Mirabal sisters’ murder stoked Dominican society’s rage

Santo Domingo.- Dominican society trembled when news of the horrific murder of the Mirabal sisters spread that Friday, November 25, 53 years ago today. Rage and despair gripped much of the population. The dictatorship had gone too far.

A gang of thugs, on dictator Rafael Trujillo’s explicit orders, was assigned the gruesome talks of murdering the three butterflies – as their comrades-iin-arms called the Mirabal sisters,- and their driver and friend, Rufino de la Cruz.

For their murderers it was an "easy" job. But they were three deaths too heavy for a dying regime.

And despite the military failure of the June 14, 1959, guerrilla expedition, it served to show that Trujillo’s dictatorship was vulnerable, the death of the girls from Salcedo broke the camel’s back.

In the aftermath of their murder and other excesses, many young middle class, even people within the dictator’s circles felt the need to fight the tyranny, and establish democracy in the country, as the fear started to dissipate.

Patria, Minerva and Maria Teresa’s murder had the opposite effect of what he dictatorship’s sought: Trujillo was executed by former associates just six months later.