Dominican Republic was the epicenter of several plots against Fidel Castro and Francois Duvalier

Santo Domingo  — Cuban groups used the Dominican Republic as a base of operations, meetings, and planning to invade and control Haiti and then strike at the government presided over by Fidel Castro.

The first document reports on the profile of Antonio Rodríguez Echazábal and his stay in Haiti, where he is presumed to have contributed to Cuban armed groups that tried to overthrow the government of Francois Duvalier.

In July 1959, the document recorded that a group of Cubans invaded Haiti, and this, supposedly, was considered a “prelude” to an invasion of the Dominican Republic. However, the Cuban incursion was repelled by the Haitian government, blaming Echazábal for having orchestrated this armed movement, forcing him to leave the country.

That same year, but in October, another declassified document mentions conversations between William Pawley, a U.S. businessman and diplomat with a notable presence in the Dominican Republic, and two unidentified Cubans.

In their dialogue, one of the Cubans, who was attributed to being an influential member of an anti-Castro group, mentioned that he was going to meet with his relatives in the Dominican Republic to discuss the possibility of sabotaging sugar crops in Cuba.

The Cuban told Pawley that his group was contacted by General José Eleuterio Pedraza, leader of Cuban revolutionary groups in the Dominican Republic, and asked them about their plans to initiate sabotage in Cuba.

Rolando Masferrer

In 1964 and until 1966, several declassified documents mention Rolando Arcadio Masferrer, a “prominent Cuban exile and financier of paramilitary operations in the Caribbean against Fidel Castro,” with close ties to the Dominican Republic.

Masferrer maintained close contact with the Dominican consul Carlos Peguero Guerrero, brother of the then head of the National Police, Belisario Peguero Guerrero, assuring that with the diplomat they were collaborating to, in case Luis Amiama Tió gave the go-ahead, the Cuban offer his “Cuban assets” to the Liberal Evolutionist Party (PLE) in case he decided to carry out actions against the Triumvirate government.

A year later, in 1965, an associate of Masferrer reported that the Cuban was in contact with Haitian General Léon Cantave regarding a plot to invade Haiti from the Dominican Republic.

Masferrer recruited single Cubans in New York who were willing to move to the Dominican Republic.

The papers indicate that, according to Contave, Masferrer planned to use four boats and five aircraft for the invasion of Haiti. These were to be used later in Santiago de Cuba, in the province of Oriente, after overthrowing Francois Duvalier.

In addition, a CBS network photographer who had permission from Masferrer to record the arsenal that would be used in the operation indicated that the conspirators’ idea was to set up a base on Beata Island, and the arrangements with the Dominican Republic were already made. “President Balaguer approved the operation,” the document states.

The connection with Balaguer would have been given, according to the documents, through Santiago Rey, an exiled Cuban who was previously a minister in the government of Fulgencio Batista and who, after the fall of his government, arrived in the Dominican Republic, where he was Balaguer’s advisor in the electoral campaign and, for his help, Balaguer offered him a farm in the country where he could train an anti-Castro guerrilla.

However, the operation never came to fruition, as the United States authorities arrested 68 plotters in 1967, and a year later, Masferrer was sentenced to four years in prison for “violating the neutrality law in the United States.”

Antonio Cuesta Valle

Other documents name Antonio Cuesta Valle, a Cuban businessman, a recognized opponent of Fidel Castro, who in 1965 intended to establish training camps for exiles in the Dominican Republic.

It is indicated that he first tried in Puerto Rico to set up a camp of Cuban exiles against the regime and that he was also waiting for permission from the government of the Dominican Republic to do the same in the country as previously done by Eloy Gutiérrez Manoyo, a Cuban military leader with a presidency in the country.

However, his plans did not prosper after a “senior Dominican military” made accusations against him before the government, which damaged the “good relations” that Cuesta Valle maintained with the country.