On this day, 25 November 1960 three sisters – Patria Mercedes Mirabal Reyes, Minerva Mirabal Reyes and Antonia María Teresa Mirabal Reyes were assassinated for their opposition to the US-backed Dominican dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. They had started a group called the Agrupación Política 14 de Junio (14 June Movement), named after the date of a massacre Patria witnessed. Two of the sisters, Minerva and Maria Teresa, were imprisoned, raped and tortured on several occasions and their husbands arrested and tortured too.
However, they persisted in their resistance and Trujillo decided to put an end to them once and for all. On May 18, 1960, Minerva and Maria Teresa, along with their husbands, were convicted and were sentenced to three years in prison for undermining the security of the Dominican state. In a strange gesture, on August 9, Minerva and Maria Teresa Mirabal were released by express provision of Trujillo. Their husbands, however, remained in prison. Purportedly a show of generosity, it was however part of a plan by which they would be assassinated by the Servicio de Inteligencia Militar secret police.
On November 25 the sisters and Rufino de la Cruz, who was driving their jeep, were stopped by Trujillo’s henchmen. They were separated and clubbed to death. The bodies were then gathered and put in the jeep, which was run off the mountain road in an attempt to make their deaths look like an accident.
In honour of the women, the UN later designated 25 November International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
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“I am mindful not only of my humanity, but also, and most especially, of my ignorance. Thus, I do not claim I am without error.” – Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy
