Finally, its violent and passionate acts never truly ended, and are carried on by other groups like the FRAPH, who kill political opponents and opposition leaders. What this means is that the Tontons Macoutes were part of a conscious strategy to identify spiritual forces and nationalism with loyalty to Duvalier, and to instill fear in [his] opponents. From their methods to their choice of clothes, vodou always played an important role in their actions. During the trial, the court heard that during the 28 years they ruled Haiti, the Duvaliers used the dreaded secret police, called the Tonton Macoutes, to torture and intimidate opponents. By the mid-1980s, the 9,000-strong VSN counted members of these various groups. Tonton Macoutes: The Central Nervous System of Haiti's Reign of Terror Those who spoke out against Duvalier would disappear in the night and were never seen again. The Tonton Macoutes, or macoutes, became an important piece of the repression apparatus of the regime, which used them to terrorize, torture and . Home; Service. Fifteen of them, including some journalists covering the event, were mowed down in hail of bullets by Duvalier loyalists. Very difficult. Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier's Tonton Macoutes, the fascistic paramilitary force who brutalized their fellow Haitians between the 1960s and the late 1980s, favored it. The militia consisted mostly of illiterate fanatics that were converted into ruthless zombie-like gunmen. In 1986, when Baby Doc Duvalier fled to France, one of the primary targets in the victorious rioting was the the infamous bagmen that had terrorized them for over two and a half decades, and the population of Haiti dispatched of them so brutally, that one must gape in shock at the. Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. Difficult. A diplomat even said, They are almost a clone of the Tontons Macoute. His brutality was manifest whenever there was a shortage of what he considered raw material (corpses). which was embodied by the Tonton Macoutes. "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. The group that was trying to prevent the participation of Haitis most popular party in the 2010 elections through the use of indiscriminate violence and political pressure was led by a former paramilitary leader convicted in the U.S. for drug trafficking and money laundering, Guy Philippe. This religious affiliation gave the Macoutes a sense of unearthly authority in the eyes of the public, which allowed them to perform horrific acts without any form of retribution from the Haitian population at large. . Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. One prisoner described that he witnessed two to three people die a day. The army trained them, and soon, became subordinated to them and the Tonton Macoutes were established as the primary military force in the nation, cementing the authority of Duvalier and allowing Haiti to become an autocratic and oppressive dictatorship. What Is a Machete, Anyway? - The Atlantic This is because as the killings progressed, the nation and its people became politically scarred, as was shown in the tumultuous period in Haiti in which the nation struggled through coup detat after coup detat, not reaching political stability until 2006, 20 years later. Journalists were crushed. Desyr was a close ally of the elder Duvalier and remained as chief of the secret police until 1980, when the son removed him for opposing his marriage to Michele Bennett, a divorcee. Tonton Macoute Jazz Rock/Fusion. Since then, despite the presence of an ineffective UN peacekeeping force, gangs have continued to wreak havoc and murder throughout a country where new graves are guarded to prevent bodies being stolen for voodoo rituals.