Santo Domingo.- Half-a-century ago today US president Lyndon B. Johnson ordered the second US military occupation of the Dominican Republic -the first from 1916 to 1924 when 400 Marines aboard US Navy warships came under the pretext of protecting the US Embassy perimeter and allegedly save American lives.
This second military occupation lasted until 1966 under sustained fire and the surprising resistance by Dominican rebels forced Washington to call in the US Army 82nd Airborne Div.
The rebellion south the return to the 1963 Constitution and of elected president Juan Bosch, ousted by a coup headed by the military September 25 that year.
The putsch cast aside all democratic initiatives reached by Bosch’s 7-month Administration and pummeled the 1963 Constitution’s most progressive provisions.