and leader of the Dominican Party. It was understood that Peynado was merely a puppet, and Trujillo still held all governing power in the nation. Peynado increased the size of the electric "Dios y Trujillo" sign and died on 7 March 1940, with Troncoso serving out the rest of the term. However, in 1942, with US President Franklin Roosevelt having run for a third term in the United States, Trujillo ran for president again and was elected unopposed. He served for two terms, which he lengthened to five years each. In 1952, under pressure from the Organization of American States, he ceded the presidency to his brother, Héctor. Despite being officially out of power, Rafael Trujillo organized a major national celebration to commemorate 25 years of his rule in 1955. Gold and silver commemorative coins were minted with his image.

Oppression
Brutal oppression of actual or perceived members of the opposition was the key feature of Trujillo's rule from the very beginning in 1930 when his gang, "The 42", led by Miguel Angel Paulino, drove through the streets in their red Packard "carro de la muerte" ("car of death"). Trujillo also maintained an execution list of people throughout the world who he felt were his direct enemies or who he felt had wronged him. He even once allowed an opposition party to form and permitted it to operate legally and openly, mainly so that he could identify those who opposed him and arrest or kill them.

Imprisonments and killings were later handled by the SIM, the Servicio de Inteligencia Militar, efficiently organized by Johnny Abbes, who operated in Cuba, Mexico, Guatemala, New York, Costa Rica, and Venezuela. Some cases reached international notoriety such as the disappearance of Jesús de Galíndez and the murder of the Mirabal sisters, which further eroded Trujillo's critical support by the US government. After Trujillo approved an assassination attempt on the Venezuelan President Rómulo Ernesto Betancourt Bello, the Organization of American States and the United States blocked Trujillo's access to US sugar quota profits.

In April 1962, after the flight of the Trujillo family from the country, Attorney General Eduardo Antonio Garcia Vasquez reported that in the previous five years, the former regime was responsible for 5,700 deaths, either as known murders, or of those missing but presumed dead. The SIM often denied victims' families the remains of their loved ones, disposing of them clandestinely. In the aftermath of Trujillo's assassination, very few of those arrested and killed in the subsequent crackdown had their remains returned, the majority believed by investigators from Vasquez's office to have been tossed to sharks, or were stuffed into an incinerator at nearby San Isidro airbase.

Immigration
Trujillo was known for his open-door policy, accepting Jewish refugees from Europe, Japanese migration during the 1930s, and exiles from Spain following its civil war. At the 1938 Évian Conference the Dominican Republic was the only country willing to accept many Jews and offered to accept up to 100,000 refugees on generous terms. In 1940 an agreement was signed and Trujillo donated 26000 acre of his properties for settlements. The first settlers arrived in May 1940; eventually, some 800 settlers came to Sosúa and most moved later on to the United States.

Refugees from Europe broadened the Dominican Republic's tax base and added more whites to the predominantly mixed-race nation. Trujillo's government favored white refugees over others while Dominican troops expelled illegal immigrants, resulting in the 1937 Parsley Massacre of Haitian migrants.

Environmental policy
The Trujillo regime greatly expanded the Vedado del Yaque, a nature reserve around the Yaque del Sur River. In 1934 he banned the slash-and-burn method of clearing land for agriculture, set up a forest warden agency to protect the park system, and banned the logging of pine trees without his permission. In the 1950s the Trujillo regime commissioned a study on the hydroelectric potential of damming the Dominican Republic's waterways. The commission concluded that only forested waterways could support hydroelectric dams, so Trujillo banned logging in potential river watersheds. After his assassination in 1961, logging resumed in the Dominican Republic. Squatters burned down the forests for agriculture, and logging companies clear-cut parks. In 1967, President Joaquín Balaguer launched military strikes against illegal logging.

Trujillo encouraged foreign investment in the Dominican Republic, particularly from Americans. He gave a concession with mineral rights in the Azua Basin to Clem S. Clarke, an oilman from Shreveport, Louisiana.

Foreign policy
Trujillo tended toward peaceful coexistence with the United States government. During World War II, Trujillo symbolically sided with the Allies and declared war on Germany, Italy and Japan on 11 December 1941. While there was no military participation, the Dominican Republic thus became a founding member of the United Nations. Trujillo encouraged diplomatic and economic ties with the United States, but his policies often caused friction with other nations of Latin America, especially Costa Rica and Venezuela. He maintained friendly relations with Franco of Spain, Perón of Argentina, and Somoza of Nicaragua. Towards the end of his rule, his relationship with the United States deteriorated.

Hull–Trujillo Treaty
Early on, Trujillo determined that Dominican financial affairs had to be put in order, and that included ending the United States's role as collector of Dominican customs—a situation that had existed since 1907 and was confirmed in a 1924 convention signed at the end of the occupation.

Negotiations started in 1936 and lasted four years. On 24 September 1940, Trujillo and the American Secretary of State Cordell Hull signed the Hull–Trujillo Treaty, whereby the United States relinquished control over the collection and application of customs revenues, and the Dominican Republic committed to deposit consolidated government revenues in a special bank account to guarantee repayment of foreign debt. The government was free to set custom duties with no restrictions.

This diplomatic success gave Trujillo the occasion to launch a massive propaganda campaign that presented him as the savior of the nation. A law proclaimed that the Benefactor was also now the Restaurador de la independencia financiera de la Republica (Restorer of the Republic's financial independence).

Haiti

Haiti formerly occupied what is today called the Dominican Republic for 22 years - from 1822 to 1844. Prior to their occupation, Spanish colonial rule prevailed. Encroachment by Haiti was an ongoing process, and when Trujillo took over, specifically the northwestern border region had become increasingly "Haitianized". The border was poorly defined. In 1933, and again in 1935, Trujillo met the Haitian President Sténio Vincent to settle the border issue. By 1936, they reached and signed a settlement. At the same time, Trujillo plotted against the Haitian government by linking up with General Calixte, Commander of the Garde d'Haiti, and Élie Lescot, at that time the Haitian ambassador in Ciudad Trujillo (Santo Domingo). After the settlement, when further border incursions occurred, Trujillo initiated the Parsley Massacre.

Parsley massacre
Known as La Masacre del Perejil in Spanish, the massacre was started by Trujillo in 1937. Claiming that Haiti was harboring his former Dominican opponents, he ordered an attack on the border that slaughtered tens of thousands of Haitians as they tried to escape. The number of dead is still unknown, but it is now calculated between 12,000 and 30,000. The Dominican military used machetes to murder and decapitate many of the victims; they also took people to the port of Montecristi, where many victims were thrown into the sea to drown with their hands and feet bound.

The Haitian response was muted, but its government eventually called for an international investigation. Under pressure from Washington, Trujillo agreed to a reparation settlement in January 1938 of US$750,000. By the next year, the amount had been reduced to US$525,000 (US$0 million in 2024); 30 dollars per victim, of which only two cents were given to survivors because of corruption in the Haitian bureaucracy.

In 1941, Lescot, who had received financial support from Trujillo, succeeded Vincent as President of Haiti. Trujillo expected that Lescot would be his puppet, but Lescot turned against him. Trujillo unsuccessfully tried to assassinate him in a 1944 plot and then published their correspondence to discredit him. Lescot fled into exile in 1946 after demonstrations against him.

Cuba
In 1947, Dominican exiles, including Juan Bosch, had concentrated in Cuba. With the approval and support of Cuba's government, led by Ramón Grau, an expeditionary force was trained with the intention of invading the Dominican Republic and overthrowing Trujillo. However, international pressure, including from the United States, made the exiles abort the expedition. In turn, when Fulgencio Batista was in power, Trujillo initially supported anti-Batista supporters of Carlos Prío Socarrás in Oriente Province in 1955; however, weapons Trujillo sent were soon inherited by Fidel Castro's insurgents when Prío allied with Castro; Dominican-made Cristóbal carbines and hand grenades became the rebels' standard weapons.

After 1956, when Trujillo saw that Castro was gaining ground, he started to support Batista with money, planes, equipment, and men. Trujillo, convinced that Batista would prevail, was very surprised when Batista showed up as a fugitive after he had been ousted. Trujillo kept Batista until August 1959 as a "virtual prisoner". Only after paying US$3–4 million could Batista leave for Portugal, which had granted him a visa.

Castro made threats to overthrow Trujillo, and Trujillo responded by increasing the budget for national defense. A foreign legion was formed to defend Haiti, as it was expected that Castro might invade the Haitian part of the island first and remove François Duvalier as well. A Cuban plane with 56 fighting men landed near Constanza, Dominican Republic, on Sunday, 14 June 1959, and six days later more invaders brought by two yachts landed at the north coast. However, the Dominican Army prevailed.

In turn, in August 1959, Johnny Abbes attempted to support an anti-Castro group led by Escambray near Trinidad, Cuba. The attempt, however, was thwarted when Cuban troops surprised a plane he had sent when it was unloading its cargo.

Betancourt assassination attempt
By the late 1950s, opposition to Trujillo's regime was starting to build to a fever pitch, especially among a younger generation who had no memory of the poverty and instability that had preceded the dictatorship. Many clamored for democratization. The Trujillo regime responded with greater repression. The Military Intelligence Service (SIM) secret police, led by Johnny Abbes, remained as ubiquitous as before. Other nations ostracized the Dominican Republic, compounding the dictator's paranoia.

Trujillo began to interfere more and more in the domestic affairs of neighboring countries. He expressed great contempt for Venezuela's president Rómulo Betancourt; an established and outspoken opponent of Trujillo, Betancourt associated with Dominicans who had plotted against the dictator. Trujillo developed an obsessive personal hatred of Betancourt and supported numerous plots by Venezuelan exiles to overthrow him. This pattern of intervention led the Venezuelan government to take its case against Trujillo to the Organization of American States (OAS), a move that infuriated Trujillo, who ordered his agents to plant a bomb in Betancourt's car. The assassination attempt, carried out on Friday, 24 June 1960, injured but did not kill the Venezuelan president.

The Betancourt incident inflamed world opinion against Trujillo. Outraged OAS members voted unanimously to sever diplomatic relations with his government and impose economic sanctions on the Dominican Republic. The brutal murder on Friday, 25 November 1960, of the three Mirabal sisters, Patria, María Teresa and Minerva, who opposed Trujillo's dictatorship, further increased discontent with his repressive rule. The dictator had become an embarrassment to the United States, and relations became especially strained after the Betancourt incident.

Personal life
Trujillo's "central arch" was his instinct for power. This was coupled with an intense desire for money, which he recognized as a source of and support for power. Up at four in the morning, he exercised, studied the newspaper, read many reports, and completed papers before breakfast. At the office by nine, he continued his work, and took lunch by noon. After a walk, he continued to work until 7:30 pm. After dinner, he attended functions, held discussions, or was driven around incognito in the city "observing and remembering." Until Santo Domingo's National Palace was built in 1947, he worked out of the Casas Reales, the colonial-era Viceregal center of administration. Today the building is a museum; on display are his desk and chair, along with a massive collection of arms and armor that he bought. He was methodical, punctual, secretive, and guarded; he had no true friends, only associates and acquaintances. For his associates, his actions towards them were unpredictable.

Trujillo and his family amassed enormous wealth. He acquired cattle lands on a grand scale, and went into meat and milk production, operations that soon evolved into monopolies. Salt, sugar, tobacco, lumber, and the lottery were other industries which he or his family members dominated. Family members also received positions within the government and the army, including one of Trujillo's sons who was made a colonel in the Dominican Army when he was only four years old. Two of Trujillo's brothers, Héctor and José Arismendy, also held positions in his government. José Arismendy Trujillo oversaw the creation of the main radio station, La Voz Dominicana, and later the television station, the fourth in the Caribbean.

By 1937 Trujillo's annual income was about $1.5 million ($ million in ); at the time of his death the state took over 111 Trujillo-owned companies. His love of fine and ostentatious clothing was displayed in elaborate uniforms and suits, of which he collected almost two thousand. Fond of neckties, he amassed a collection of over ten thousand. Trujillo doused himself with perfume and liked gossip. His sexual appetite was rapacious, and he preferred mulatta women with full bodies.

Trujillo was married three times and kept other women as mistresses. On 13 August 1913, Trujillo married Aminta Ledesma Lachapelle, with whom he had 2 daughters, Julia, who died as an infant, and Flor de Oro, who died of lung cancer in 1978. On 30 March 1927, Trujillo married Bienvenida Ricardo Martínez, a girl from Monte Cristi and the daughter of Buenaventura Ricardo Heureaux. A year later he met María de los Angeles Martínez Alba (nicknamed "la españolita", or "the little Spanish girl"), and had an affair with her. He divorced Bienvenida in 1935 and married Martínez. A year later he had a daughter with Bienvenida, named Odette Trujillo Ricardo.

Trujillo's three children with María Martínez were Rafael Leónidas Ramfis, who was born on 5 June 1929, María de los Ángeles del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús (Angelita), born in Paris on 10 June 1939, and Leónidas Rhadamés, born on 1 December 1942. Ramfis and Rhadamés were named after characters in Giuseppe Verdi's opera Aida.

In 1937, Trujillo met Lina Lovatón Pittaluga, an upper-class debutante with whom he had two children, Yolanda in 1939, and Rafael, born on 20 June 1943.

In spite of Trujillo's indifference to the game of baseball, the dictator invited many black American players to the Dominican Republic, where they received good pay for playing on first-class, un-segregated teams. The great Negro league star Satchel Paige pitched for Los Dragones of Ciudad Trujillo, a team organized by Trujillo. Paige later claimed, jokingly, that his guards positioned themselves "like a firing squad" to encourage him to pitch well. Los Dragones won the 1937 Dominican championship at Estadio Trujillo in Ciudad Trujillo.

Trujillo was energetic and fit. He was generally quite healthy but suffered from chronic lower urinary infections and, later, prostate problems. In 1934, Dr. Georges Marion was called from Paris to perform three urologic procedures on Trujillo.

Over time Trujillo acquired numerous homes. His favorite was Casa Caobas, on Estancia Fundacion near San Cristóbal. He also used Estancia Ramfis (which, after 1953, became the Foreign Office), Estancia Rhadames, and a home at Playa de Najayo. Less frequently he stayed at places he owned in Santiago de los Caballeros, Constanza, La Cumbre, San José de las Matas, and elsewhere. He maintained a penthouse at the Embajador Hotel in the capital.

While Trujillo was nominally a Roman Catholic, his devotion was limited to a perfunctory role in public affairs; he placed faith in local folk religion.

He was popularly known as "El Jefe" ("The Chief") or "El Benefactor" ("The Benefactor") but was privately referred to as Chapitas ("Bottlecaps") because of his indiscriminate wearing of medals. Dominican children emulated Trujillo by constructing toy medals from bottle caps.

Assassination
On 30 May 1961, Trujillo was shot and killed when his blue 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air was ambushed on a road outside the Dominican capital. He was the victim of an ambush plotted by a number of men, including General Juan Tomás Díaz, Pedro Livio Cedeño, Antonio de la Maza, Amado García Guerrero and General Antonio Imbert Barrera.

Aftermath
The plotters failed to take control, as the later-executed General José René Román Fernandez ("Pupo Román") betrayed his co-conspirators by his inactivity, and contingency plans had not been made. On the other side, Johnny Abbes, Roberto Figueroa Carrión, and the Trujillo family put the SIM to work to hunt the members of the plot and brought back Ramfis Trujillo from Paris to step into his father's shoes. The response by the SIM was swift and brutal. Hundreds of suspects were detained, many tortured. On 18 November the last executions took place when six of the conspirators were executed in the "Hacienda María Massacre". Imbert was the only one of the seven assassins who survived the manhunt. A co-conspirator named Luis Amiama Tio also survived.

US President John F. Kennedy learned of Trujillo's death during a diplomatic meeting with French President Charles de Gaulle.

Trujillo's funeral was that of a statesman with the long procession ending in his hometown of San Cristóbal, where his body was first buried. Dominican President Joaquín Balaguer gave the eulogy. The efforts of the Trujillo family to keep control of the country ultimately failed. The military uprising on 19 November of the Rebellion of the Pilots and the threat of US intervention set the final stage and ended the Trujillo regime. Ramfis tried to flee with his father's body aboard his boat Angelita, but was turned back. Balaguer allowed Ramfis to leave the country and to take his father's body to Paris. There, the remains were interred in the Cimetière du Père Lachaise on 14 August 1964, and six years later moved to Spain, to the Mingorrubio Cemetery in El Pardo on the north side of Madrid.

United States' involvement
The role of the United States' Central Intelligence Agency in the killing has been debated. Imbert insisted that the plotters acted on their own. However, Trujillo was certainly assassinated with weapons supplied by the CIA. In a 1975 report to the Deputy Attorney General of the United States, CIA officials described the agency as having "no active part" in the assassination and only a "faint connection" with the groups that planned the killing.

US involvement appears to go deeper than supplying weapons. In the 1950s, the CIA gave José Figueres Ferrer money to publish a political journal, Combate and to found a left-wing school for Latin American opposition leaders. Funds passed from a shell foundation to the Jacob Merrill Kaplan Fund; then to the Institute of International Labor Research (IILR) headed by Norman Thomas, six-time US presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America; and finally to Figueres, Sacha Volman, and Juan Bosch. Sacha Volman, treasurer of the IILR, was a CIA agent.

Cord Meyer was a CIA official responsible for manipulating international groups. He used the contacts with Bosch, Volman, and Figueres for a new purpose, as the United States moved to rally the Western Hemisphere against Cuba's Fidel Castro, Trujillo had become expendable. Dissidents inside the Dominican Republic argued that assassination was the only certain way to remove Trujillo.

According to Chester Bowles, the Undersecretary of State, internal Department of State discussions in 1961 on the topic were vigorous. Richard N. Goodwin, Assistant Special Counsel to the President, who had direct contacts with the rebel alliance, argued for intervention against Trujillo. Quoting Bowles directly: "The next morning I learned that in spite of the clear decision against having the dissident group request our assistance Dick Goodwin following the meeting sent a cable to CIA people in the Dominican Republic without checking with State or CIA; indeed, with the protest of the Department of State. The cable directed the CIA people in the Dominican Republic to get this request at any cost. When Allen Dulles found this out the next morning, he withdrew the order. We later discovered it had already been carried out."

An internal CIA memorandum states that a 1973 Office of Inspector General investigation into the murder disclosed "quite extensive Agency involvement with the plotters." The CIA described its role in "changing" the government of the Dominican Republic "as a 'success' in that it assisted in moving the Dominican Republic from a totalitarian dictatorship to a Western-style democracy."

Juan Bosch, the earlier recipient of CIA funding, was elected president of the Dominican Republic in 1962 and was deposed in 1963.

Even after the death of Trujillo, the unusual events continued. In November 1961, Mexican police found a corpse they identified as Luis Melchior Vidal Jr., godson of Trujillo. Vidal was the unofficial business agent of the Dominican Republic while Trujillo was in power. Under the cover of the American Sucrose Company and the Paint Company of America, Vidal had teamed up with the US-American Joel David Kaplan to operate as arms merchants for the CIA.

Joel David Kaplan was the nephew of the previously mentioned Jacob Merrill Kaplan. The older Kaplan earned his fortune primarily through operations in Cuba and the Dominican Republic.

In 1962, the younger Kaplan was convicted of killing Vidal, in Mexico City. He was sentenced to 28 years in prison. Kaplan escaped from a Mexican prison using a helicopter. The dramatic event was the basis for the Charles Bronson action film Breakout.

The Mexican police requested for the FBI to arrest and remand Joel Kaplan on 20 August 1971. Kaplan's attorney claimed that Kaplan was a CIA agent. Neither the FBI nor the US Department of Justice has pursued the issue. The Mexican government never initiated extradition proceedings against Kaplan.

Honors and awards

 * Legion d'honneur
 * Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Rafael Trujillo


text:
Mwai Kibaki

Emilio Stanley Mwai Kibaki (15 November 1931 – 21 April 2022) was a Kenyan politician who served as the third President of Kenya from December 2002 until April 2013. He served in various leadership positions in Kenya's government including being the longest serving Member of Parliament (MP) in Kenya from 1963 to 2013.

He had previously served as the fourth Vice-President of Kenya for ten years from 1978 to 1988 under President Daniel arap Moi. He also held cabinet ministerial positions in the Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi governments, including as minister for Finance (1969–1981) under Kenyatta, and Minister for Home Affairs (1982–1988) and Minister for Health (1988–1991) under Moi.

Kibaki served as an opposition Member of Parliament from 1992 to 2002. He unsuccessfully vied for the presidency in 1992 and 1997. He served as the Leader of the Official Opposition in Parliament from 1998 to 2002. Following the 2002 presidential election, he was elected as President of Kenya.

Early life and education
Kibaki was born on 15 November 1931 in Gatuyaini village, Othaya division of Kenya's then Nyeri District (now Nyeri County). He was the youngest son of Kikuyu peasants Kibaki Gĩthĩnji and Teresia Wanjikũ. Though baptised as Emilio Stanley by Italian missionaries in his youth, he has been known as Mwai Kibaki throughout his public life. Kibaki started his schooling at the village school in Gatuyaini, where he completed two years. He then continued his education at the Karima mission school, close to Othaya town, before moving to Mathari School (now Nyeri High School) between 1944 and 1946. In addition to his academic studies, he learned carpentry and masonry at the school. After Karima Primary and Nyeri Boarding primary schools, he proceeded to Mang'u High School, where he studied between 1947 and 1950, gaining the highest grade in his O Level examinations.

In his last year at Mang'u, Kibaki briefly considered enlisting in the army, but this ambition was thwarted when Kenya's Chief colonial secretary, Walter Coutts, prohibited members of Kikuyu, Embu, and Meru communities from joining the military. Kibaki instead attended Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, where he studied economics, history, and political science. He graduated with a first class honours degree in economics. After graduation, Kibaki remained in Uganda, working for the Shell Company of East Africa. He then earned a scholarship entitling him to undertake postgraduate studies at any British university. He chose the London School of Economics, from which he obtained a BSc in public finance, with distinction. In 1958, he went back to Makerere, where he taught as an assistant lecturer in the economics department until 1961. In 1961, Kibaki married Lucy Muthoni, the daughter of a church minister, who was then a secondary school head teacher.

1960–2002
In early 1960, Mwai Kibaki left academia for active politics by giving up his job at Makerere and returning to Kenya to become an executive officer of Kenya African National Union (KANU), at the request of Thomas Joseph Mboya (who was the secretary general of KANU). Kibaki then helped to draft Kenya's independence constitution.

In 1963, Kibaki was elected as Member of Parliament for the Doonholm Constituency (subsequently called Bahati and now known as Makadara) in Nairobi. His election was the start of a long political career. In 1963 Kibaki was appointed the Permanent Secretary for the Treasury. Appointed Assistant Minister of Finance and chairman of the Economic Planning Commission in 1963, he was promoted to Minister of Commerce and Industry in 1966. In 1969, he became Minister of Finance and Economic Planning where he served until 1982.

In 1974, Kibaki, facing serious competition for his Doonholm Constituency seat from an opponent Mrs. Jael Mbogo, whom he had only narrowly and controversially beaten for the seat in the 1969 elections, moved his political base from Nairobi to his rural home, Othaya, where he was subsequently elected as Member of Parliament. The same year Time magazine rated him among the top 100 people in the world who had the potential to lead. He was re-elected Member of Parliament for Othaya in the subsequent elections of 1979, 1983, 1988, 1992, 1997, 2002, and 2007.

When Daniel arap Moi succeeded Jomo Kenyatta as President of Kenya in 1978, Kibaki was elevated to the Vice Presidency, and kept the Finance portfolio until Moi changed his ministerial portfolio from Finance to Home Affairs in 1982. He had in 1978 rejected an offer to become World Bank Vice President for Africa instead choosing to further his political career. As of 2023, he is still regarded as one of the most effective and consequentual finance ministers of the Republic of Kenya. Later as President, he kept close tabs with the treasury and directly influenced key economic policies resulting in steady economic growth. Kibaki fell out of favour with President Moi in March 1988, and was dropped as vice president and moved to the Ministry of Health.

Kibaki's political style during these years was described as gentlemanly and non-confrontational. This style exposed him to criticism that he was a spineless, or even cowardly, politician who never took a stand: according to one joke, "He never saw a fence he didn't sit on". Similarly, Kenneth Matiba also referred to him as "General Kiguoya" for refusing to resign the Kanu government and join the opposition after he was dropped as vice president in 1988. 'Kiguoya' translates to the 'fearful one' in the Kikuyu language. He also, as the political circumstances of the time dictated, projected himself as a loyal stalwart of the ruling single party, KANU. In the months before multi-party politics were introduced in 1992, he infamously declared that agitating for multi-party democracy and trying to dislodge KANU from power was like "trying to cut down a fig tree with a razor blade".

It was therefore with great surprise that the country received the news of Kibaki's resignation from government and leaving KANU on Christmas Day in December 1991, only days after the repeal of Section 2A of the then Constitution of Kenya, which restored the multi-party system of government. Soon after his resignation, Kibaki founded the Democratic Party (DP) and entered the presidential race in the upcoming multi-party elections of 1992. Kibaki was regarded as one of the favourites among Moi's challengers, although his support came mainly from the Kikuyu voters as the election was fought along ethnic lines, confirming a prediction made by both Moi and political analysts at the beginning of multipartyism.

Kibaki came third in the subsequent presidential elections of 1992, when the divided opposition lost to president Moi and KANU despite having received more than two-thirds of the vote. He then came second to Moi in the 1997 elections, when again, Moi beat a divided opposition to retain the presidency. Kibaki joined third-placed Raila Odinga in accusing the president of rigging the poll, and both opposition leaders boycotted Moi's swearing in for his fifth term in office.

2002 elections
In preparation for the 2002 elections, Kibaki's Democratic Party affiliated with several other opposition parties to form the National Alliance of Rainbow Coalition (NARC). A group of disappointed KANU presidential aspirants then quit KANU in protest after being overlooked by outgoing President Moi when Moi had Uhuru Kenyatta (founding Father Jomo Kenyatta's son and Kibaki's successor as Kenya's 4th President after the 2013 General Election) nominated to be the KANU presidential candidate, and hurriedly formed the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). NAK later combined with the LDP to form the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC). On 14 October 2002, at a large opposition rally in Uhuru Park, Nairobi, Kibaki was nominated the NARC opposition alliance presidential candidate after Raila Odinga made the famous declaration; "Kibaki Tosha!" (Swahili for "Kibaki [is] enough")

On 3 December 2002, Kibaki was injured in a road accident while on his way back to Nairobi from a campaign meeting at Machakos junction 40 km from Nairobi. He was subsequently hospitalized in Nairobi, then London, after sustaining fracture injuries in the accident. After the accident, he had to move using a wheel chair up to months later after his presidency. For the remainder of his life, he walked rather awkwardly as a result of those injuries.

The rest of his presidential campaign was thus conducted by his NARC colleagues in his absence, led by Raila Odinga and Kijana Wamalwa (who went on to become the Vice President) who campaigned tirelessly for Kibaki after stating, "The captain has been injured in the field... but the rest of the team shall continue." On 27 December 2002, Kibaki and NARC won a landslide victory over KANU, with Kibaki getting 62% of the votes in the presidential elections, against only 31% for the KANU candidate Uhuru Kenyatta.

Swearing in
On 30 December 2002, still nursing injuries from the motor vehicle accident and in a wheel chair, Kibaki was sworn in as the third President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Kenya, in front of thousands of cheering supporters at the historic Uhuru Park within Nairobi City. At his inauguration, he stressed his opposition to government corruption, saying: "'Government will no longer be run on the whims of individuals.'"

Kibaki's swearing in marked the end of four decades of KANU rule, the party having ruled Kenya since independence. Moi, who had been in power for 24 years, began his retirement.

Leadership style
President Kibaki's style was that of a low key publicity averse but highly intelligent and competent technocrat.

He, unlike his predecessors, never tried to establish a personality cult; never had his portrait on every unit of Kenya's currency; never had all manner of streets, places, and institutions named after him; never had state sanctioned praise songs composed in his honour; never dominated news bulletins with reports of his presidential activities - however routine or mundane; and never engaged in the populist sloganeering of his predecessors.

His style of leadership gave him the image of a seemingly aloof, withdrawn technocrat or intellectual and made him seem out of touch with the street, and his seemingly hands-off leadership-by-delegation style made his governments, especially at the cabinet level, appear dysfunctional.

First term health issues
It is widely acknowledged that age and the 2002 accident denied the country the witty, sporty, eloquent Kibaki of the previous years. A man who could make lengthy and flowery contributions on the floor of Parliament without notes was confined to reading speeches at every forum.

In late January 2003, it was announced that the President had been admitted to Nairobi Hospital to have a blood clot– the after-effect of his car accident– removed from his leg. He came out of hospital and addressed the public outside the hospital on TV in a visibly incoherent manner, and speculation after that was that he had suffered a stroke, his second, the first being said to have occurred sometimes in the 1970s. His subsequent ill health greatly diminished his performance during his first term and the affairs of government during that time are said to have been largely run by a group of loyal aides, both in and out of government. Kibaki did not seem well, for instance, when he appeared live on TV on 25 September 2003 to appoint Moody Awori Vice President after the death in office of Vice President, Michael Wamalwa Kijana.

2003: Free primary education
In January 2003, Kibaki introduced a free primary education initiative, which brought over 1 million children who would not have been able to afford school the chance to attend. The initiative received positive attention, including praise from Bill Clinton, who met Kibaki in Kenya in July 2005. In his tenure he was involved in numerous academic events including the famous Equity Group Foundation, Wings to Fly 2013 scholars commissioning.

2005: Constitutional referendum, the NARC fallout and government of national unity

The 2005 Kenyan constitutional referendum was held on 21 November 2005. The main issue of contention in the Constitution review process was how much power should be vested in the Kenyan Presidency. In previous drafts, those who feared a concentration of power in the president added provisions for European-style power-sharing between a ceremonial President elected via universal suffrage and an executive Prime Minister elected by Parliament. The draft presented by Attorney General Amos Wako for the referendum retained sweeping powers for the Presidency.

Though Kibaki supported the proposal, some members of his own cabinet, mainly from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) wing led by Raila Odinga, allied with the main opposition party KANU to mobilize a powerful NO campaign that resulted in a majority of 58% of voters rejecting the draft.

As a consequence of, and immediately after, the referendum loss, on 23 November 2005, Kibaki dismissed his entire cabinet in the middle of his administration's term, with the aim of purging all Raila-allied ministers from the cabinet. About his decision Kibaki said; "'Following the results of the referendum, it has become necessary for me, as the President of the Republic, to re-organize my government to make it more cohesive and better able to serve the people of Kenya'." The only members of the cabinet office to be spared a midterm exit were the Vice President and Minister of Home Affairs, Moody Awori, and the Attorney General whose position is constitutionally protected. A new cabinet of Kibaki loyalists, including MP's from the opposition, termed the Government of National Unity (GNU), was thereafter appointed, but some MP's who were offered ministerial positions declined to take up posts.

A report by a Kenyan Commission of Inquiry, the Waki Commission, contextualises some issues. They reported that Kibaki, after agreeing to an informal Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to create the post of Prime Minister, reneged on this pact after being elected. They cited criticism of Kibaki neglecting his pre-election agreement, leaving the public to identify it as an attempt by the Kibaki Government to "keep power to itself rather than share it."

2007: Elections
On 26 January 2007, President Kibaki declared his intention of running for re-election in the 2007 presidential election. On 16 September 2007, Kibaki announced that he would stand as the candidate of a new alliance incorporating all the parties who supported his re-election, called the Party of National Unity. The parties in his alliance included the much diminished former ruling KANU, DP, Narc-Kenya, Ford-Kenya, Ford People, and Shirikisho.

Kibaki's main opponent, Raila Odinga, had used the referendum victory to launch the ODM, which nominated him as its presidential candidate for the 2007 elections.

On 30 September 2007, President Kibaki launched his presidential campaign at Nyayo Stadium, Nairobi.

Kalonzo Musyoka then broke away from Raila's ODM to mount his own fringe bid for the presidency, thus narrowing down the contest between the main candidates, Kibaki, the incumbent, and Odinga. Opinion polls up to election day showed Kibaki behind Raila Odinga nationally, but closing. On regional analysis, the polls showed him behind Raila in all regions of the country except Central Province, Embu, and Meru, where he was projected to take most of the votes, and behind Kalonzo Musyoka in Kalonzo's native Ukambani.

2007–2008: Results dispute and post-election violence
Three days later, after a protracted count which saw presidential results in Kibaki's Central Kenya come in last, allegedly inflated, in a cloud of suspicion and rising tensions, amid vehement protests by Raila's ODM, overnight re-tallying of results and chaotic scenes, all beamed live on TV, at the national tallying center at the Kenyatta International Conference Center in Nairobi, riot police eventually sealed off the tallying Center ahead of the result announcement, evicted party agents, observers, and the media, and moved the Chairman of the Electoral Commission, Samuel Kivuitu, to another room where Kivuitu went on to declare Kibaki the winner by 4,584,721 votes to Odinga's 4,352,993, placing Kibaki ahead of Odinga by about 232,000 votes in the hotly contested election with Kalonzo Musyoka a distant third.

One hour later, in a hastily convened dusk ceremony, Kibaki was sworn in at the grounds of State House, Nairobi for his second term, defiantly calling for the "verdict of the people" to be respected and for "healing and reconciliation" to begin. Tension arose and led to protests by a huge number of Kenyans who felt that Kibaki had refused to respect the verdict of the people and was now forcibly remaining in office.

Immediately the results were announced, Odinga bitterly accused Kibaki of electoral fraud. Odinga's allegations scored with his supporters, and seemed meritorious since the results had defied pre-election polls and expectations and election day exit polls. Furthermore, Odinga, who had campaigned against the concentration of political power in the hands of Kikuyu politicians, had won the votes of most of the other Kenyan tribes and regions, with Kibaki's victory being attained only with the near exclusive support of the populous Kikuyu, Meru, and Embu communities-who had turned out to vote for Kibaki in large numbers after feeling, in reaction to the Odinga campaign, and with the covert encouragement of the Kibaki campaign, increasingly besieged and threatened by the pro-Odinga tribes. Moreover, ODM had won the most parliamentary and local authority seats by a wide margin. A joint statement by the British Foreign Office and Department for International Development cited "real concerns" over irregularities, while international observers refused to declare the election free and fair. The European Union chief observer, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, cited one constituency where his monitors saw official results for Kibaki that were 25,000 votes lower than the figure subsequently announced by the Electoral Commission, leading him to doubt the accuracy of the announced results.

It was reported that Kibaki, who had previously been perceived as an "old-school gentleman", had "revealed a steely side" when he swore himself in within an hour of being announced the victor of the highly contested election—one where the results were largely in question. Odinga's supporters said he would be declared president at a rival ceremony on Monday, but police banned the event. Koki Muli, the head of local watchdog, the Institute of Education in Democracy, said called the day the "saddest...in the history of democracy in this country" and "a coup d'etat."

Opposition supporters saw the result as a plot by Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe, Kenya's largest, to keep power by any means. The tribes that lost the election were upset at the prospect of five years without political power, and anti-Kikuyu sentiment swelled, spawning the 2007–2008 Kenyan crisis, as violence broke out in several places in the country, started by the ODM supporters protesting the "stealing" of their "victory", and subsequently escalating as the targeted Kikuyus retaliated. As unrest spread, television and radio stations were instructed to stop all live broadcasts. There was widespread theft, vandalism, looting, destruction of property, and a significant number of atrocities, killings, and sexual violence reported.

The violence continued for more than two months, as Kibaki ruled with "half" a cabinet he had appointed, with Odinga and ODM refusing to recognize him as president.

When the election was eventually investigated by the Independent Review Commission (IREC) on the 2007 Elections chaired by Justice Johann Kriegler, it was found that there were too many electoral malpractices from several regions perpetrated by all the contesting parties to conclusively establish which candidate won the December 2007 Presidential elections. Such malpractices included widespread bribery, vote buying, intimidation, and ballot stuffing by both sides, as well as incompetence from the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK), which was shortly thereafter disbanded by the new Parliament.

2008: National accord and Grand Coalition Government
The country was only saved by the mediation of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan with a panel of "Eminent African Personalities" backed by the African Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

Following the mediation, a deal, called the national accord, was signed in February 2008 between Raila Odinga and Kibaki, now referred to as the "two Principals". The accord, later passed by the Kenyan Parliament as the National Accord and Reconciliation Act 2008 provided inter alia for power-sharing, with Kibaki remaining President and Raila Odinga taking a newly re-created post of Prime Minister.

On 17 April 2008, Raila Odinga was sworn in as Prime Minister of Kenya, along with a power-sharing Cabinet, with 42 ministers and 50 assistant ministers, Kenya's largest ever. The cabinet was fifty percent Kibaki appointed ministers and fifty percent Raila appointed ministers, and was in reality a carefully balanced ethnic coalition. The arrangement, which also included Kalonzo Musyoka as vice president, was known as the "Grand Coalition Government".

Economic legacy: turnaround
The Kibaki presidency set itself the main task of reviving and turning round country after years of stagnation and economic mismanagement during the Moi tenure – a feat faced with several challenges, including the aftermath of the Nyayo Era (Moi Presidency), western donor fatigue, the President's ill health during his first term, political tension culminating in the break-up of the NARC coalition, the 2007–2008 post election violence, the 2007–2008 Global Financial crisis, and a tenuous relationship with his coalition partner, Raila Odinga, during his second term.

President Kibaki, the economist whose term as Finance minister in the 1970s is widely celebrated as outstanding, did much as president to repair the damage done to the country's economy during the 24-year reign of his predecessor, President Moi. Compared to the Moi years, Kenya was much better managed, by far more competent public sector personnel, and was much transformed.

Kenya's economy in the Kibaki years experienced a major turnaround. GDP growth picked up from a low 0.6% (real −1.6%) in 2002 to 3% in 2003, 4.9% in 2004, 5.8% in 2005, 6% in 2006, and 7% in 2007, then after the post election chaos and Global Financial Crisis—2008 (1.7%)and 2009 (2.6%), recovered to 5% in 2010 and 5% in 2011.

Development was resumed in all areas of the country, including the hitherto neglected and largely undeveloped semi-arid or arid north. Many sectors of the economy recovered from total collapse pre-2003. Numerous state corporations that had collapsed during the Moi years were revived and began performing profitably. The telecommunications sector boomed. Rebuilding, modernisation, and expansion of infrastructure began in earnest, with several ambitious infrastructural and other projects, such as the Thika Superhighway, which would have been seen as unattainable during the Moi years were completed. The country's cities and towns also began being positively renewed and transformed.

The Constituency Development Fund (CDF) was also introduced in 2003. The fund was designed to support constituency-level, grass-root development projects. It was aimed to achieve equitable distribution of development resources across regions and to control imbalances in regional development brought about by partisan politics. It targeted all constituency-level development projects, particularly those aiming to combat poverty at the grassroots. The CDF programme has facilitated the putting up of new water, health, and education facilities in all parts of the country including remote areas that were usually overlooked during funds allocation in national budgets. CDF was the first step towards the devolved system of government introduced by the 2010 Constitution, by which Local Government structures were Constitutionally redesigned, enhanced, and strengthened.

President Kibaki also oversaw the creation of Kenya's Vision 2030, a long-term development plan aimed at raising GDP growth to 10% annually and transforming Kenya into a middle income country by 2030, which he unveiled on 30 October 2006.

The Kibaki regime also saw a reduction of Kenya's dependence on western donor aid, with the country being increasingly funded by internally generated resources such as increased tax revenue collection. Relations with the People's Republic of China, Japan, and other non-western powers improved and expanded remarkably in the Kibaki years. The People's Republic of China and Japan especially, the Asian Tigers such as Malaysia and Singapore, Brazil, the Middle East and to a lesser extent, South Africa, Libya, other African Countries, and even Iran, became increasingly important economic partners.

Political legacy
President Kibaki was accused of ruling with a small group of his elderly peers, mainly from the educated side of the Kikuyu elite that emerged in the Jomo Kenyatta era, usually referred to as the "Kitchen Cabinet" or the "Mount Kenya Mafia". There was therefore the perception that his was a Kikuyu presidency. This perception was reinforced when the President was seen to have trashed the pre- 2002 election Memorandum of Understanding with the Raila Odinga-led Liberal Democratic Party, and was further reinforced by his disputed 2007 election victory over the Raila Odinga led ODM Party being achieved nearly exclusively with the votes of the populous Mt. Kenya Kikuyu, Meru and Embu communities.

The Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence (CIPEV) put it thus:

The post election violence [in early 2008 therefore is, in part, a consequence of the failure of President Kibaki and his first Government to exert political control over the country or to maintain sufficient legitimacy as would have allowed a civilised contest with him at the polls to be possible. Kibaki's regime failed to unite the country, and allowed feelings of marginalisation to fester into what became the post election violence. He and his then Government were complacent in the support they considered they would receive in any election from the majority Kikuyu community and failed to heed the views of the legitimate leaders of other communities.

Critics noted that President Kibaki failed to take advantage of the 2002 popular mandate for a complete break with the past and fix the politics largely mobilized along ethnic interests. "... when we achieved and the new world dawned, the old men came out again and took our victory to re-make in the likeness of the former world they knew." Elected in 2002 on a reform platform, Kibaki was seen to have re-established the status quo ante. His opponents charged that a major aim of his presidency was the preservation of the privileged position of the elite that emerged during the Kenyatta years, of which he was part.

In summary, the Kibaki Presidency did not do nearly enough to address the problem of tribalism in Kenya.

Lawyer George Kegoro, in an article published in the Daily Nation newspaper on 12 April 2013 summarized the Kibaki Political Legacy thus:-

"Kibaki was, by far, a better manager of the economy than Moi before him. He brought order to the management of public affairs, a departure from the rather informal style that characterised the Moi regime. Kibaki's push for free primary education remains an important achievement, as will the revival of key economic institutions such as the Kenya Meat Commission and the Kenya Cooperative Creameries, ruined during the Moi-era. ... However, Kibaki was not all success. Having come to power in 2003 on an anti-corruption platform, he set up two commissions, the Bosire Commission on the Goldenberg scandal and the Ndung'u Commission, which investigated irregular land allocation. However, the reports were not implemented. Further, the Kibaki administration was rocked by a corruption scandal of its own, the Anglo Leasing scam, involving his close associates. John Githongo, an inspired appointment by Kibaki for an anti-corruption czar, resigned from the government in 2005, citing lack of support from the president. As he leaves office, therefore, the fight against corruption remains unfulfilled. ... But, perhaps, the most controversial aspect of the Kibaki tenure will always be his relationship with senior politicians of his day, particularly Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka. The context of this complex relationship includes the post-election violence of 2007, whose roots go back to the dishonoured Memorandum of Understanding between Kibaki and Raila in 2002. The quarrel over the MoU directly led to the break-up of the Narc government, after which Kibaki showed Odinga the door and invited the opposition to rule with him. The effect was that the opposition, rejected at the polls, joined government while Raila's faction, validly elected to power, was consigned to the opposition. ... To the supporters of Raila and Kalonzo, Kibaki will be remembered as a person who did not keep political promises."

Failure to tame corruption
Though President Kibaki was never personally accused of corruption, and managed to virtually end the grabbing of public land rampant in the Moi and Kenyatta eras, he was unable to adequately contain Kenya's widely entrenched culture of endemic corruption.

Michela Wrong describes the situation thus:

"Whether expressed in the petty bribes the average Kenyan had to pay each week to fat-bellied policemen and local councillors, the jobs for the boys doled out by civil servants and politicians on strictly tribal lines, or the massive scams perpetrated by the country's ruling elite, corruption had become endemic. 'Eating', as Kenyans dubbed the gorging on state resources by the well-connected, had crippled the nation. In the corruption indices drawn up by the anti-graft organisation Transparency International, Kenya routinely trail[s] near the bottom ... viewed as only slightly less sleazy than Nigeria or Pakistan ..."

The Daily Nation, in an article published on 4 March 2013 titled "End of a decade of highs and lows for Mwai Kibaki" summarised it thus:

For a leader who was popularly swept into power in 2002 on an anti-corruption platform, Kibaki's tenure saw graft scandals where hundreds of millions of shillings were siphoned from public coffers. Kibaki's National Rainbow Coalition – which took power from the authoritarian rule of Daniel arap Moi—was welcomed for its promises of change and economic growth, but soon showed that it was better suited to treading established paths.

The initial response to corruption was very solid ... but it became clear after a while that these scams reached all the way to the president himself," said Kenya's former anti-corruption chief John Githongo in Michela Wrong's book It's Our Turn to Eat. Most notorious of a raft of graft scandals was the multi-billion shilling Anglo Leasing case, which emerged in 2004 and involved public cash being paid to a complicated web of foreign companies for a range of services—including naval ships and passports—that never materialised."

2010 Constitution
The passage of Kenya's transformative 2010 Constitution, championed by President Kibaki in the Kenyan constitutional referendum in 2010 was a major triumph and achievement, which went a long way into addressing Kenya's governance and institutional challenges. With the new Constitution started wide-ranging institutional and legislative reforms, which President Kibaki skilfully and successfully steered in the final years of this presidency."His greatest moment was the promulgation of the new Constitution... It was a very deep and emotional moment for him," Kibaki's son Jimmy was quoted as saying.

2013: Power handover
Kibaki handed over the Kenyan presidency to his successor, Uhuru Kenyatta, on 9 April 2013 at a public inauguration ceremony held at Kenya's largest stadium. "I am happy to pass the torch of leadership to the new generation of leaders", said Kibaki. He also thanked his family and all Kenyans for the support they had given him throughout his tenure in office, and cited the various achievements his government made.

The handover marked the end of his presidency and of his 50 years of public service.

Personal life

Kibaki was married to Lucy Muthoni from 1961 until her death in 2016. They had four children: Judy Wanjiku, Jimmy Kibaki, David Kagai, and Tony Githinji. They also had several grandchildren: Joy Jamie Marie, Rachael Muthoni, Mwai Junior, and Krystinaa Muthoni. Jimmy Kibaki has declared and aspired to be his father's political heir, though he has been unsuccessful in that endeavor so far.

In 2004, the media reported that Kibaki had a second spouse, whom he allegedly married under customary law, Mary Wambui, and a daughter, Wangui Mwai. State House in response released an unsigned statement that Kibaki's only immediate family at the time was his then wife, Lucy, and their four children. In 2009, Kibaki, with Lucy in close attendance, held an odd press conference to re-state publicly that he only had one wife. The matter of Kibaki's alleged mistress, and his wife's unusually dramatic public reactions therein, provided an embarrassing side-show during his presidency, with the Washington Post terming the entire scandal as a "new Kenyan soap opera".

Ms. Wambui, the rather popular "other woman", who enjoyed the state trappings of a presidential spouse and became a powerful and wealthy business-woman during the Kibaki Presidency, frequently drove Lucy into episodes of highly embarrassing very publicly displayed rage. Ms. Wambui, despite opposition from Kibaki's family, led publicly by Kibaki's son, Jimmy, and despite Kibaki's public endorsement and campaign for her opponent, succeeded Kibaki as Member of Parliament for Othaya in the 2013 General Election. In December 2014, Senator Bonny Khalwale stated on KTN's Jeff Koinange Live that President Kibaki had introduced Wambui as his wife.

Kibaki enjoyed playing golf and was a member of the Muthaiga Golf Club. He was a practicing and a very committed member of the Roman Catholic Church and attended Consolata Shrines Catholic Church in Nairobi every Sunday at noon.

On 21 August 2016, Kibaki was taken to Karen Hospital, and later flew to South Africa for specialized treatment. Unlike the Kenyatta and Moi families, Kibaki's family has shown little interest in politics save for his nephew Nderitu Muriithi, Governor of Laikipia County, from 2017 to 2022.

Death
Kibaki died on 21 April 2022, at the age of 90. His death was announced by President Uhuru Kenyatta, who issued a proclamation that Kibaki would be granted a state funeral with full civilian and military honors and declared a period of national mourning with flags flying at half-mast until President Mwai Kibaki is buried.

On 25 April 2022, his body was taken to Parliament buildings on a military gun carriage to offset the lying in state component of his state funeral. President Uhuru Kenyatta and First Lady wife Margaret Kenyatta led Kenyans in viewing the body. His body was laid on a catafalque at the Speaker's way bearing the colour of his presidential standard and dressed in his trademark pin-striped suits. His body was also guarded by four Kenya Defence Forces colonels changing shifts after two hours. The lying in state continued until 27 April 2022 ahead of funeral service held at Nyayo National Stadium on 29 April 2022 which was attended by key dignitaries including some sitting presidents. He was finally interred at his Othaya home in Nyeri County on 30 April 2022 with full military honors after a church service held by the Catholic church at Othaya approved school. The honors included the Last Post and The Long Reveille bugle cry, a 19 gun salute and The Missing Man formation fly past. South Sudan declared three days of mourning; Tanzania declared two days of mourning.

Honours and awards

 * Chief of the Order of the Golden Heart of Kenya (C.G.H.)

title: Mwai Kibaki


text:
Milan Šufflay

Milan Šufflay (8 November 1879 – 19 February 1931) was a Croatian historian and politician. He was one of the founders of Albanology and the author of the first Croatian science fiction novel. As a Croatian nationalist, he was persecuted in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and his murder subsequently caused an internationally publicized affair.

Early life
Šufflay was born into a lower noble family (hence pl., plemeniti, "noble", equivalent of von) in Lepoglava, in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia to Augustin Šufflay (1847–190?), a teacher, and Franciska Welle von Vorstern (1847–1910), a German Hungarian from Osijek. The family coat of arms was included in Der Adel von Kroatien und Slavonien (1899) as "Sufflay de Otrussevcz". Their original surname was Sufflei or Schufflei, and their estate was Otruševec.

He attended a comprehensive high school in Zagreb and studied history at the University of Zagreb. He received a Ph.D. in 1901 from the same university with the thesis Croatia and the Last Endeavor of the Eastern Empire Under the Scepter of Three Komnenos (1075–1180). He was a brilliant student both in high school and at the university. Already during his studies, he spoke French, German, Italian, English, all the Slavic languages, as well as Latin, old Greek, and middle Greek. Later in life, he learned modern Greek, Albanian, Hebrew, and Sanskrit. Tadija Smičiklas considered Šufflay his most gifted student and took him as his assistant when editing Codex Diplomaticus of the Yugoslavian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Šufflay became a historian of the Balkans and was convinced that the history of the Croats can only be researched properly from that perspective. This conviction clashed with the prevailing opinion of Croatian historians that the Croats were representatives of the West, as opposed to the Balkans. Ignoring the proposal of the university senate, Ban Pavao Rauch appointed him a university professor in Zagreb in 1908. However, when Nikola Tomašić, his distant cousin and enemy, became a Ban in 1910, Šufflay had to leave the university. No longer exempt from military duty as a university professor, he was drafted in early 1915 but was soon released because of illness. He wrote his most important works during this period.

Politics
In the new state, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, he was arrested for high treason and charged with spying for a foreign power together with Ivo Pilar, another Croatian historian. Their defense lawyer was Ante Pavelić, at the time a leader of the Party of Rights and an associate of Šufflay. Šufflay was sentenced to three years and six months in prison. The reaction to the sentence was stronger abroad than in Croatia, as scientific colleagues from numerous countries tried to obtain his release but without success. He did his time in the Sremska Mitrovica prison. After serving over half of his sentence, he was released from prison in 1922 and he returned to his scientific work.

In 1924, Šufflay wrote his first science fiction novel, On the Pacific in 2255, which is considered the first Croatian science fiction novel. In that same year Šufflay became a member of the leadership of the Pure Party of Rights, a rightwing Croatian political party inspired by the work of Josip Frank, a fervent nationalist. One of the most important characteristics of the Frank's followers was their anti-Serb position. The party had reportedly not managed to win more than a few seats in the 300-strong legislative.

In 1928, when Stjepan Radić was assassinated in the Yugoslav parliament, a year before king Alexander I would establish his dictatorship, Šufflay wrote Hrvatska u svijetlu svjetske historije i politike (Croatia in the Light of World History and Politics). He wrote that the Croatian people was suffering under the Yugoslav dictatorship and that it had to free itself. He claimed that the border between Western and the Eastern Civilisations lay on the Drina river, the "destined borderline on the Drina river on which the mighty Roman Empire snapped into two... a border both spiritual and cultural". Šufflay's idea about the delineation on the Drina river would later influence Greater Croatian irredentism."The Croatian people have passed through the Roman-Western retort, while the Serbian people passed through the Byzantine-Turkish. Therefore the psyche of the two peoples is essentially different, even if the languages are similar. Unification of the two peoples would mean neutralization and careful constraining. To centralize here would mean to make Croatia a guinea pig for vivisection experiments. It is my thesis that the Croatian nation, as a citizen of the great empire of the western civilization, has the right to raise its voice against any oppression.

Those who know history know that the Yugoslav idea has no dynamics. It is nothing compared to the mighty Croatian idea. In Croatia, the Yugoslav idea is a shallow wreckage under which the Croatian national volcano boils; only a subtle push is necessary to make it erupt.

To me personally, as a philosopher and an open-minded Croat, it is the same whether I sit shackled at the court or a penitentiary, or whether I get out into the false freedom hiding the larger dungeon in which – thank God, only temporarily! – the Croatian nation is suffering!" In 1928, he was appointed a professor at the University of Budapest, but he could not take the job because he did not hold a passport. On the request of the Albanian government and the Academy of Sciences in Vienna, he continued the work of Jireček and Thalloczy, editing the 3rd book of Codex albanicus, an archival collection. In 1931, he finally obtained a passport and travelled to Albania to sign a contract to work on Acta Albaniae.

Murder
Members of the regime organisation, Young Yugoslavia, under royal protection, ambushed him at his doorstep in Zagreb and broke his skull with a hammer, killing him. Then, they broke into his apartment and took the manuscript of the third book of Codex albanicus. There was never any investigation about the criminals. The authorities denied any knowledge of the assailants and banned activities related to Šufflay's funeral.

Albert Einstein and Heinrich Mann sent a letter to the International League for Human Rights in Paris appealing to the global cultural public to protest against the murder of Milan Šufflay appealing for protection of Croatian people from the oppression of Yugoslavian regime. The appeal was addressed to the Paris-based Ligue des droits de l'homme (Human Rights League) and made the front page of the New York Times on 6 May 1931. It accused the king of complicity in the crime.

In June 1940, in the Banovina of Croatia, a trial was organized for Šufflay's murder.

The murderers were the police agents Belošević and Zwerger, who fled to Belgrade. All later attempts of the Banovina of Croatia to have them extradited were fruitless.

Works

 * Hrvatska i zadnja pregnuća istočne imperije pod žezlom triju Komnena (Croatia and the Last Efforts of the Eastern Empire under Three Comnenuses, 1901)
 * Die Dalmatinische Privaturkunde (Dalmatian Private Deeds, 1904)
 * Kostadin Balšić (1392–1401): historijski roman u 3 dijela (Kostadin Balšić: A Historical Novel in Three Parts, 1920)
 * Srbi i Arbanasi (Serbs and Albanians, 1925)
 * Na Pacifiku god. 2255.: metagenetički roman u četiri knjige (On the Pacific in 2255: A Metagenetic Novel in Four Books, first printed as a book in 1998)
 * Hrvatska u svijetlu svjetske historije i politike : dvanaest eseja (Croatia in the Light of World History and Politics: Twelve Essays, 1928, reprinted in 1999)
 * Hrvati u sredovječnom svjetskom viru (Croats in the Global Medieval Upheaval, 1931)
 * Izabrani eseji, prikazi i članci (Selected Essays, Criticisms and Articles, 1999)
 * Izabrani eseji, rasprave, prikazi, članci i korespondencija (Selected Essays, Discussions, Criticisms, Articles and Correspondence, 1999)
 * Izabrani politički spisi (Selected Political Works, published by Stoljeća hrvatske književnosti, 2000)
 * Izabrani eseji, rasprave, prikazi, članci i korespondencija (Selected Essays, Discussions, Criticisms, Articles and Correspondence, 1999)
 * Izabrani politički spisi (Selected Political Works, published by Stoljeća hrvatske književnosti, 2000)

title: Milan Šufflay


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Project Tiger

Project Tiger is a wildlife conservation movement initiated in India to protect the endangered tiger. The project was initiated in 1973 by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change of the Government of India. As of March 2024, there are 55 protected areas that have been designated as tiger reserves under the project. As of 2023, there were 3,682 wild tigers in India, which is almost 75% of the world's wild tiger population.

History and objectives
Project Tiger was initiated in 1973 by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change of the Government of India. The project was initiated to protect the Bengal Tiger and its habitats and to establish dedicated tiger reserves for sustaining tiger populations. As per the section 38 of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, the state governments are responsible preparing a Tiger Conservation Plan which includes planning and management of notified areas and maintaining the requisite competent staff to ensure the protection of the tiger reserve and providing inputs for maintaining a viable population of tigers, co-predators and prey animals.

Tiger reserves consist of a core area which includes part(s) of protected areas such as a national park or a wildlife sanctuary and a buffer zone which is a mix of forested and non-forested land. Project tiger is aimed at performing the necessary activities to ensure viability of tiger population in the core area and to promote a balance between the existence of people and animals in the buffer zones. In 2006, National Tiger Conservation Authority was formed to administer the tiger reserves which were set up as a part of Project Tiger with Project Tiger becoming a centrally sponsored scheme (CSS) to provide funding for the establishment and administration of the tiger reserves.

In 1973, nine protected areas were initially designated as tiger reserves. By the late 1980s, the initial nine reserves covering an area of 9115 km2 had been increased to 15 reserves covering an area of 24700 km2. By 1997, 23 tiger reserves encompassed an area of 33000 km2. As of March 2024, there are 55 protected areas that have been designated as tiger reserves.

Tiger population

During the tiger census of 2006, a new methodology was used extrapolating site-specific densities of tigers, their co-predators and prey derived from camera trap and sign surveys using GIS. Based on the result of these surveys, the total tiger population was estimated at 1,411 individuals ranging from 1,165 to 1,657 adult and sub-adult tigers of more than 1.5 years of age. The 2010 National Tiger Assessment estimated the total population of wild tigers in India at 1,706. As per Ministry of Environment and Forests, the wild tiger population in India stood at 2,226 in 2014 with an increase of 30.5% since the 2010 estimate.

In 2018, according to the National Tiger Conservation Authority, there were an estimated 2,603–3,346 wild tigers with an average of 2,967 in existence in India. The wild tiger population increased to 3,682 as of 2022. As India is home to majority of the global wild tiger population, the increase in population of tigers in India played a major role in driving up global populations as well; the number of wild tigers globally rose from 3,159 in 2010 to 3,890 in 2016 according to the World Wide Fund and Global Tiger Forum.

Management and administration
Project Tiger is headed by an additional director general (ADG) based at New Delhi with regional offices at Bangalore, Guwahati and Nagpur. The wildlife habitats that fall under Project Tiger are categorized into different conservation units: Shivalik-Terai, North East, Sunderbans, Western ghats, Eastern ghats, Central India and Sariska.

Function under the ambit of Project Tiger include protection of tiger habitats, daily monitoring, facilitating ecological development for local people in the buffer zones, voluntary relocation of people from core/critical tiger habitats and addressing human-wildlife conflicts. As a part of the project, state are provided assistance on curtailing poaching activities such as disseminating information on poachers, assisting in combing forest floor to check for traps and other anti-poaching activities, maintaining tiger database, providing grants and training for deployment of Special Tiger Protection Force.

Wireless communication systems, infrared thermal cameras and monitoring systems have been developed within the tiger reserves to assist in patrol activities.

Challenges
Project Tiger's efforts are hampered by poaching, deforestation, construction and irregularities in administration of certain reserves. The Forest Rights Act enacted by the Indian government in 2006 recognizes the rights of forest dwelling communities in the buffer zones. Some of the wildlife experts have questioned the implications of the same on tiger conservation as it will increase human-animal conflict and might give opportunities for poaching. While others argue that this overlooks the reality of human-tiger coexistence and the abuse of power by authorities wherein local people who have been co-existing with the animals being evicted from their traditional lands rather than allowing them a proper role in decision-making to aid the tiger crisis.

title: Project Tiger