[1] Haitians named this force after the Haitian Creole mythological Tonton Macoute (Uncle Gunnysack) bogeyman who kidnaps and punishes unruly children by snaring them in a gunnysack (macoute) and carrying them off to be consumed at breakfast.[2][3]. 1914-1915. 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. Printed and made by the E.J. Genres: Jazz-Rock, Progressive Rock. During their reign, an estimated 30,000 to 60,000 men, women, and children were killed. Others will choose to commemorate it privately, without uttering a word. Created as a paramilitary force that answered only to Duvalier, the MVSN was implemented to remove any perceived threats to the President's power, of which there were many. On October 5, the Dominican army closed the border to prevent Haitians from escaping. So widely feared that the Haitian population referred to its members as a mythological creature, the Tonton Macoute, a sort of ghoul who kidnaps misbehaving children and eats them for breakfast, Haitian dictator Franois 'Papa Doc' Duvaliers secret police force, founded in 1959, the MVSN were highly feared, and extremely brutal. 44 ratings5 reviews. The Chief of Police in charge of the raid, Jean Coles Rameau, was extradited from the neighboring Dominican Republic, where he had fled one week after the event. 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. From 1957 to 1986, the Duvalier family reigned as dictators, turning the country into a hermit kingdom with a personality cult and corruption. Anthropological Reflections on Religion and Violence", "5. Several families were entirely exterminated. During the time of the NKVD, nearly ten million prisoners died in the Gulags, while millions more languished for years in the forced labour camps. Soldiers collected several bodies, which were not seen again. In Haiti: Security Security, commonly known as the Tontons Macoutes (a Haitian Creole phrase meaning "bogeymen"); the group was formally disbanded in 1986, but its members continued to terrorize the populace. _ *** (Turits, 2002; Turits, 2003: 161-180; Roorda, 1998: 127-139; Saez, 1988, vol I: 60-70; Castor, 1988; Garcia, 1983; Cuello, 1985). [4], On New Year's Eve Romain, who had taken refuge in the embassy of the Dominican Republic after the September coup, was granted safe passage out of the country, having been granted political asylum by the Dominican Republic. 1, 2001. Noun Macoute ( pl. Danner, Mark, Beyond the Mountains, in The New Yorker, December 11, 1989. _ None of those responsible for the killings and none of the perpetrators were brought to justice. About fifty Ougans and Mambos (priests and priestesses of the Voodoo religion) were killed for their links or alleged links with the Duvalier regime. Literature. A four-year child, Stphane Sansericq, was tortured in front of his relatives before being killed. 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). Following Stalins death in 1953, the NKVDs atrocities were halted by Nikita Khrushchev, with many living victims absolved of their crimes. Il est sorti et dans le sentier les Tontons Macoute ont tir sur lui d'une voiture. 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. Lemoine, Patrick, Fort-Dimanche, Fort-la-Mort, CIDIHCA, 1996. 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. Trained in part by the CIA, SAVAK was an extremely repressive police force in a society that dealt with dissidents swiftly. 1919 (November): At least two US planes bombed and shot at the civilian population of two villages of Thomazeau, in the southeastern region of the central plateau, and allegedly killed half of their inhabitants. Soldiers used machetes rather than firearms to prevent alerting the surrounding Haitian communities, which were exterminated afterward. 1991 (January 7): In Port-au-Prince, mobs of civilians supporting President-elect Aristide chased and killed macoutes, alleged macoutes and other supporters and alleged supporters of the Duvalier regime, after a failed coup attempt led by chief macoutes and former government minister Roger Lafontant. With Andrea Fantauzzi, Aimee Zannoni, Esteban Dager, Edem Atsu-Swanzy. Journalists were crushed. Massacre du 26 Avril 1963 : Vido de la terreur des Duvalier. Members of Tt Ansanm hid in the brush - some survived, while others were found and slaughtered by the armed brigades. Haiti Face the Future, EPICA, Washington, DC, 1994. The hunt was on. 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. Both their allusions to the supernatural and their physical presentations were used with the intention of instilling fear and respect. "Marking the 50th anniversary of one of the bloodiest and senseless days of the Duvalier dictatorship," she says, "will be for so many of us, a day of collective catharsis. [9][11] They began to be called the Tonton Macoute when people started to disappear for no apparent reason. He profited by extortion carried out by his henchmen and by supplying corpses and blood to universities and hospitals in the United States. Luckner Cambronne was a particularly fierce head of the Tonton Macoute throughout the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s. 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. A few days prior to January 17, a Justice of the Peace had ordered the arrest of 27 peasants from Gervais after the destruction of a storage area belonging to another party to the conflict. _ Beyond opponents of the regime, the targeted groups cannot be defined in traditional political terms, which made the Duvalierist violence fundamentally new (Trouillot, 1990: 166-170). There have been many brutal regimes in history that have employed a secret police service to carry out everything from intelligence activities against its citizens, to terror and mass executions. In 1970, the militia was officially renamed the Milice de Volontaires de la Scurit Nationale (Militia of National Security Volunteers or MVSN, probably taking name from the homonymous Italian Fascist paramilitary organization). From their methods to their choice of clothes, Vodou always played an important role in their actions. His goal, he said, was to prevent "this dark chapter in history from repeating itself.". 1991 (January 17): In Gervais, Artibonite, 12 peasants were killed and 8 were disappeared (while 20 others were wounded and 494 houses were allegedly set on fire). 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 few -- like Montas, who was arrested on Jean Claude Duvalier's orders, on November 28, 1980 -- who have been able to file complaints or testify, represent a small percentage of those who were arrested, jailed, tortured, or killed under the younger's Duvalier regime. phoenix 2021 limited worth; najbolje srpske pesme svih vremena. 589-636. ( 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. 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). 3, pp. Saez, Jos Luiz, Los Jesuitas en la Repblica Dominicana, Santo Domingo: Museo Nacional de Historia y Geografa: Archivos Histricos de las Antillas, 1988. Having returned Aristide briefly to power in 1994, the US military acting in concert with Canadian and French military forces, and in close coordination with former Tonton Macoutes and army . 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. spring garden apartments shooting; keston park famous residents. 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. _ *** (Pierre-Charles, 2000: 85-86; Avril, 1999: 146-149; Interviews with witnesses). The leader of the de-facto regime, Raoul Cdras, lives in Panama. Their executions were summary and swift, and most often evidence was sparring at best. Students were crushed. [6] Haitians named this force after the Haitian mythological bogeyman, Tonton Macoute ("Uncle Gunnysack"), who kidnaps and punishes unruly children by snaring them in a gunny sack (macoute) before carrying them off to be consumed for breakfast.[7][8]. [9][10] They were then renamed to Milice Civile (Civilian Militia), and after 1962, Volontaires de la Scurit Nationale (Volunteers of the National Security, or VSN). State Against Nation. 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 Caco rebellion constituted the main armed challenge to the US occupation and had been organized and led by Charlemagne Pralte, who was killed on October 31, 1919 and later became a heroic national figure. One of the most brutal secret police forces as well, the Securitate was responsible for monitoring and spying on Romanian citizens, as well as their arrests, tortures and executions. The militia was created in 1959, modelled on the Italian fascist Blackshirts. These children were carried away in his gunnysack, never to be seen again. 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. Tontons Macoutes stoned and burned people alive. In 1959, his paramilitary force was called the Cagoulards ("Hooded Men"). 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. [26] FRAPH extended its reach far outside that of the Haitian state and had offices present in New York, Montreal and Miami until its disarmament and disbandment in 1994.[27]. Many times the corpses were put on display, often hung in trees for everyone to see. Martissant, des Tontons Macoutes aux gangs arms - Le Nouvelliste It is estimated that over 60,000 Haitians were killed by the MVSN during both Duvalier and his son's reign. However, women and children were systematically excluded from repression (even the families of the leaders of the various rebellions against Alexiss regime). [1][4], The church was the parish of future President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, then a liberation theology Roman Catholic priest of the Salesians of Don Bosco order, and had been packed with 1000 people for Sunday mass. Anyone who challenged the MVSN risked assassination. ), En Grandissant sous Duvalier. _ *** (Danroc and Roussire, 1995: 71-79). Jean Worley, 54, a tall. Following Ceausescus removal from power in 1989, the Securitate survived two more years, until it was disbanded and reorganized by Romanian Parliament. A bogeyman of Haitian Creole folklore. Duvalier authorized the Tontons Macoutes to commit systematic violence and human rights abuses to suppress political opposition. _ *** (Jolibois, 1988: 46-48 and 213-54; Gaillard, 1995: 267-272 ; Gaillard, 1998: 86). Jean-Bertrand Aristide had not been sworn in yet when this event took place, and the interim government was led by Mrs. Trouillot, a civilian. 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. Unions were crushed. This particular name was earned by one of his endeavors of extorting blood plasma from locals for sale. Political satire was added to the stewpot of artistic influences when the dictator "Papa Doc" Duvalier came to power in 1957, terrorising the people of Haiti by means of his brutal Tonton. The most exhaustive study was carried out by CRESFED, a local NGO (Pierre-Charles, 2000). _ *** (Castor, 1988: 173-175; Gaillard, 1983: 282; Renda, 2001: 34). _ *** (ICHR, 1988: 22-23 and 103; ICHR, 1992). United Nations, Report of the Independent Expert of the Commission on Human Rights on the Situation of Human Rights in Haiti (AA 55/335), United Nations, New York, 2000. Thou. Haiti since Duvalier, Touchstone, 1990. The survivors, hiding in the woods and terrified, wrote to a French priest residing nearby to ask for his protection. The Haitian Ministry of Justice, with the help of several international human rights groups such as the OAS-UN joint civilian mission (MICIVIH) and the International Lawyers Office, prosecuted several individuals involved in murders and human rights violations. _ *** (Avril, 150-174 ; Pierre-Charles, 2000: 87-90). Although this killing was not politically motivated, it provoked great concern since it was the first large-scale execution since the return to democracy and suggested that the armys violent tactics against the poor had not ended, even though Aristide had officially abolished it. 1916 (June 4): Caco General Mizrael Codio and 10 of his men were executed after they were captured at Fonds-Verrettes (Northeast of Port-au-Prince, by the border with the Dominican Republic) by US Marines. Gaillard, Roger, La Rpublique Exterminatrice, Troisime Partie. (Sleeve) 1971 RCA Limited. 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