Blatant and brutal intervention by US

lives of U.S. and other nationals, is another ing the reminder to the colonial peoples of the real brutal and aims of President Johnson's governnature ment.

For the Dominicans, this action will constitute neither disappointment nor surprise. In fact, it will confirm their belief indelibly imprinted in their memory since 1916 that U.S. imperialism, no matter what is says to the contrary, is hell-bent on establishing government by the marines, of the Dominicans, for the monopolists, at any cost.

Dominica's independence has always been more shadow than substance. Located on one of the chief sea routes between Europe and the Eastern part of America, it has been a target for continual imperialist plunder and occupation.

From 1900 onwards, the history of the island has been punctuated by officers' revolts, abortive dictatorships and frequent diplomatic intervention by the, USA. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson threatened intervention and suppression of any revolt against the ruling power in Santo Domingo.

As the insolvency of the government grew, so did the meddlings of the USA. The State Department brazenly demanded control of expenditure and the collection of customs. This was refused.

BRUTAL SUPPRESSION Then, in 1916, marines landed, ostensibly to prevent another civil war in the island, but in fact to secure U.S. demands.

Once again, Wilson pressed the old claims on customs and expenditute and was refused, whereupon the U.S. declared military government and brutally suppressed native revolts in 1917 and 1918.

The occupation was lifted in 1924, but it took another 16 years before the island secured customs autonomy.

Six years and a few revolts after the marines left, Dominica was beset by a new scourge in the person • of Rafael Leonides • Trujillo Molina, Central America's most hated dictator and puppet of the USA.

Trujillo ruled Dominica for 31 years with a mixture of implacable terror, rigged elections and a one-party system.

UNIQUE APPARATUS His repressive apparatus was unique in Latin America. He amassed a massive fortune by his despotic rule. Sixty-five per cent of the country's sugar production and 35 per cent of the country's arable land belonged to the Trujillo family. In 1937, his army machine - gunned 15,000 Haitian squatters to death in a 36-hour bloodbath.

The fall of Trujillo coincided with the rise of Castro and the nationalization of U.S. property in Cuba. Naturally the U.S. regime began to fear for its interests in Dominica as the shadows of Castroism began to extend across the Caribbean.

When the 'middle-of-theroad' Juan Bosch was elected in 1962 as president, the U.S. decided the time had come to act. General Wessin y Wessin, a devoted Catholic and antiCommunist, threatened to revolt, U.S. warships made "precautionary' moves and, in 1963, Bosch went into exile.

President Kennedy immediately recognised the new military junta.

The overthrow of Trujillo, however, had irrevocably opened the sluice gates of revolt in Dominica. - Hatred of the dictatorship was fed by growing unemployment, land hunger, indebtedness and the falling price of sugar.

On April 24 this year, the revolt began with a purely military conspiracy against imperialism bares its fangs page President Cabral - Wessin's stooge - but soon developed into a genuine revolution when arms fell into the hands of workers, farmers and students.

Until this arming took place, the U.S. administration was not unduly worried.

It was reconciled possibly even to the return of Bosch. But the storming of the Ozama Fortress, the police headquarters, and the heavy casualties inflicted on General Wessin's forces by the guerillas changed the situation.

Even a ceasefire arranged by the Papal Nuncio had no effect. As the 'Time' magazine pointed out:

"The tragic fact was that no one seemed to be in real command anymore - not Bosch's people, not the remaining army rebels, not the Communists?

STEWART'S AID

Johnson's decision to intervene was meant in effect not to prevent the return of Bosch, but to stop the movement from transcending the limited and liberal aims of its original leaders who had by now abandoned it.

By summoning his Latin American puppets in the Organisation of American States to send a peace-keeping force to Dominica, Johnson hopes to avoid the stigma of unilateral intervention.

In this, he is aided by the clumsy contortions of Mr. Stewart who, in a reply to a Conservative MP, expressed his heartfelt 'gratitude' for the U.S. intervention in Dominica and also repeated the same glib fantasies about 'Communist conspiracy' in the Caribbean.

Labour must repudiate Stewart and demand an immediate withdrawal of the marines.