INVASION FORCE “LIQUIDATED”

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28930, 25 June 1959, Page 13

INVASION FORCE “LIQUIDATED”

Landing From Cuba In Dominica

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 9.30 p.m.) CIUDAD TRUJILLO (Dominican Republic), June 24.

A Cuban-supported invasion force on the Dominican north coast has been liquidated, the Dominican Government announced yesterday.

General Rafael Trujillo, the 63-year-old dictator who has ruled this country for 29 years, personally directed operations in the central part of the country, it said.

The Government thus commented for the first time on reports from Dominican exiles in Cuba and Venezuela that a rebel invasion force was seeking the overthrow of the Trujillo regime.

These reports said rebels last week captured Constanza, about 180 miles north-west of Ciudad Trujillo, and then withdrew into the mountains. The Government announcement said . Captain Enrique Jimenez Moya, described by the exiles as the leader of the expedition, was killed as he tried to escape in the Constanza area. Six other bodies were identified among the rebel dead, the announcement said, but it did not give the total number of dead or the number in the expedition. The statement said the invaders had set out from Cuba in two small launches, the Carmen Elsa and the Tinina, and were accompaned by the Cuban Navy frigates, the Jose Marti, the Antonio Maceo and the Maximo Gomez The frigates had turned back 30 miles from the Dominican coast and were now at their bases. The launches had tried a landing at Maimon on the Dominican north coast. But both craft had been sunk by Dominican warships and aeroplanes. A few of the invaders who managed to swim ashore had been killed in the hills by peasants armed with machetes who were alerted when the Government learned the expedition left Cuba. Diplomatic sources in Havana, Cuba, said., last night that nearly 300 troops had landed in the Dominican Republic by air and sea during the last 10 days, mostly from Cuba. Reinforcements for the first two groups are either on the way to the Dominican Republic or are ready to depart from Cuba, the sources said. They added that the invaders were of various nationalities and many of them had received combat training recently.