The Servicio de Inteligencia Militar (SIM) (English: Military Intelligence Service) was the main

secret police Secret police (or political police) are intelligence, security or police agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, religious, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic of a ...

force and

death squad A death squad is an armed group whose primary activity is carrying out extrajudicial killings or forced disappearances as part of political repression, genocide, ethnic cleansing, or revolutionary terror. Except in rare cases in which they are ...

during the later part of the dictatorship of

Rafael Trujillo Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina ( , ; 24 October 189130 May 1961), nicknamed ''El Jefe'' (, "The Chief" or "The Boss"), was a Dominican dictator who ruled the Dominican Republic from February 1930 until his assassination in May 1961. He ser ...

to keep control within the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on 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 wit ...

Operation

Around 1957 the Department of State for Security, headed by General Arturo Espaillat was dissolved, replaced by SIM and its sister agency, the Servicio Central de Inteligencia (SCI). Under the leadership of

Johnny Abbes García Johnny Abbes García (1924, Santo Domingo – 1967, Haiti) was the chief of the governmental intelligence office – the ''Servicio de Inteligencia Militar'' (Military Intelligence Service) – during the dictatorship of Rafael Trujill ...

, SIM employed thousands of people and was involved in immigration, passports, censorship, supervision of aliens, and undercover work. At the Palace of Communications some fifty people intercepted and recorded domestic and foreign phone conversations. Its secret activities used murder, kidnapping, extorsion and terror to achieve its goals. Money was spent to lobby American legislators. In the population members of SIM were known as "caliés" (Thugs), they patrolled the streets in their black VW beetles called "cepillos" (brushes). Infamous detention centers were La Nueve (The Nine) and La Cuarenta (The Forty) where prisoners were tortured and killed. SIM was dissolved in 1962, after the fall of the Trujillo regime.

Directors

Famous operations

* 1956: Murder of Jesús Galíndez * 1958: Murder of Octavio de la Maza * 1959: Attempt to invade

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

* 1960: Murder of the

Mirabal sisters The Mirabal sisters ( es, hermanas Mirabal ) were four sisters from the Dominican Republic, three of whom (Patria, Minerva and María Teresa) opposed the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo () and were involved in clandestine activities against his ...

* 1960: Attempt to assassinate

Rómulo Betancourt Rómulo Ernesto Betancourt Bello (22 February 1908 – 28 September 1981; ), known as "The Father of Venezuelan Democracy", was the president of Venezuela, serving from 1945 to 1948 and again from 1959 to 1964, as well as leader of Acción De ...

* 1961: Murder of assassins of Trujillo

Cultural references

SIM and its leader

are frequently mentioned in

Mario Vargas Llosa Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquess of Vargas Llosa (born 28 March 1936), more commonly known as Mario Vargas Llosa (, ), is a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist and former politician, who also holds Spanish citizenship. Vargas Ll ...

's historical novel, ''

The Feast of the Goat ''The Feast of the Goat'' ( es, La Fiesta del Chivo, 2000) is a novel by the Peruvian Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Mario Vargas Llosa. The book is set in the Dominican Republic and portrays the assassination of Dominican dictator Rafael Tru ...

''.

References

{{reflist, colwidth=30em Rafael Trujillo 1950s in the Dominican Republic 1960s in the Dominican Republic Government agencies established in 1957 Government agencies disestablished in 1962 Defunct intelligence agencies Dominican Republic intelligence agencies Secret police Anti-communist organizations