Helen's blog

Tribute to Mirabal sisters:Photo by Alain ROBERT

RAINS OF BLOOD : The Fate of Dominican Republic`s MIRABAL Sisters

PATRIA, MINERVA, MARIA TERESA : How did three graceful sisters in their twenties, from a good family, happy housewives and moms, end up savageously bludgeoned and strangled to death, and dumped down a ravine in the idyllic countryside of this tiny Caribbean country, the Dominican Republic, in a mock car accident, some fifty years ago on November 25th, 1960 ?

This is the subject of a new film by Dominican film director, JUAN DELANCER, which traces the life and tragic demise of the three heroines during the Trujillo era,  who opposed the dictatorship and one-party rule that lasted over thirty years (1930-1961). On the same date, November 25th, the United Nations, using them as symbols, is launching the International DAY for the Elimination of Violence Against Women,  and the only surviving of the four sisters, Belgica Adela "Dede" Mirabal, now in her eighties, who has dedicated her life to perpetuating the memory of her three sisters at the former family homestead-turned -into-museum in Ojo de Agua, where the family lived, is expected to travel to Paris, following previous  tributes offered to her sisters at the University of Toronto, Canada, and the Turkish Parliament in Ankara, in honour of the 50th anniversary of the Mirabal sisters' assassination.

On October 28th, at UNESCO, the daughter of MINERVA MIRABAL, "Minou" Tavarez Mirabal, a Congresswoman serving
the current government of that country, opened the exhibition " Art Denounces the Violence Against Women",
a poster exhibit at Unesco in Paris, France, dedicated to the memory of
her mother and two aunts, whose deaths have paved the road to democracy
in the Dominican Republic.

MINERVA
MIRABAL MARIATERESA  

Minou
Tavarez Mirabal, daughter of MINERVA  Photo
Alain Rober Grandaughter
of MARIA TERESA MIRABAL :

Photo: Alain ROBERT 

MinouCamila Minerva,

                                    Grandaughter of Minerva Mirabal: Photo: ALAIN ROBERTThe Daughter of MINERVA MIRABAL 

Photo: Alain Robert

Recollecting the events leading up to the tragic murders and flanked by the
Dominican Ambassador to UNESCO

Helen, Dominican Ambassador and Mirabal grandaughter

and several leading figures working for institutions devoted to safeguarding the protection of women within the Dominican Republic, we learned of how fifty years ago, the country was ruled by a iron glove and bloody fist,  by the sinister dictator Rafael TRUJILLO, who controlled all aspects, economic, political, cultural of the state.  With an oversized sexual appetite for young women, the tyrant frequently arranged parties, inviting attractive young girls with their fathers. According to Minou, the invitation her grandfather received was an 'order' and when her mother and grandfather reluctantly attended the regional fiesta, the feisty Minerva caught the strongman`s eye.

Trujillo

Refusing the aging ruler's overt advances and leaving the party before he did, were considered serious crimes of `laisse-majeste' and the caudillo had it in for her from that time on. After brilliant studies in the capital, then called " Trujillo City" (sic), to become a lawyer - a rare feat for a woman at that time, Minerva MIRABAL  was denied a diploma "by superior order" and had to turn to sewing and cooking courses. At the same time, the three sisters got involved in an underground movement against the government and came to represent, along with the Catholic Church, which had previously supported the regime - the greatest threat to Dictator Rafael Trujillo. Known as las mariposas, meaning the
butterflies, the sisters, along with their husbands, staged a revolt after garnering around one hundred followers, but were soon rounded up by state police, imprisoned, raped and  tortured. Due to the outrage felt by the public at Trujillo`s growing cruelty and imprisonment of young citizens, the sisters were released from jail, but their husbands remained in custody. On one of their usual visits to their three husbands who had been transferred to another prison in the provinces at Puerto Plata, the sisters proceeded back home to Ojo de Agua but got ambushed in their jeep along with their courageous driver Senor De La Cruz, intercepted, and all were brutally clubbed to death by Trujillo`s henchmen. A fourth sister, Dede, who had not joined them on their trip, survived, to remind us all of the tragic death and struggle of her three sisters in her recently published book " ALIVE, IN THE GARDEN", narrating the events leading up to the horrific slaughter of the three heroines.

The Mirabal sisters did not die in vain, though, because, due to growing animosity on the part of the public, stirred up by their plotted deaths, a mere six months later, the bloody dictator, Trujillo himself, fell to the bullet-ridden ambush that the sisters` former comrade, Antonio de La Maza, whose brother also had been brutally slaughtered by Trujillo, instrumented against him. In all the thirty years of the dictator`s tenure, Minou Mirabal estimates over 30,000 people had disappeared or been slain in the struggle for an end to the terrifying dictatorship and one-party rule of Rafael Trujillo.

Wondering myself, how the remaining sister "Dede", could ever have overcome such a triple tragedy of losing three of her sisters in a single day, I found two answers coming from one, the daughter of slain heroine, Maria Teresa MIRABAL, attending the Unesco tribute: Jacqueline Mirabal Guzman, a year old at the time of her mother`s death, explained that the six children of the three heroines were all raised by their Aunt "Dede", and call each other sister and brother : " You have to be strong : muy, muy, fuerte."

Another young Dominican student in Paris, ventured : " In such a situation, you either completely fall apart or pick yourself up and go on with your life, and that is what Dede did."
The film TROPICO DE SANGRE is dedicated to Belgica Adela Dede Mirabal Reyes, the remaining sister who acted as technical advisor.

Dede Mirabal, the surviving sister at Ojo de Agua.        Ojo de Agua MIRABAL Homestead MuseumDede, at Mirabal sisters 

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