Johnny Abbes García (27 March 1924,

Santo Domingo Santo Domingo, formerly known as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city of the Dominican Republic and the List of metropolitan areas in the Caribbean, largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean by population. the Distrito Na ...

– 30 May 1967,

Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...

) was the chief of the governmental intelligence office – the ''

Servicio de Inteligencia Militar The Servicio de Inteligencia Militar (SIM) (English: Military Intelligence Service) was the main secret police force and death squad during the later part of the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo to keep control within the Dominican Republic. Opera ...

'' (Military Intelligence Service) – during the dictatorship of

Rafael Trujillo Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina ( ; ; 24 October 1891 – 30 May 1961), nicknamed ''El Jefe'' (; "the boss"), was a Dominican military officer and dictator who ruled the Dominican Republic from August 1930 until Rafael Trujillo#Assassination, ...

in the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...

Rise to power

Abbes was born in 1924 in Santo Domingo,

, the son of a

German American German Americans (, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. According to the United States Census Bureau's figures from 2022, German Americans make up roughly 41 million people in the US, which is approximately 12% of the pop ...

accountant and a Dominican woman. As a young man he was interested in sports, and one of his first jobs was as a sports reporter. In the mid-fifties, he moved to

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

, where he worked as an official in the Dominican embassy. He started to gather information on anti-Trujillo dissidents and relayed this information to the island. Abbes also studied the technical aspects of spying and intelligence gathering. In 1956 he returned to the Dominican Republic and, after Trujillo's half-brother Nene introduced him to the

dictator A dictator is a political leader who possesses absolute Power (social and political), power. A dictatorship is a state ruled by one dictator or by a polity. The word originated as the title of a Roman dictator elected by the Roman Senate to r ...

, quickly rose to power.

Head of SIM

In 1958 he became the head of the newly created

(SIM) and the chief planner of assassinations of the regime's adversaries abroad. SIM employed thousands of people and was involved in immigration, passports, censorship, supervision of aliens, and undercover work, including foreign operations. Thus he was instrumental in the two attempts to kill

Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...

's then-president

Rómulo Betancourt Rómulo Ernesto Betancourt Bello (22 February 1908 – 28 September 1981; ), known as "The Father of Venezuelan Democracy", was a Venezuelan politician who served as the president of Venezuela, from and again from Second presidency of Rómulo ...

; first there was an attack on Betancourt in the streets of

Havana Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.car bomb A car bomb, bus bomb, van bomb, lorry bomb, or truck bomb, also known as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED), is an improvised explosive device designed to be detonated in an automobile or other vehicles. Car bombs can be roug ...

blew up his Cadillac in Caracas, killing the driver and a bystander, while Betancourt survived.

After Trujillo

After Trujillo's assassination in May 1961, Abbes moved quickly to hunt down the assassins. Trujillo's son, Ramfis Trujillo, returned from Paris, supposedly with the help of Abbes, and attempted to step into the place of his father, but his attempt ultimately failed, and he left the country, together with most members of the Trujillo family, later that year. Following the Trujillos' departure, President

Joaquín Balaguer Joaquín Antonio Balaguer Ricardo (1 September 1906 – 14 July 2002) was a Dominican politician, scholar, writer, and lawyer who was the 41st, 45th and 49th president of the Dominican Republic serving three non-consecutive terms from 1960 t ...

appointed Abbes

consul Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states thro ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, but Abbes soon left the post and spent several years in Europe. He returned to the Caribbean in 1966, moving to

, where he worked for then-President François 'Papa Doc' Duvalier as a security advisor. Abbes disappeared in June 1967. According to journalist Bernard Diedrich, Abbes and his wife had come under suspicion for plotting against Duvalier, but the reasons for his disappearance, and those responsible, remain unknown.

Mario Vargas Llosa Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquess of Vargas Llosa (28 March 1936 – 13 April 2025) was a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist and politician. Vargas Llosa was one of the most significant Latin American novelists and essayists a ...

's historical novels ''

The Feast of the Goat ''The Feast of the Goat'' () is a 2000 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 Trujillo, and its aftermath, ...

'', about Trujillo's Dominican Republic, and ''

Harsh Times Harsh Times may refer to: * ''Harsh Times'' (film), 2005 American action crime film written and directed by David Ayer * ''Harsh Times'' (novel), 2019 novel by writer Mario Vargas Llosa {{disambiguation ...

'', about Arbenz's Guatemala, devote much space to Abbes.

Sources and references

External links

''Los Rasputines''
- Mario Vargas Llosa, 1998.
Editions Normant
''La Môme Moineau'' - Michel Ferracci-Porri, novembre 2006 {{DEFAULTSORT:Abbes, Johnny 1924 births 1967 deaths Dominican Republic politicians Political repression Dominican Republic military personnel Dominican Republic people of German descent Dominican Republic emigrants Immigrants to Haiti Politicide perpetrators Torturers