Ramon Terrero

New York

Other/Almost

I was 13 years old in 1965 in Santo Domingo. 42,000 U.S. marines came in after the coup and there was a civil war.
The aim was to reinstate the democratically elected president Juan Bosch, who was overthrown in 1963 after just 7 months in power. The marines stayed all summer and there was a peace treaty and elections. From 1966 Joaquin Balaguer (one of Trujillo's main cronies)
came to power and was re-elected several times. Things did now improve for the people and the CIA infiltrated the revolutionary groups and killed many of the leaders. Balaguer said that
"incontrollable forces" were responsible for these events and that the government did not know who was behind the killings, disappearances, etc.

The lessons are that if you leave some of the people that were with the dictator (in this case Mubarak), not much will change. Also, the United States influence must be diminished, since the will always operate on behalf of the interest of the Military Industrial Complex, Pentagon and the reactionary forces in Israel. Let the Egyptian people find their way, let them have free elections and if the "wrong" group comes to power, as it happened in Gaza, do not make life impossible for them and continue to let the people find their way themselves.
If the U.S. is going to help, let the help be humanitarian and technical, not military and partially leaning protect Israel and the reactionary forces in the region. Peace for Israel, peace for Egypt and progress and peace for the whole Middle East without superpower intervention.