Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a country located in the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands, along with Saint Martin, that are shared by two sovereign states; the Dominican Republic is the second-largest Caribbean nation by area at 48,671 square kilometers, third by population with 10 million people, of which three million live in the metropolitan area of Santo Domingo, the capital city. Christopher Columbus landed on the island on December 5, 1492, which the native Taíno people had inhabited since the 7th century; the colony of Santo Domingo became the site of the first permanent European settlement in the Americas, the oldest continuously inhabited city, the first seat of the Spanish colonial rule in the New World. After more than three hundred years of Spanish rule the Dominican people declared independence in November 1821.
The leader of the independence movement José Núñez de Cáceres, intended the Dominican nation to unite with the country of Gran Colombia, but no longer under Spain's custody the newly independent Dominicans were forcefully annexed by Haiti in February 1822. Independence came 22 years after victory in the Dominican War of Independence in 1844. Over the next 72 years the Dominican Republic experienced internal conflicts and a brief return to colonial status before permanently ousting Spanish rule during the Dominican War of Restoration of 1863–1865. A United States occupation lasted eight years between 1916 and 1924, a subsequent calm and prosperous six-year period under Horacio Vásquez was followed by the dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo until 1961. A civil war in 1965, the country's last, was ended by U. S. military occupation and was followed by the authoritarian rule of Joaquín Balaguer, the rules of Antonio Guzmán & Salvador Jorge Blanco. Since 1996, the Dominican Republic has moved toward representative democracy and has been led by Leonel Fernández for most of the time since 1996.
Danilo Medina, the Dominican Republic's current president, succeeded Fernandez in 2012, winning 51% of the electoral vote over his opponent ex-president Hipólito Mejía. The Dominican Republic has the ninth-largest economy in Latin America and is the largest economy in the Caribbean and Central American region. Over the last two decades, the Dominican Republic has had one of the fastest-growing economies in the Americas – with an average real GDP growth rate of 5.4% between 1992 and 2014. GDP growth in 2014 and 2015 reached 7.3 and 7.0% the highest in the Western Hemisphere. In the first half of 2016 the Dominican economy grew 7.4% continuing its trend of rapid economic growth. Recent growth has been driven by construction, manufacturing and mining; the country is the site of the second largest gold mine in the Pueblo Viejo mine. Private consumption has been strong, as a result of low inflation, job creation, as well as a high level of remittances; the Dominican Republic is the most visited destination in the Caribbean.
The year-round golf courses are major attractions. A geographically diverse nation, the Dominican Republic is home to both the Caribbean's tallest mountain peak, Pico Duarte, the Caribbean's largest lake and point of lowest elevation, Lake Enriquillo; the island has an average temperature of biological diversity. The country is the site of the first cathedral, castle and fortress built in the Americas, located in Santo Domingo's Colonial Zone, a World Heritage Site. Music and sport are of great importance in the Dominican culture, with Merengue and Bachata as the national dance and music, baseball as the favorite sport; the "Dominican" word comes from the Latin Dominicus. However, the island has this name by Santo Domingo de Guzmán, founder of the Order of the Dominicans; the Dominicans established a house of high studies in the island of Santo Domingo that today is known as the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo and dedicated themselves to the protection of the native taínos of the island, who were subjected to slavery, to the education of the inhabitants of the island.
For most of its history, up until independence, the country was known as Santo Domingo—the name of its present capital and patron saint, Saint Dominic—and continued to be known as such in English until the early 20th century. The residents were called "Dominicans", the adjective form of "Domingo", the revolutionaries named their newly independent country "Dominican Republic". In the national anthem of the Dominican Republic, the term "Dominicans" does not appear; the author of its lyrics, Emilio Prud'Homme uses the poetic term "Quisqueyans". The word "Quisqueya" derives from a native tongue of the Taino Indians and means "Mother of the lands", it is used in songs as another name for the country. The name of the country is shortened to "the D. R." The Arawakan-speaking Taíno moved into Hispaniola from the north east region of what is now known as South America, displacing earlier inhabitants, c. AD 650, they engaged in hunting and gathering. The fierce Caribs drove the Taíno to the northeastern Caribbean during much of the 15th century.
The estimates of Hispaniola's population in 1492 vary including one hundred thousand, three hundred thousand, an
Renée Klang de Guzmán
Renée Klang Avelino was a Dominican philanthropist and First Lady of the Dominican Republic from 1978 to 1982. The wife and widow of the Dominican President Antonio Guzmán, she founded the National Council for Childhood, earned the mote of "the Eternal First Lady". After the presidency of her late husband, she was devoted to philanthropy and volunteerism in the city of Santiago de los Caballeros. Renée Klang was born in La Guaira, Venezuela, to Charles Klang, a French diplomat, Judith Avelino, a Brazilian woman; when she was a teenager, her family settled in the Dominican Republic. She did her secondary studies on Santiago de los Caballeros and her university studies on Santo Domingo, where she graduated in Dentistry at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo. Amid her studies in Santo Domingo, she met Silvestre Antonio Guzmán. Klang dropped out of college. After the fall of the dictatorship of Trujillo, they devoted themselves to politics and joined the Juan Bosch’s Dominican Revolutionary Party.
She bore Iván and Sonia. The latter was minister of Commerce during Hipólito Mejía's presidency. During the presidency of her husband, Klang shared with two popes: John Paul I and John Paul II; the former wrote about Klang in his diary and said that: «The wife of the president of the Dominican Republic is intelligent and vivacious. She is cultured and serious, she knows how to go to the root of problems without any boasting». After her husband’s suicide, just days before the end of his constitutional term, she moved back to Santiago and dedicated to philanthropy, she died in Santiago, aged 97, due to complications from a thrombosis in the right leg
La Vega, Dominican Republic
La Vega, or Concepción de La Vega is the third largest city and municipality of the Dominican Republic. It is in La Vega Province; the city is known as the heart of the Dominican Republic for its geographical position and its large agricultural production methods throughout its province. Christopher Columbus built a small fort near present-day La Vega, in 1494, intended to guard the route to the interior gold deposits of the Cibao valley. A Spanish settlement known as Concepción de la Vega grew up around the fort. After 1508, when gold was found in quantity there, Concepción became the first gold boomtown in the island. By 1510 it was one of the most important European cities in the hemisphere; the town was destroyed and buried by an earthquake on December 2, 1562, the survivors moved to the present site on the banks of the Camú River. The site of the ruined town remained farmland until a small part of the original city was bought by the Dominican government in the mid-1970s and renamed as National Park of Concepción de La Vega.
Arenoso Brache Batista Barrio Guarionex Barrio Loteria Barrio Militar Barrio X Bayacanes Carmelitas Camboya Centro Ciudad Conani Cutupú Don Bosco Don Pedro El Bolsillo El Paraiso El Campito El Cerro El Ensueño El Napoles El Riito Ensanche Duarte Gamundi Guaigui La Arboleda La Boca Del Lobo Las Carolinas La Enramada La Cigua La Planta La Riviera Las Marias Licey Los Pomos Los Robles Los Multi-Familiares Palmarito Parque Hostos Ponton Puerto Rico Rancho Abajo Residencial Chimbin Residencial Coral Río Verde Abajo Río Verde Arriba San Antonio San Martin San Miguel Santo Domingo Sabio Soto Villa Carolinas Villa Olga Villa Francisca Villa Francisca II Villa Margarita Villa Mera Villa Real Villa Hollywood Villa Lora Villa Rosa Zafaraya The local industries are based upon cacao, tobacco and cattle production. There is a small but famous brewery called Cervecería Vegana known for its pilsener-style beers, named Quisqueya and Soberana. There is a factory known for making the famous sausage Induveca.
La Vega is bounded on the north by the Camú River. This river flows about 100 kilometers before emptying into Yuna River. South of the city is the largest mountain system of the Dominican Republic. El Ponton Field, a local airport, bounds the city on the east. To La Vega's west are the Camú River again and Montellano. There is an extension of the Universidad Nacional Pedro Henríquez Ureña and there is the Universidad Católica Tecnológica del Cibao. Since 2005 the national and local governments are planning to build an extension of the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, but there are some conflicts and the project is behind schedule; this city has one of the most expensive schools in the country, the famous Colegio Agustiniano, the only in the country. Laura vicuña Annually, the famous Feria del Libro de República Dominicana takes place in the city of La Vega. In this fair most of the famous books and literary works from Dominicans writers such as Juan Bosch, Joaquín Balaguer, w:es:Federico García Godoy, among others, international writers such as Gabriela Mistral, Rubén Darío, Gabriel García Márquez, among others, are sold, some theatrical works are shown to the public.
The fair is celebrated each year in the month of September, lasting about one week, brings to this city all the editors from all around the country, selling many kinds of books, theatrical works, etc. There are many bus companies which travel between La Vega other cities like: Santo Domingo, Samana, Puerto Plata, others. There is El Ponton Field, which serves domestics flights; each year between the months of October and December a basketball tournament is held in this city, it is called in Spanish Torneo Superior de Baloncesto de La Vega in English Superior Basketball Tournament of La Vega, This tournament started in October 1994. One team is still active, the other disappearing. El Parque Hostos is the most winning team five times as runner up. La Matica is the second most winning team with five crowns, six times as first runner up and qualified to the finals in 1996 but that year's finale was canceled. DOSA is the third most winning team with four times as first runner up. La Villa is the fourth most winning team five times as runner up.
Enriquillo is the fifth most winning team with two crowns, one two as first runner up and qualified to the finals in 1996 but that year's finale was canceled. In the tournament number 19 was the first time in the history of this tournament that none of the most winning teams Club La Matica & Club Parque Hostos didn't advance to the final. Edward Concepcion: professional baseball pitcher for the San Francisco Giants of Major League Baseball. Juan Bosch: famous writer, former President of the Dominican Republic, from February 27, 1963 to September 24, 1963, for decades a top, national political leader Juan Carlos Payano: boxer Victoriano Sosa: Boxer Antonio Guzmán Fernández: former President of the Dominican Republic, 1978–1982 Larimar Fiallo: Miss Dominican Republic 2004 Federico García Godoy: famous writer Francisco Moncio
Cesareo Guillermo
Cesáreo Guillermo y Bastardo. His parents were Rosalía Bastardo, he entered the Dominican military at age 16
Juan Bosch (politician)
Juan Emilio Bosch Gaviño was a Dominican politician, short story writer, essayist and the first democratically elected president of the Dominican Republic for a brief time in 1963. He had been the leader of the Dominican opposition in exile to the dictatorial regime of Rafael Trujillo for over 25 years. To this day he is remembered as an honest politician and regarded as one of the most prominent writers in Dominican literature, he founded both the Dominican Revolutionary Party in 1939 and the Dominican Liberation Party in 1973. He was born to a Puerto Rican mother of Galician descent. In 1934, he had two children with her: Leon and Carolina. During Trujillo's dictatorship, Bosch was jailed for his political ideas, being released after several months. In 1938, Bosch managed settling in Puerto Rico. By 1939 Bosch had gone to Cuba, where he directed an edition of the completed works of Eugenio María de Hostos, something that defined his patriotic and humanist ideals. In July, with other Dominican expatriates, he founded the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano, which stood out as the most active front against Trujillo outside the Dominican Republic.
Bosch sympathised with leftist ideas, but he always denied any communist affiliation. He collaborated with the Cuban Revolutionary Party and had an important role in the making of the Constitution, promulgated in 1940. Bosch married for the second time, this time a Cuban, Carmen Quidiello, with whom he had two more children and Barbara. At the same time, his literary career was ascending, gaining important acknowledgments like the Hernandez Catá Prize in Havana for short stories written by a Latin American author, his works had a deep social content, among them "La Noche Buena de Encarnación Mendoza", "Luis Pié", "The Masters" and "The Indian Manuel Sicuri", all of them described by critics as masterpieces of the sort. Bosch was one of the main organizers of the abortive Cayo Confites expedition of 1947, in which a military force backed by the Caribbean Legion unsuccessfully attempted to invade the Dominican Republic from Cuba. Bosch fled to Venezuela after the expedition's failure, where he continued his anti-Trujillo campaign.
In Cuba, where he returned by requirement of his friends in the Authentic Revolutionary Party, he played a notorious part in the political life of Havana, being recognized as a promoter of social legislation and author of the speech pronounced by President Carlos Prío Socarrás when the body of José Martí was transferred to Santiago de Cuba. When Fulgencio Batista led a coup d'etat against Prío Socarrás and took over the presidency in 1952, Bosch was jailed by Batista's forces. After being liberated, he left Cuba and headed to Costa Rica, where he dedicated his time to pedagogical tasks, to his activities as leader of the PRD. Molasses tycoon Jacob Merrill Kaplan earned his fortune through operations in Cuba and the Dominican Republic; the J. M. Kaplan Fund was found in a 1964 Congressional investigation to be a conduit for funneling CIA money to Latin America, including through the Institute of International Labor Research headed by Norman Thomas, six-time Presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.
These funds were used in Latin America by figures like José Figueres Ferrer, Sacha Volman, Juan Bosch. The CIA gave Figures money to publish a political journal, to found a left-wing school for Latin American opposition leaders. Funds passed from a shell foundation to the Kaplan Fund, next to the IILR, to Figures and Bosch. Sacha Volman, treasurer of the IILR, was a CIA agent. In 1959 the Cuban Revolution took place, led by Fidel Castro, causing a major political and social upheaval in the Caribbean island. Cord Meyer, a CIA official, was chief of International Organizations Division. IOD was a CIA sponsored front for manipulating international groups, it served as part of the covert arsenal to engineer a world government. He used the contacts with Bosch and Figueres for a new purpose - as the United States moved to rally the hemisphere against Cuba's Fidel Castro, Rafael Trujillo, the strongman caudillo that ran the Dominican Republic for 30 years had become expendable; the United States needed to demonstrate.
Bosch perceived the process that had begun from those events, wrote a letter to Trujillo, dated February 27, 1961. He told Trujillo that his political role, in historical terms, had concluded in the Dominican Republic. For over a year, the CIA had been in contact with dissidents inside the Dominican Republic who argued that assassination was the only certain way to remove Trujillo. According to Chester Bowles, the Undersecretary of State, internal Department of State discussions in 1961 on the topic were vigorous. Richard N. Goodwin, Assistant Special Counsel to the President, who had direct contacts with the rebel alliance, argued for intervention against Trujillo. Quoting Bowles directly: The next morning I learned that in spite of the clear decision against having the dissident group request our assistance Dick Goodwin following the meeting sent a cable to CIA people in the Dominican Republic without checking with State or CIA; the cable directed the CIA people in the Dominican Republic to get this request at any cost.
When Allen Dulles found this out the next morning, he withdrew the order. We discovered it had been carried out. In May 1961, the ruler of the Dominican Republic, Rafael Trujillo was murdered with weapons supplied by the CIA. An internal CIA m
Jacobo Majluta Azar
Jacobo Majluta Azar was Vice President of the Dominican Republic from 16 August 1978 to 4 July 1982. He was one of the generations of politicians in the Dominican Republic whose ambition was continually thwarted by the country's labyrinthine power struggles and explosive sectarianism, he was elected Vice-President in 1978 and served as President for 42 days in 1982, replacing Antonio Guzmán who had committed suicide, but he never again held the highest office which he so craved. Born in 1934 into a merchant family of Lebanese origin, Majluta studied finance at the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo before working as an accountant in the banking and state sectors, he joined the Dominican Revolutionary Party in 1961, in the wake of the Dictator Leonidas Trujillo's assassination, rose becoming the youngest minister in Juan Bosch's short-lived government of 1963. When it was overthrown by a military coup that year, Majluta went into exile, returning to rebuild his political career and winning the PRD's vice-presidential nomination for the 1978 elections.
In power, Majluta was out of sympathy with the PRD's more radical social- democratic wing. As head of CORDE, one of the large state-sector companies, he was allegedly involved in corruption, although charges were never proven, his real concern, was to beat off the challenge of rival caudillos or strongmen within the PRD, this struggle dominated the rest of his career. After Guzmán's suicide, Majluta hoped to win the PRD's presidential nomination, but lost out to Salvador Jorge Blanco; when Jorge Blanco won the 1982 elections, Majluta became president of the senate, using his position to side with the opposition and block his rival's policy program. As Jorge Blanco's administration slid into bankruptcy and scandal, Majluta again aimed for the PRD's nomination; this time, however, he faced the formidable José Francisco Peña Gómez, open war broke out between the two men's factions. After several rival supporters were killed in shoot- outs, Majluta grabbed the nomination for 1986. Despite his considerable political skills, Majluta was no match in the elections that year for Joaquín Balaguer, the grand old man of Dominican politics.
Balaguer defeated Majluta by a narrow margin to return to the presidency at the age of 80. The brutal in-fighting which had won Majluta the PRD ticket had alienated a large section of the party, many of the PRD faithful voted against their own candidate. Majluta did not enhance his standing by claiming victory as soon as voting ended and by demanding a rerun of the election. In the end a series of meetings with emissaries from the military and Church - the country's real power-brokers - forced him to accept defeat. In 1987 Majluta was expelled from the PRD as Peña Gómez reasserted his influence, but an electoral court ruled the move illegal. In 1989 he left to form his own Independent Revolutionary Party, an organization geared towards his own electoral aspirations; the PRI never gained genuine popular support, but the 7 per cent it won in the 1990 election was enough to undermine Peña Gómez's chances. In the weeks before his death, Majluta had sought a rapprochement with his old rival and had endorsed Peña Gómez's candidature for the forthcoming May elections.
It was an uncharacteristic gesture on the part of a hard-nosed, cynical fighter who always valued personal power far higher than party democracy. He died in 1996 in Tampa, Florida of lung cancer
Infant baptism
Infant baptism is the practice of baptising infants or young children. In theological discussions, the practice is sometimes referred to as paedobaptism, or pedobaptism, from the Greek pais meaning "child"; this can be contrasted with what is called "believer's baptism", or credobaptism, from the Latin word credo meaning "I believe", the religious practice of baptising only individuals who confess faith in Jesus, therefore excluding underage children. Opposition to infant baptism is termed catabaptism. Infant baptism is called "christening" by some faith traditions. Most Christians belong to denominations that practice infant baptism. Branches of Christianity that practice infant baptism include Catholics and Oriental Orthodox, among Protestants, several denominations: Anglicans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists and other Reformed denominations and some Nazarenes, the Moravian Church; the exact details of the baptismal ceremony vary among Christian denominations. Many follow a prepared ceremony, called a liturgy.
In a typical ceremony, parents or godparents bring their child to their congregation's priest or minister. The rite used would be the same as that denomination's rite for adults, i.e. by pouring holy water or by sprinkling water. Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic traditions practise total immersion and baptise babies in a font, this practice is the first method listed in the baptismal ritual of the Roman Catholic, although pouring is the standard practice within the Latin branch of Catholicism. Catholic and Orthodox churches that do this do not sprinkle. At the moment of baptism, the minister utters the words "I baptise you in the name of the Father, of the Son, of the Holy Spirit". Although it is not required, many parents and godparents choose to dress the baby in a white gown called a christening gown for the baptism ceremony. Christening gowns become treasured keepsakes that are used by many other children in the family and handed down from generation to generation. Traditionally, this gown is white or off white and made with much lace and intricate detail.
In the past, a gown was used for both girls. Made of white fabric, the outfit consists of a romper with a vest or other accessories; these clothes are kept as a memento after the ceremony. It is a naval tradition to baptise children using the ship's bell as a baptismal font and to engrave the child's name on the bell afterwards. Tracking down and searching for an individual's name on a specific bell from a ship may be a difficult and time-consuming task. Christening information from the bells held by the Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt Museum has been entered into a searchable data archive, accessible to any interested web site visitors. Scholars disagree on the date; some believe that 1st-century Christians did not practice it, noting the lack of any explicit evidence of paedobaptism. Others, noting the lack of any explicit evidence of exclusion of paedobaptism, believe that they did, understanding biblical references to individuals "and household" being baptised as well as "the promise to you and your children" as including young children.
The earliest extra-biblical directions for baptism, which occur in the Didache, are taken to be about baptism of adults, since they require fasting by the person to be baptised. However, inscriptions dating back to the 2nd century which refer to young children as "children of God" may indicate that Christians customarily baptised infants too; the earliest reference to infant baptism was by Irenaeus in his work Against Heresies. Due to its reference to Eleutherus as the current bishop of Rome, the work is dated c. 180. Irenaeus speaks of children being "born again to God." This reference has been described as "obscure." Three passages by Origen mention infant baptism as customary. While Tertullian writing c. 198–203 advises the postponement of baptism of little children and the unmarried, he mentions that it was customary to baptise infants, with sponsors speaking on their behalf. The Apostolic Tradition, sometimes attributed to Hippolytus of Rome, describes how to perform the ceremony of baptism.
From at least the 3rd century onward Christians baptised infants as standard practice, although some preferred to postpone baptism until late in life, so as to ensure forgiveness for all their preceding sins. In the 21st century, a number of incidents surrounding particularly "rough", "aggressive" or "violent" infant baptisms according to the Eastern Orthodox submersion or immersion rite have sparked controversies as to whether they constituted child abuse. In January 2017, Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia Ilia II performed a mass infant baptism of hundreds of children at the Holy Trinity Cathedral of Tbilisi during the Georgian Orthodox Church's celebration of Epiphany. Many foreign observers found this "shocking" and wondered whether such baptisms should be considered child abuse. A May 2018 viral video of an infant baptism – performed in Ayia Napa, Cyprus, at a Greek Orthodox church, although this remains unconfirmed – received much media attention. In a statement, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia condemned the practice as "physically abusive", but claimed the performer was'not Greek Orthodo
46th President of the Dominican Republic![[icon]](/wiki/File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg){kind=small}
