Americas Watch, Human Rights Developments, Washington, D.C., 1994. [citation needed], In 1985 the United States began to shut down funds to Haitian aid, cutting nearly a million dollars from it within a year. The Tonton Macoutes cut out the hearts, eyes and lungs of opponents with machetes, while Papa Doc, who stole almost a billion pounds in foreign aid, insisted that every television and radio programme had to be entirely in praise of his rule. 1991 (October 2): The army killed at least 7 individuals in Gonaives, Artibonite, including one child and one adolescent, during a demonstration in support of President Aristide. To this day, no judicial inquiry has been opened on this event. Statements by several officers have established that they did not know the reasons for their execution. Gaillard, Roger, Les Blancs dbarquent, III. Furthermore, on December 5, US air forces bombed the port of the city of Les Cayes, in the South of the country, one day before the December 6 killing, in order to intimidate the population. It was one of the most brutal days of the twenty-nine-year rule of Papa Doc and his son, Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. Aristide returned to power in 1994 with a bigger U.S. force - only to flee again after threats that he would be hacked to death and eaten. At the same period, locals had been embroiled in a tax dispute and had refused to pay taxes on the sale of agricultural products, which had alienated the Duvalier regime further. It was notorious for its widespread and brutal . The name was later applied to the Milice de Volontaires de la Scurit Nationale, the paramilitary force of Franois 'Papa Doc' Duvalier, Haiti's "President for Life." Alix introduced the man with his arm in a sling as Eloise Maitre. Following Ceausescus removal from power in 1989, the Securitate survived two more years, until it was disbanded and reorganized by Romanian Parliament. On April 3, several macoutes arrived in the area, set several houses on fire and raped an unknown number of peasant women. Though there have been more than ten brutal secret police forces throughout history, the ten on this list are a cross section that highlight different types of political climates, eras and methods, and though the majority are modern, all ultimately carry out a brutal agenda of terror and violence against its citizens. On April 26, 1986, a group of the dictatorship's survivors and their family members and supporters marched to the ruins of Fort Dimanche to remember the dead. As the world reacted with pledges of help for the latest traumatised victims of the Island of the Damned, rescuers continued their desperate search for bodies and relatives waited for news. The dreaded Oprichniki, Tsar Ivan the Terribles secret police force tasked to govern the Oprichnina territory of Russia and enforce the Tsars policy of brutal suppression of enemies of the state, were active for a mere seven years, between 1565 and 1572, but their actions remain infamous. Torture of Cacos or alleged Cacos by the Marines was also common practice; this included the hanging of individuals by their genitals, forced absorption of liquids, and the use of ceps, simultaneous pressure by two guns on both side of the tibia bone. ( from 20th c.) 2011, Kim Ives, The Guardian, 22 March: Every Macoute received a card that afforded him many privileges, like free merchandise from any store he entered, entitlement to coerced sex, and fear and respect from people in general. After the revolution in Iran in 1979, SAVAK was nominally disbanded, and a new Iranian secret police force, SAVAMA, as largely feared as its predecessor, took over. List of battleships of the United States Navy, homonymous Italian Fascist paramilitary organization, Front for the Advancement and Progress of Hati, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2014, Articles incorporating text from Wikipedia, Defunct law enforcement agencies of Haiti, The Central Nervous System of Haitis Reign of Terror, http://books.google.com/books?id=LOhHGx4v23oC&pg=PA33, http://books.google.com/books?id=F84K3p923iIC&pg=PA66, http://books.google.com/books?id=bNLG1G2SnpkC&pg=PA202, http://books.google.com/books?id=4IIB0Yu_sL4C&pg=PA21, The Serpent and the Rainbow film which mentions them. 196, 1998. Released 21 May 1971 on Neon (catalog no. [24], The Tonton Macoute remained active even after the presidency of "Papa Doc" Duvalier's son "Baby Doc" ended in 1986,[25] at the height of the Anti-Duvalier protest movement. In January and February 1999, Rmy Lucas, Lonard Lucas and Jean-Michel Richardson were detained for a short period. For the people of Haiti, though, hope has always been a rare commodity. _ Contrary to the post-dictatorial periods in Latin America, efforts to record and document the killings and executions with precision were not successful, or were not officially recognized. Hurbon, Laennec, La Dsymbolisation du pouvoir et ses effets meurtriers, Chemins Critiques, Montreal, Cidihca, 2001. Carri later refuted the allegation. Numa, the taller and thinner of the two, stands erect, in perfect profile, barely . NE 4; Vinyl LP). "Tonton Macoutes" style death . However, most of those responsible for the repression escaped prosecution. State Against Nation. "The Tonton Macoutes" by Bernard Diederich. 3, pp. One of the killings has remained in collective memory as the massacre of the peasants of Thiotte. Men, women, children, infants and elderly people suspected either of having helped the guerrilla movement, or of not having opposed it, were slaughtered by the macoutes. The Duvalier dynasty ended in 1986, but their legacy remained as Fad'H and former-members of the Tonton Macoutes attempted to suppress voter turnout during the 1987 elections. According to US journalist Harry Frank (in Gaillard, 1981: 208), US pilots did not verify what type of gathering (a Caco camp, an open farmers market, or peasants on their way to church) they were attacking. Bernard Diederich lived in Haiti for 14 years and had personal experience of the early Duvalier days and the period of Maloire's rule. Rated #143 in the best albums of 1971, and #4642 of all time album.. The Tonton Macoutes wore straw hats, blue denim shirts and dark glasses, and were armed with machetes and guns. _ * (Hurbon, 1987: 10-11, 155 and 143; NCHR, 1986: 53-59; Interviews with witnesses). By Founded in 1950, the Stasi took many of its cues from the Soviet Unions KGB, and truth be told during the entire Cold War the KGB and Stasis alliances were so close that they shared offices in both Germany and Russia, and had political privileges in each country. At least two anti-Aristide youths, Jean-Baptiste Knol and Joseph Leroy, were thrown alive into a burning building. 1991 (September 30, October 1): Coup. They assaulted or tortured even more, causing countless Haitians to flee their homes for refuge abroad. Wearing their trademark mirrored sunglasses and designer T-shirts, these murderers and cannibals were named after a terrifying bogeyman from Haitian mythology, who carried off naughty children into slavery. Peasants, the Trujillo Regime and Modernity in Dominican History, Stanford, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2003. Edwidge Danticat is the best-selling author of Claire of the Sea Light and Brother, I'm Dying. Among many awards and honors, she received the 2017 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. The militia was renamed officially in 1971 the Milice de Volontaires de la Scurit Nationale (MVSN). p. 21. The Duvaliers relied on a secret armed militia called Tonton macoutes(its official name was the Volontaires de la Scurit Nationale, or National Security Volunteers), which imposed a rule of terror on the Haitian population (Diederich and Burt, 2005). _ *** (ICHR, 1988: 81-84; Danroc and Roussire, 1995: 21; ICHR, 1992). For tourists on cruise ships plying the Caribbean, Haiti appears a beguiling, mysterious place. [18][19], Some of the most important members of the Tontons Macoute were Vodou leaders. 1994 (April 22): Event known as the massacre de Raboteau. In Raboteau, a shantytown of Gonaives, Artibonite, army soldiers and FRAPH members killed 14 opponents to the regime in a well-planned operation. Both their allusions to the supernatural and their physical presentations were used with the intention of instilling fear and respect. 1915-1920: Several thousand civilians were killed by the US occupying forces, along with the Haitian gendarmerie commanded by US officers, who were fighting an insurrection of armed peasants, the Cacos, mainly in the rural areas of the center and Northeast of the country. _ * (For sources on the massacre thesis, see Roc, 2004; NCHR, March 2004; and Fuller, 2005; for sources that deny the very existence of the event, see Haiti-Progrs, 2004). The Tontons Macoutes wore straw hats, blue denim shirts and dark glasses, and were armed with machetes and guns. Garcia, Juan Manuel, La Matanza de los haicianos : Genocidio de Trujillo, 1937, Santo Domingo: Alfa y Omega, 1983. Haitis Illegal Prime Minister Arrests the Legal One, in Haiti-Progrs, June 2004. But the torment did not end with the Duvaliers. A 1922 internal US army report recognized and justified the execution of women and children, presenting them as auxiliaries of the Cacos (in Gaillard, 1983: 259). Indeed, the devastating earthquake now bringing death and heartbreak is the latest in a long line of tragedies to befall a place dubbed the Island of the Damned. Hurbon, Laennec, Comprendre Hati, Karthala, , 1987. He would also go on to sell cadavers to medical schools after buying them from Haitian hospitals for $3 per corpse. In 1920, during hearings held by the US Navy, Lavoie was accused of this by other US officers. According to Pierre-Charles (1973), the urban lumpenproletariatwas the social background of most macoutes. "At the conclusion of the three-hour rampage the church was burned down thereby making it impossible to verify the total number of deaths since some remains are believed to have been consumed by the flames." However, since no material evidence had been brought to the commission, no charges were brought against Lavoie. ", The hunt was indeed on for Duvalier's adversaries, army and civilian alike. Created as a paramilitary force that answered only to Duvalier, the MVSN was implemented to remove any perceived threats to the Presidents power, ofwhich there were many. [1] According to one witness, the police and army provided protection for the attackers, encircling the church. EPICA, Voices for Haiti Report, Beyond the Mountains, More Mountains. [7][20][21] Even their title of Tonton Macoute was embedded in Haitian lore of a bogeyman who took children away in his satchel or his Makoute. Mission Civile Internationale en Hati (MICIVIH), Rapport Trimestriel avril-juin 1999, Port-au-Prince, 1999. THE TONTON MACOUTES In order to intimidate the Garde, which still had some professional standards, Du-valier organized a "militia" which may num-ber some 8,000 men. [16], When Franois Duvalier came to power in 1957, Vodou was becoming celebrated for its purely Haitian heritage by intellectuals and the griots after having been let go for years by those with education. This, coming just a few days before the fiftieth anniversary of April 26, 1963, seems to not only be an attempt at whitewashing the past, but at launching an offensive against those who, on this day, will pause to remember. During their reign, an estimated 30,000 to 60,000 men, women, and children were killed. Lemoine, Patrick, List of victims of Duvalirism. President Aristide went into exile on February 29, 2004 and found asylum in South Africa. 589-636. After the July 1958 Haitian coup d'tat attempt against President Franois Duvalier, he purged the army and law enforcement agencies in Haiti and executed numerous officers as he perceived them as a threat to his regime. The BRAC was disbanded after Batista fled to Spain in 1959 as communist forces moved into Havana. Bernard Diederich, Al Burt. Producer - Tonton Macoute Saxophone [Electric] - Dave Knowles (3) ( tracks: B3) Notes Released in a matt gatefold cover. Turits (2003: 169) also contended that Dominican civilians did not participate in the killings, contrarily to Castors perception of the events (1988), as well as that of Haitian collective memory. The Tonton Macoutes then tie the ropes around the men's biceps to bind them to the poles and keep them upright. The story takes place in New Orleans. The NKVD was responsible for the detention of nearly two million people between 1937 and 1938 alone; of those detained almost 700,000 were executed, a rate of roughly 1,000 per day. The Tontons Macoutes murdered between 30,000 and 60,000 Haitians. Available at:http://www.ijdh.org/2001/06/archive/brian-concannon-justice-for-haiti-the-raboteau-trial/. This was a group responsible only to Papa Doc . [23], The lack of funds coming to the Tonton Macoute was a result of those funds being intercepted by the Duvalier dynasty which was sometimes taking nearly 80 percent of international aid to Haiti, then turning around to pay only 45 percent of the debts the country owed. Tonton Macoute Lyrics: Come on to Haiti, you don't need a treaty / Papa Doc will do you OK / Tonton in the sun, he's polishing his gun / You'd better just stay out of his way / If you turn a . Article created on Monday, March 3, 1997. _ *** (United Nations, 2001: 17-18; Commission Nationale de Vrit et de Justice, 1997: chapter V, section C4; Concannon, 2001; Concannon, 2005). Tonton Macoutes, a militia force put together in 1959 by President Franois Duvalier, translated, means Uncle Gunnysack, referring to a bogeyman that captures children in a gunnysack and eats them for breakfast. Dahomay, Jacky, La Tentation tyrannique hatienne, Chemins Critiques, vol. In 1959, his paramilitary force was called the Cagoulards ("Hooded Men"). After a short period of collective hope, political repression resumed. Papa Doc Duvalier created the Tontons Macoutes because he perceived the military to be a threat to his power. Tonton Macoutes tntn mkoot [ key] [Haitian Creole,=bogeymen], personal police force of dictator Francois Duvalier (Papa Doc) of Haiti. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. He came out on to the path and the Tontons Macoute shot him down from a car.
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