Tonton Macoutes byly ozbrojen jednotky, kter zdil haitsk dikttor Franois Duvalier jako svoji soukromou armdu a tajnou policii. Le Grand fauve, Le Natal, Port-au-Prince 1995. The Cambodian Santebal started out as a secret police force under the Khmer Rouge regime and ultimately ended up morphing into essentially an extermination squad. News on all your favorite celebs, reality TV, and movies. Papa Docs regime, the more brutal of the two, is said to be responsible for 30,000 to 50,000 assassinations and executions. Tonton Macoute was a Haitian paramilitary force created in 1959 by dictator Franois 'Papa Doc' Duvalier. From 1957 to 1986, the Duvalier family reigned as dictators, turning the country into a hermit kingdom with a personality cult and corruption. Nonetheless the regime pushed forward and even had a national party for the Tontons Macoute. Literature. Updated November 6, 2012 6:40 AM. In power from 1957, Papa Doc made voodoo the country's official religion and claimed to be Baron Samedi, the religion's spirit of death. "He inherited a repressive machine from his father," she says, "and continued to use it to stay in power. With nearly a half a million informants alone working for the Securitate, every facet of Romanian life was under surveillance, and even the most banal of criticism towards the regime could be met with severe punishment. A judicial inquiry was opened in July 1994. Les Cent jours de Rosalvo Bobo ou une mise mort politique, Presses Nationales, Port-au-Prince, 1973. Those who had been injured were threatened at the hospital. Human Rights Watch, Thirst for Justice. On April 21, 2005, the Cour de Cassation (the highest court in the country) invalidated this judgment; the court based its ruling on a 1928 law that prohibited trial by jury for multiple crimes, although this very law had already been nullified by the 1987 Constitution. Based on a similar French agency, which the African OCRB often worked with, many crimes by the police force itself have gone unpunished, and a particularly effective method of torture, Le Caf, where one is beaten with a baton and then forced to walk an excruciating distance, became commonplace in interrogations of suspected bandits. 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). On January 17, the Section Chief (a local official) and his subordinates killed a peasant while executing the Judges arrest order. The most feared paramilitary group during the 1990s was the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Hati (FRAPH) which Toronto Star journalist Linda Diebel described as modern Tonton Macoutes and not as the political party they claimed to be.[1]. Many times the corpses were put on display, often hung in trees for everyone to see. A Macoute from the Duvalier era. Later on the same day, peasants from Guyton and Coligny, assisted by army soldiers from Saint-Marc, Artibonite, travelled to Gervais and carried out further killings in retaliation. 1987 (July 23): Event known in collective memory as the Jean-Rabel massacre. In the vicinity of Jean-Rabel (in the Northwest of the country), paramilitary groups led by macoutesand acting upon orders from a local land oligarch, Rmy Lucas, killed at least 139 peasants (300 according to various human rights groups and the OAS, and 1,042 according to Nicol Poitevien, one of the self-proclaimed assassins). It was notorious for its widespread and brutal . In 1920, the US Navy investigation commission interrogated occupying officers regarding allegations of acts of violence committed by the air force, but the commission did not deliver any condemnations, or even make any formal accusations. Statements by several officers have established that they did not know the reasons for their execution. The Tonton Macoutes (singular Tonton Macoute referring to a member thereof; or Ton Ton Macoute) was a Haitian militia force under the control of Franois Duvalier. This massacre occurred a few days after Lieutenant-General Namphy, one of the leaders of the ruling junta at the time, visited the area and publicly supported the Lucas family and their rights to the land they claimed. 1914-1915. He had assigned two judges to investigate the event. 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. Political opponents often disappeared overnight, or were sometimes attacked in broad daylight. Americas Watch, Physicians for Human Rights, National Coalition for Haitian Refugees, Return to the Darkest Days: Human Rights in Haiti since the Coup, New York, 1991. The massacre was carried out by unidentified armed men, probably former Tonton Macoute, and took place without resistance by police or army, despite the church being opposite a barracks. These children were carried away in his gunnysack, never to be seen again. Mass Violence and Resistance - Research Network, Asia-Pacific under Japanese occupation during World War II, http://www.haiti.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/vrit_justice.pdf, http://www.ijdh.org/2001/06/archive/brian-concannon-justice-for-haiti-the-raboteau-trial/, http://www.alterpresse.org/spip.php?article1374#.XMLOZJMzbUI. The most feared paramilitary group during the 1990s was the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Hati (FRAPH), which Toronto Star journalist Linda Diebel described as modern Tonton Macoutes, and not the legitimate political party it claimed to be. The assault lasted three hours, during which the attackers faced no opposition from the army, whose barracks were located opposite the church. Anyone who challenged the VSN risked assassination. The Progressive Inc. publishes The Progressive magazine plus Progressive.org and Public Schools Advocate. Historians use the term genocide in reference to this event. Rated #143 in the best albums of 1971, and #4642 of all time album.. The total number of victims was close to a hundred. The first six were adolescents. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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." Sign-up for our free weekly e-mail newsletter. These sentences were seen as a historical victory over the impunity enjoyed by instigators and perpetrators of political crimes in Haiti. This page was last edited on 30 January 2023, at 02:18. _ 1987 (November 29): Event known in collective memory as the massacre de la ruelle Vaillant. Under the rule of General Namphy, at dawn on an election day, a group of 50 to 60 armed men, composed of soldiers in civilian clothes as well as macoutes, killed at least 16 civilians in a polling station of the Ecole Nationale Argentine Bellegarde, a school in Port-au-Prince. From their methods to their choice of clothes, vodou always played an important role in their actions. I solemnly vowed to keep alive the memory of my departed cellmates." The victims of Tontons Macoutes could range from a woman in the poorest of neighborhoods who had previously supported an opposing politician to a businessman who refused to donate money for public works (which were the source of profit for corrupt officials and even the dictator himself). This particular name was earned by one of his endeavors of extorting blood plasma from locals for sale. [6] Massacres led by paramilitary groups spawned from the Macoutes continued during the following decade. 1964 (August): Event known as the massacre des Vpres jrmiennes. In the locality of Jrmie (in the Southwest of the country), army soldiers led by Lt. Abel Jerome, Lt. Sony Borge, Col. Regala and by macoutesSanette Balmir and St. Ange Bomtemps killed 27 individuals (men, women and children); almost all of them belonged to educated mulatto families. At the end of the day, 25 bodies were found but 80 had disappeared and were never found. Soon after Papa Doc Duvalier became president, Emmanuel found his political views at odds with Papa Doc and his secret police, the Tonton Macoute. Those condemned included Castra Cnafils, an army captain, and Jean Tatoune, a FRAPH member. The diversity of the victims was also a measure of the "Macoutes'" cruelty. The first independent black state, set up 200 years ago after a rebellion by African slaves against colonial France, the mountainous island is home to exotic birds and animals and mist-shrouded tropical forests. Their unrestrained state terrorism was accompanied by corruption, extortion and personal aggrandizement among the leadership. Haiti contains relatively small amounts of gold, silver, antimony, tin, lignite They assaulted or tortured even more, causing countless Haitians to flee their homes for refuge abroad. The number of victims is unknown but is said to be above three hundred for the first two days. 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. 1990 (March 12): Event known as the massacre de Piatre (also pronounced Pitre or Piastre). _ *** (Benoit, 2003: 6-9; Pierre-Charles, 2000: 112-113). _ In addition to the repression of the rebellion, between hundreds and thousands of civilians died or were killed during forced labor operations called corve, mainly the construction of roads throughout the country. Dahomay, Jacky, La Tentation tyrannique hatienne, Chemins Critiques, vol. The Haitian Vodou Handbook: Protocols for Riding with the Lwa. _ *** (Jolibois, 1988: 46-48 and 213-54; Gaillard, 1995: 267-272 ; Gaillard, 1998: 86). A Decade of Impunity in Haiti, Human Rights Watch, vol. Alongside the SS, the Gestapo, under Himmler, played a major role in carrying out the Final Solution, from the liquidation of the Ghettos to transportation of prisoners to the concentration camps. It was during this period that the army established the basis for a totalitarian order (Trouillot, 1990: 152). Several dozens of individuals believed to be werewolves or witches were lynched by the mob. When Papa Doc began killing anyone he suspected of political opposition, Emmanuel took action . Gaillard, Roger, Les Blancs dbarquent, V. Hinche mise en croix, Le Natal, Port-au-Prince, 1982. 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. Romulus, Marc, Les Cachots des Duvalier. This religious affiliation gave the Tontons Macoute a kind of unearthly authority in the eyes of the public. A bogeyman of Haitian Creole folklore. According to an OAS report (ICRH, 1991), the roots of the killing lie in a land conflict in the village of Terre-Casse, near Gervais, Guyton and Coligny, opposing several peasant families and local small landowners since 1973. macoutes typically raided a house of alleged opponents, killed its inhabitants, including elderly people, children and servants, with guns and machetes, before moving to another house of an alleged opponent of the regime. _ None of those responsible for the killings and none of the perpetrators were brought to justice. Two years before the end of his mandate, President Aristide was destabilized by repeated, massive demonstrations led by student organizations since the end of 2002. [6] 1991 (October 2): Thirty civilians were killed by army soldiers in a single day in Cit Soleil, a shantytown of Port-au-Prince known for harboring many supporters of President Aristide, in retaliation for an attack against a local police station. History In 1970, the militia was renamed the Volontaires de la Scurit Nationale (VSN, Volunteers of the National Security). Gaillard, Roger, La Rpublique Exterminatrice, Troisime Partie. 7, New York, 1996. ", The hunt was indeed on for Duvalier's adversaries, army and civilian alike. They are referenced in the Showtime series DEXTER in a fictional storyline. Tonton Macoute a member of a notoriously brutal militia formed by President Franois Duvalier of Haiti, active from 1961-86. [4] One witness said he saw Romain himself at the massacre, alongside his men;[6] a number of witnesses saw city hall employees among the attackers. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. He collected blood from prisoners who had been tortured and killed and sold it for $22 a pint to U.S. health groups. But it is no paradise for the country's nine million people. You must there are over 200,000 words in our free online dictionary, but you are looking for one that's only in the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary.. Start your free trial today and get unlimited access to America's largest dictionary, with:. _ *** (Commission Nationale de Vrit et de Justice, 1997 ; ICHR, 1993), 1991 (September 30 and the first few days of October): In the afternoon of September 30, a commando of army soldiers moved into the Lamentin 50 neighborhood, in the vicinity of Port-au-Prince, randomly opened fire on bystanders and private homes, and indiscriminately threw grenades into local houses. Dupuy, Alex, The Prophet and Power: Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the International Community, and Haiti, Lanham, Maryland, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2007. For a detailed list of some of the victims of this regime, two victims and academic organizations web sites based in the United States can be consulted (Frre and Fordi9). Wilentz, A., The Rainy Season. Alix introduced the man with his arm in a sling as Eloise Maitre. As the Nazi party apparatus expanded, the control of the Gestapo shifted, ultimately landing under Heinrich Himmlers control during World War Two. However, most of those responsible for the repression escaped prosecution. Several of the persons responsible for the killing (prison guards and soldiers) were tried and acquitted in July 1917. The following day, Vilbrun Sam and Etienne were dragged respectively from the consulates of France and of the Dominican Republic, where they had sought refuge, and were lynched by a mob. In 1938 in Washington D.C., the Dominican Republic government agreed to pay US$ 750,000 (of which 525,000 were eventually paid) in compensation, but paradoxically, it refused to admit any responsibility for the killings in the document it then signed (Cuello, 1985: 456; Turits, 2002: 622-623). Amnesty International, Haiti Annual Report, 2001. Geographic (and cultural) isolation of the rural population in the center of the country impeded the flow of information and testimony on acts of violence committed in these areas. [6], According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the following day, "five men and one woman appeared on the government controlled television station (Tl Nationale) and admitted their participation in the attack on the church. Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, who has died of a heart attack aged 63, was just 19 when he inherited the title of president-for-life from his father, Francois or "Papa Doc", who had ruled Haiti . Mission Civile Internationale en Hati (MICIVIH), February 9, 1994, Communiqu de Presse, Port-au-Prince. The total number of victims of this 3-year regime varies from 10,000 to 30,000 people according to different sources. The Securitate was also responsible for brutally crushing the dissident movements that attempted to gain footing in Romania starting in the later 1960s under totalitarian ruler Nicolae Ceausescu. For tourists on cruise ships plying the Caribbean, Haiti appears a beguiling, mysterious place. Even after Papa Doc died in 1971 there was no respite for Haiti. Furthermore, Santebal was a major instrument of the Cambodian genocide committed by the Khmer Rouge. The Tontons Macoutes wore straw hats, blue denim shirts and dark glasses, and were armed with machetes and guns. He came out on to the path and the Tontons Macoute shot him down from a car. All the perpetrators knew the executed families well. Beyond the Gulags, the NKVD was instrumental in Stalins genocide in the Ukraine where millions perished due to hunger, and the Great Purge of the communist party and the Red Army between 1934 and 1940. "Soldiers and Tonton Macoutes seemed infected with a blood lust and shot anyone who moved or came near the Benoit place," retired Marine Corps officer Charles T. Williamson, in Haiti to help train Duvalier's army, wrote in his 1999 memoir, United States Naval Mission to Haiti, 1959-1963. Tonton Macoute var prsidentens privatmilits i Haiti.Gruppen blev oprettet i 1959 af Franois Duvalier "Papa Doc" to r efter at han blev prsident. Many of the victims targeted were believed to be voodoo priests because of their alleged involvement with the Duvalier regime. Cambronne did this through his company "Hemocaribian" and shipped five tons of plasma per month to US Labs. [8], The Mayor of Port-au-Prince at the time, Franck Romain, a former Tonton Macoute leader, was accused of being involved. His son, Baby Doc, then replaced him and ruled until 1986. Luckner Cambronne was a particularly fierce head of the Tonton Macoute throughout the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s. The vast majority of the victims belonged to the social and intellectual elites of the capital. Haitian police and military units also acted with impunity. Gaillard, Roger, Les Blancs dbarquent, VII, La Gurilla de Batraville, Le Natal, Port-au-Prince, 1983. The Tonton Macoutes wore straw hats, blue denim shirts and dark glasses, and were armed with machetes and guns. 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. With one out of every 43 Romanians on the Securitates payroll, it was nearly impossible for those opposed to the regime to organize in any meaningful numbers. NE 4; Vinyl LP). _ *** (Turits, 2002; Turits, 2003: 161-180; Roorda, 1998: 127-139; Saez, 1988, vol I: 60-70; Castor, 1988; Garcia, 1983; Cuello, 1985). 589-636. After 15 more years of bloodshed and oppression, the people finally rose up in 1986 and Baby Doc was forced to flee into exile in France. The most notable action of the Oprichniki, was the massacre at Novgorod where 1,500 nobles and anywhere from three to 30,000 thousand others were executed, reducing Novgorod to a shell of a city. Natural resources of Haiti include bauxite, copper, calcium carbonate, gold, marble and hydropower. "Shortly after Baby Doc Duvalier was propelled to power as President for life, I was arrested, as were thousands before and after me," Patrick Lemoine writes in his heart-wrenching memoir, Fort Dimanche, Dungeon of Death, an excruciating account of his six years in captivity. 1908 (March 14): At least 27 political opponents or alleged opponents, most of them from the intellectual and social elites, were arrested and executed in the evening of March 14; some were also mutilated. Their executions were summary and swift, and most often evidence was sparring at best. Hurbon, Laennec, Comprendre Hati, Karthala, , 1987. It was that of the sleeve designer. Grenades and bombs exploded in the daytime and gunfire crackled at night, resulting in what Bernard Diederich, co-author (with Al Burt) of Papa Doc and the Tonton Macoutes, recently called "a day of mayhem, genocide! _ *** (United Nations, 2000: 9, NCHR, 2004). Danner, Mark, Beyond the Mountains, in The New Yorker, December 11, 1989. Gaillard, Roger, Les Blancs dbarquent, II. Jolibois, Grard, LExcution des frres Coicou, Port-au-Prince, Le Natal, 1988. _ During the entire duration of the dictatorship of Nord Alexis, opponents were subjected to summary executions, usually upon direct orders from Alexis himself. According to an OAS report (ICHR, 1991), which does not provide details on its sources and its methodology, 75 individuals were killed and 150 wounded, all of them (sic) macoutes or persons directly associated with Roger Lafontant. While hurricanes, floods and earthquakes have all devastated the landscape over the years, the biggest threat has come from humans. 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. His wife spent 10,000 a month on flowers and always wore expensive furs indoors - with officials facing death if they forgot to turn on the air-conditioning. With such numbers, every aspect of East German life was infiltrated; schools, hospitals and industrial plants all maintained informants, as did every apartment building in East Germany. Fuller, Anne, La tuerie de la Scierie, Le Nouvelliste, Port-au-Prince, April 2005. Those with the misfortune to be born in Haiti - part of the island of Hispaniola, shared with the Dominican Republic - have long endured a living hell. The militia was created in 1959, modelled on the Italian fascist Blackshirts. His cruelty earned him the nickname Vampire of the Caribbean. Described by one commentator as an 'international crime scene' rather than a country, Haiti became infamous around the world during the reign of Francois 'Papa Doc' Duvalier, a former doctor who murdered 100,000 people and formed a private band of killers called the Tonton Macoutes. The regime did not formally record who was imprisoned and who was executed, nor did it even attempt to keep track of this. In 1993, I watched as the might of the U.S. military was repelled by mobs armed with stones and clubs when American troops arrived to restore order. Tonton Macoute, an Album by Tonton Macoute. Rural people were crushed.". _ *** (United Nations, 2001: 17-18; Commission Nationale de Vrit et de Justice, 1997: chapter V, section C4; Concannon, 2001; Concannon, 2005). _ *** (Commission Nationale de Vrit et de Justice, 1997: Chapter V, section B). The exact number of victims still remains unknown. The soldiers first shot at voters in the waiting line with automatic weapons, before continuing their attack with machetes inside the polling station. Danroc, Gilles and Roussire, Daniel, La Rpression au quotidien en Hati (1991-1994), Commission Justice et Paix du diocse des Gonaives (Justice and Peace Commission of the Gonaives diocese), Karthala, , 1995. Recently, Francois Duvalier's grandson, Jean Claude's son, Franois-Nicolas Duvalier, an adviser to Haiti's current president Michel Martelly, wrote an opinion piece praising his grandfather's "republican values" and calling him a "great nationalist.". Many people were outraged that these individuals could appear on television, without any disguise, confess their participation in these events and threaten future criminal acts with no fear of being arrested by the authorities."[4]. _ The racism of the US Marines, most of whom were from the South of the United States (particularly Louisiana and Alabama), has been presented as a factor in the indiscriminate killings of niggers who pretend to speak French (in the words of a US general). About fifty Ougans and Mambos (priests and priestesses of the Voodoo religion) were killed for their links or alleged links with the Duvalier regime. They threatened a 'heap of corpses' at any future mass celebrated by Aristide. [22] They appeared in force again at polls in 1964, when Duvalier held a constitutional referendum that declared him president for life. Only one body was recovered and the others may have been disappeared. The occupants of the house were members of a pro-democracy group. 2022 The Progressive Inc. 931 E. Main Street, Suite 10 Madison, Wisconsin 53703 (608) 257-4626, Memories of a Duvalier Massacre, 50 Years Later. Most of the victims of this popular justice lived downtown and, therefore, were macoute chiefs of lesser importance or even miserable wretches (Trouillot, 1990: 155). A separate, detailed investigation of the event by a North-American human rights specialist in early 2005 put the total number of those killed at 27 (Fuller, 2005). These attacks may have been the first ever carried out by air on civilian populations. United Nations, Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Haiti prepared by Mr. Adama Dieng (E/CN.4/2001/106), United Nations, New York, 2004. When the Hospital could not supply this, the local funeral homes would be used. Several families from Jrmie (the Sansericq, Drouin and Villedrouin families) were entirely wiped out. [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. 'I, Too, Want to Be a Big Man': The Making of a Haitian 'Boat People', "The Tonton Macoutes: The Central Nervous System of Haiti's Reign of Terror", "1. A fresh take on sports: the biggest news and most entertaining lists. marketside butcher lamb halal,