Oppression
Brutal oppression of actual or perceived members of any opposition was the key feature of Trujillo's rule right from the beginning in 1930 when his gang, "The 42", under its leader Miguel Angel Paulino, drove through the streets in their red Packard carro de la muerte (death car). Imprisonments and killings were later handled by the SIM, the Servicio de Inteligencia Militar, efficiently organized by Johnny Abbes. Some cases reached international notoriety such as the Galindez case and the murder of the Mirabal sisters further eroding Trujillo's critical support by the US government and the Catholic Church.
Read more about this topic: Rafael Trujillo
Famous quotes containing the word oppression:
“...I believe it is now the duty of the slaves of the South to rebuke their masters for their robbery, oppression and crime.... No station or character can destroy individual responsibility, in the matter of reproving sin.”
—Angelina Grimké (1805–1879)
“It is thus that the few rare lucid well-disposed people who have had to struggle on the earth find themselves at certain hours of the day or night in the depth of certain authentic and waking nightmare states, surrounded by the formidable suction, the formidable tentacular oppression of a kind of civic magic which will soon be seen appearing openly in social behavior.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)
“Loss of freedom seldom happens overnight. Oppression doesn’t stand on the doorstep with toothbrush moustache and swastika armband—it creeps up insidiously ... step by step, and all of a sudden the unfortunate citizen realises that it is gone.”
—Baron Lane (b. 1918)