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22-481: The victims were killed one by one by the Haitian Army , until the last two survivors, Louis Drouin and Marcel Numa, were captured alive, brought back to Port-au-Prince and shot in public against a cemetery wall on November 12, 1964. The massacre was called the "vespers" because many of the families killed by the regime are remembered as the families who took many aforementioned "vesper" picnic excursions. Several of

44-641: A military force that bore several names. In 1959, his paramilitary force was called the Cagoulards ("Hooded Men"). They were renamed to Milice Civile ( Civilian Militia ) and, after 1962, Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale ( Volunteers of the National Security , or VSN). They began to be called the Tonton Macoute when people started to disappear or were found killed for no apparent reason. This group answered to him only. Duvalier authorized

66-459: A planned settlement named for her that is known today as Cité Soleil , one of the most miserable slums in Latin America. Simone Duvalier's influence reached its peak after the death of her husband on 21 April 1971, when her nineteen-year-old son Jean-Claude Duvalier ( Baby Doc ) succeeded his father as Haiti's "President for Life". Simone Duvalier retained the title of First Lady, and relished

88-489: The Tontons Macoute a kind of unearthly authority in the eyes of the public. From their methods to their choice of clothes, Vodou always played an important role in the paramilitary's actions. The Tonton Macoutes wore straw hats, blue denim shirts and dark glasses, and were armed with machetes and guns. Both their allusions to the supernatural and their physical presentations were used to instill fear and respect among

110-632: The Tontons Macoutes to commit systematic violence, terrorism, and human rights abuses to suppress political opposition. They were responsible for unknown numbers of murders and rapes in Haiti . Political opponents often disappeared overnight, or were sometimes attacked in broad daylight. Tontons Macoutes stoned and burned people alive. Many times they put the corpses of their victims on display, often hung in trees for everyone to see and take as warnings against opposition. Family members who tried to remove

132-510: The griots , after it had been dropped for years by those with education. The Tonton Macoute were strongly influenced by Vodou tradition and adopted denim uniforms resembling clothing like that of Azaka Medeh , the patron of farmers. They carried and used machetes in symbolic reference to Ogun , a great general in Vodou tradition. Some of the most important members of the Tontons Macoute were Vodou leaders. This religious affiliation gave

154-547: The 1990s was the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haïti (FRAPH), which Toronto Star journalist Linda Diebel described as modern Tonton Macoutes , and not the legitimate political party it claimed to be. Led by Emmanual Constant, FRAPH differed from the Tonton Macoute in its denial to submit to the will of a single authority and its cooperation with regular military forces. FRAPH extended its reach far outside that of

176-736: The Haitian state and had offices present in New York City , Montreal , and Miami until its disarmament and disbandment in 1994. Wolfen - in the film Wolfen(1981) the bodyguard that is killed by the Wolfen at the beginning of the film is referred to as being tough and formerly of the Tonton Macoute Simone Duvalier Simone Duvalier ( French pronunciation: [simɔn dyvalje] ; née Ovide ; 19 March 1913 – 26 December 1997), also known as Mama Doc ,

198-457: The Hospital could not supply bodies, he used local funeral homes. In 1971, after Duvalier died, his widow Simone and son Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier ordered Cambronne into exile. Cambronne moved to Miami , Florida , US, where he lived until his death in 2006. When François Duvalier came to power in 1957, Vodou was becoming celebrated as authentic Haitian culture by intellectuals and

220-588: The Macoute , was a Haitian paramilitary and secret police force created in 1959 by dictator François "Papa Doc" Duvalier . 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. The Macoute were known for their brutality, state terrorism , and assassinations . In 1970,

242-554: The bodies for proper burial often disappeared. Anyone who challenged the VSN risked assassination. Their unrestrained state terrorism was accompanied by corruption, extortion, and personal aggrandizement among the leadership. 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 comply with extortion threats (ostensibly taken as donations for public works, but which were in fact

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264-449: The common people, including any opposition actors. Their title of Tonton Macoute was embedded in Haitian lore of a bogeyman who took children away in his sack, or Makoute. The Tontons Macoute were a ubiquitous presence at the polls in 1961, when Duvalier held a presidential referendum in which the official vote count was an "outrageous" and fraudulent 1,320,748 to 0 , electing him to another term. They appeared in force again at

286-505: The country's debts. This continued until the Tonton Macoute was left on its own when "Baby Doc" fled the country with an estimated $ 900 million. The Tonton Macoute remained active even after the presidency of Baby Doc ended in 1986, at the height of the Anti-Duvalier protest movement . Massacres led by paramilitary groups spawned from the r-Macoutes continued during the following decade. The most feared paramilitary group during

308-429: The group were from the town of Jérémie. During two months that the army and the resistance group fought in the hills, the regime ordered the arrest and murder of Jeune Haiti's family members. 27 people were murdered, ranging in age from 85-year-old Mrs Chenier Villedrouin to 2-year-old Régine Sansaricq. The murdered were: Tonton Macoutes The Tonton Macoute ( Haitian Creole : Tonton Makout ) or simply

330-480: The hills above Port-au-Prince . The orphans were encouraged to acquire vocational skills and Simone Ovide was trained as a nurse's aide . While working as a nurse she met a young doctor named François Duvalier ( Papa Doc ). The couple was married on 27 December 1939, and had four children: Marie Denise, Nicole, Simone “Queen”, and Jean-Claude, their only son. After their marriage, François Duvalier became minister of public health and labor in 1949 and won election to

352-555: The militia was renamed the Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale ( VSN , English: National Security Volunteers ). Though formally disbanded in 1986, its members continued to terrorize the country. After the July 1958 Haitian coup attempt against President François Duvalier , he purged the army and law enforcement agencies in Haiti and executed numerous officers perceived to be a threat to his regime. To counteract such activity, he created

374-513: The polls in 1964, when Duvalier held a constitutional referendum that declared him president for life . From 1985, the United States began to stop funding aid to Haiti, cutting nearly a million dollars within a year. Nonetheless, the Baby Doc regime pushed forward and even had a national party for the Tontons Macoute . Tonton Macoute day was 29 July 1985; among the festivities, the group

396-660: The power it conferred. According to a number of her associates, she deeply resented having to relinquish that role after Jean-Claude Duvalier married in 1980 and she was demoted to "Guardian of the Duvalierist Revolution". When her son was ousted from power in February 1986, Simone Duvalier joined him and his wife, Michèle Bennett , in exile in France. She was rarely seen in public. After her son's bitter divorce from his wife, Simone Duvalier lived with her son in relative poverty in

418-405: The presidency in 1957. Throughout his 14 years in office, his wife guarded access to her husband and developed and promoted her own palace favorites. Because of her acquired status and her imperious bearing, Haitians referred to her as "Mama Doc". She was, like her husband, reported to be a Vodou expert. She cultivated the image of a benefactor; dispensing charity to inhabitants of "Cite Simone",

440-642: The source of profit for corrupt officials and even President Duvalier). The Tontons Macoutes murdered between 30,000 and 60,000 Haitians. Luckner Cambronne led the Tontons Macoute throughout the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s. His cruelty earned him the nickname "Vampire of the Caribbean". He extorted blood plasma from locals for sale for his profit. Cambronne did this through his company "Hemocaribian"; he shipped five tons of plasma per month to US Labs. He also sold cadavers to medical schools after buying them from Haitian hospitals for $ 3 per corpse. When

462-455: Was bestowed new uniforms and was honored by all of Baby Doc's cabinet. In the exuberance, the Tonton Macoute went out into the streets and shot 27 people for the national party. The lack of funds going to the Tonton Macoute was a result of those funds being intercepted by the Duvalier dynasty . It sometimes took nearly 80 percent of international aid to Haiti, but paid only 45 percent of

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484-527: Was the wife of Haitian leader François "Papa Doc" Duvalier and the First Lady of Haiti . She was born Simone Ovide in about 1913 near the Haitian town of Léogâne , the daughter of a mulatto merchant and writer, Jules Faine , and Célie Ovide, one of the maids in his household. At an early age her mother gave her up, and she spent much of her childhood in an orphanage in Pétion-Ville , an exclusive suburb in

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