tonton macoute massacre

1977 (September 21): Eight political prisoners, who had been detained in Fort-Dimanche for several years, were taken out of their cells and shot by a firing squad in Morne Christophe, outside Port-au-Prince. 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. 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. These sentences were seen as a historical victory over the impunity enjoyed by instigators and perpetrators of political crimes in Haiti. Tontons Macoutes often stoned and burned people alive. He walked the streets at night, looking for children who stayed out too late. 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.". [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). . In 1970 the militia was renamed the Volontaires de la Scurit Nationale ( VSN, Volunteers of the National Security). Observers note that the poor were the main target of repression, although many well-known figures from the middle class, such as Aristides Minister of Justice, Guy Malary, and businessman Antoine Izmry, were also murdered by paramilitary groups. Haiti Face the Future, EPICA, Washington, DC, 1994. But it is no paradise for the country's nine million people. From the very well known and notorious, to others that may be new to the reader, here are ten of the most vicious, terrifying secret police forces in (mostly) modern history. Anthropological Reflections on Religion and Violence", "5. While executions were not as widespread as other secret police forces, torture was a matter of course, with many political prisoners left in solitary confinement for lengthy periods of time, deprived of sleep and burned, either by cigarette, grills or even acid. His goal, he said, was to prevent "this dark chapter in history from repeating itself.". Frre, Grard-Alphonse, Liste partielle des victimes de la dictature duvaliriste, 1957-1986, not dated. The Benot, Edelyn and families were exterminated and their bodies left in full view in front of their houses. According to local witnesses before the Truth and Peace Commission in 1995, several dead bodies were thrown into a nearby open mass grave dug on the soldiers orders; several youths were then executed after having dug the grave, and thrown into it; other bodies were allegedly carried away by a truck and were disappeared.. Mission Civile Internationale en Hati (MICIVIH), Rapport Trimestriel avril-juin 1999, Port-au-Prince, 1999. 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. They were taken from Fort-Dimanche and executed, at night, in Ganthier, a village Northeast of Port-au-Prince, and then thrown into a mass grave. [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]. Family members who tried to remove the bodies for proper burial often disappeared. The hunt was on. There had been an attempted kidnapping of Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier that morning and his father, Franois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, decided to unleash his wrath, and his henchmen, on the entire city of Port-au-Prince. Manigat, Leslie, Eventail dHistoire vivante dHaiti, vol. The Tonton Macoutes wore straw hats, blue denim shirts and dark glasses, and were armed with machetes and guns. 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. From 1919 on, the US airforce in Haiti was composed of at least three planes and used five airports (that it built) throughout the country. Trouillot, Michel-Rolph, Haiti. 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. Dahomay, Jacky, La Tentation tyrannique hatienne, Chemins Critiques, vol. 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. [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. The bloodbath began at the home of Montas's neighbor, Lieutenant Franois Benoit, an elite marksman who had been dismissed from the army. With one in ten under-40s infected with HIV, and millions living in squalor and destitution, thousands try to flee each year to the U.S. by hanging on to anything that will float. Updated November 6, 2012 6:40 AM. Roc, Nancy, Requiem pour la Scierie, in Alterpress, Port-au-Prince, April 16, 2004. Printed and made by the E.J. _ During this period, most of the killings and executions targeted small groups of individuals and therefore can not be listed here. 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. Mass Violence and Resistance - Research Network, Asia-Pacific under Japanese occupation during World War II. Though Russia and the Soviet Union have had numerous brutal secret police forces, notably the Cheka and the KGB, the NKVD is most notorious as it was the secret police force in the Soviet Union for the majority of Joseph Stalins reign. Haiti since Duvalier, Touchstone, 1990. The Tonton Macoutes, or macoutes, became an important piece of the repression apparatus of the regime, which used them to terrorize, torture and kill opponents (Diederich and Burt, 2005). Tonton Macoutes murdered over 60,000 Haitians. In March, 1962, Papa Doc devised another refinement - the Tonton Macoutes ("bogeymen"). Learn all about Tonton Macoute on AllMusic. 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. Several notorious macoutes, such as William Rgala, one of those responsible for the Vpres Jrmiennes, were promoted to political posts. [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. 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. [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. The bombs may have been handmade or grenades thrown from the planes. 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. 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. Benoit, G., Harnessing History to Development: the Story of Cazale, Trinity College, Haiti Papers no. Their unrestrained state terrorism was accompanied by corruption, extortion and personal aggrandizement among the leadership. She was seventeen years old. [9][11] They began to be called the Tonton Macoute when people started to disappear for no apparent reason. Gaillard (1983: 261), adding innocent victims and Cacos killed in combat throughout the occupation, reached the number of 15,000. Under the rule of interim President Ertha Pascale Trouillot, in the rural area of Saint-Marc (in the Artibonite discrict, North of the capital), three dozen army soldiers and armed local civilians killed 11 peasants, in the villages of Piatre, Djean, Dupervil, Ka Jan and Ti Plas, in the context of a land conflict between local peasants and big landowners. At least two young women, Anne and Ktia, were raped in the pro-Aristide police station of Saint-Marc, where they had come to report the assassination of their spouses. , updated p. 21. 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. Murdaugh is heckled as he leaves court, Ken Bruce finishes his 30-year tenure as host of BBC Radio 2, Ukrainian soldier takes out five tanks with Javelin missiles, Family of a 10-month-old baby filmed vaping open up, Missing hiker buried under snow forces arm out to wave to helicopter, Hershey's Canada releases HER for SHE bars featuring a trans activist, Moment teenager crashes into back of lorry after 100mph police race. Danner, Mark, Beyond the Mountains, in The New Yorker, December 11, 1989. While SAVAMA was a new police force in name, many historians argue that SAVAMA was merely an extension of its predecessor, maintaining the same methods as before. During this period, the social movements fighting for the establishment of democracy, human rights and the rule of law were persecuted by the military, former macoutes and paramilitary groups called attachs. The military killed political activists and journalists and organized their disappearance. According to Pierre-Charles (2000: 208), more than 1,500 people disappeared between 1986 and 1990, most of them under the rule of General Henri Namphy, between March and October 1987. [14] In 1971, President Duvalier died[15] and his widow Simone, and son Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier ordered Cambronne into exile. Not surprisingly, the Gestapo is number one of this list. 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. The total number of victims in Port-au-Prince that day was at least 34, although an observer interviewed by the ICHR (1988: 84) quoted the figure of 200. The name is Haitian French, apparently with reference to an ogre of folk tales. When the Hospital could not supply this, the local funeral homes would be used. Noun Macoute ( pl. Gaillard, Roger, Les Blancs dbarquent, V. Hinche mise en croix, Le Natal, Port-au-Prince, 1982. In Haitian Creole mythology, Tonton Macoutes was a bogeyman who kidnapped errant children in the night and stored them in his knapsack. A Macoute from the Duvalier era. As of August 2004, the minister of Justice had asked for the United Nations and the OAS participation in carrying out forensic analysis. 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. Tonton Macoute was an English jazz-rock/psych band from Newbury, Berkshire, that released a self-titled album on RCA-subsidiary Neon in 1971, followed by a standalone single under the abbreviated name Tonton in 1972. "While in prison," he recalls, "I witnessed the annihilation of a generation, a silent genocide known only to the few who survived. The archives of the FRAPH, that may contain crucial information on executions and various individuals responsibilities, are still in the possession of the US government to this day, which has refused to transfer them to the Haitian Ministry of Justice in spite of continuous campaigns from human rights groups. During a U.S.-led occupation of the country in the mid-1990s, the government of 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. Montas joins an even shorter list of high profile victims, whom Baby Doc is able to identify by name. 1967 (June 8): 19 military officers and high-ranking officers were killed in Fort-Dimanche by a firing-squad led by Franois Duvalier himself. According to press reports, Bal Wouz terrorized the inhabitants of the area with the consent of the local police on that day. President Aristide went into exile on February 29, 2004 and found asylum in South Africa. History In 1970, the militia was renamed the Volontaires de la Scurit Nationale (VSN, Volunteers of the National Security). They threatened a 'heap of corpses' at any future mass celebrated by Aristide. In December 2003, more than 13 years after the event, the investigative magistrate (who was the seventh to work on the case) issued a report indicting 53 suspects, including the various landowners and General Prosper Avril, for nine charges including murder. Roadblocks were set up. Most of the inhabitants were forced to flee the area and several dead bodies were eaten by dogs and rodents, as family members, fearing for their lives, preferred not to collect the corpses. Le Grand fauve, Le Natal, Port-au-Prince 1995. _ * (These events were often mentioned in interviews with witnesses and in an OAS report (ICHR, 1991: 469) but no exhaustive study has been conducted on the subject). After Baby Doc was forced to flee in 1986, the Tonton Macoutes were . 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. 1929 (December 6): In Marchaterre, in the vicinity of Les Cayes (in the South of the country), the US Marines opened fire on a peaceful demonstration of peasants, killing between 12 and 22 of them. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Report on the situation of human rights in Haiti, Portrait of a Folk-Hero: Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide, The More things change-- human rights in Haiti, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=St._Jean_Bosco_massacre&oldid=1136679075, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 31 January 2023, at 15:59. OpenSubtitles2018.v3. The de-facto regime relied on paramilitary death squads known as FRAPH, which carried out most of the executions and persecution of opponents and alleged opponents. Furthermore, Santebal was a major instrument of the Cambodian genocide committed by the Khmer Rouge. Peasants, the Trujillo Regime and Modernity in Dominican History, Stanford, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2003. The diversity of the victims was also a measure of the "Macoutes'" cruelty. Seven of its occupants, aged 20 to 30 years, were shot and killed while fleeing the house. [12] This group answered to him only. 1902 (August 8): In Petit-Gove, 450 civilians died in a fire which destroyed the town; it had allegedly been lit by the government forces of General Carri to force out the pro-Firmin forces. The Haitian Vodou Handbook: Protocols for Riding with the Lwa. sword and fairy 7 how to change language. Several families were entirely exterminated. 2004 (February 11): Event known as the massacre de la scierie. Fifty individuals, members of an anti-Aristide peoples organization known as RAMSICOM (sometimes spelled RAMICOS) were allegedly killed in the Scierie neighborhood of Saint-Marc by chimres(members of an illegal, armed pro-Aristide group) led by an organization known as Bal Wouz, whose leader, Amanus Mayette, was then a member of the Haitian Parliament. 17:09 EST 13 Jan 2010 Castor, Suzy, Le Massacre de 1937 et les relations hatiano-dominicaines, Le Natal, Port-au-Prince, 1988. Posted on June 16, 2022 June 16, 2022 Explore Tonton Macoute's discography including top tracks, albums, and reviews. Lemoine, Patrick, Fort-Dimanche, Fort-la-Mort, CIDIHCA, 1996. Michle Montas feels the same urgency in commemorating April 26 this year. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (ICHR), Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Haiti, Organization of American States (OAS), Washington, D.C., 1988. His house was set on fire, with a seven-month-old baby inside. Dolo k tomu v roce 1959 po pokusu tradin mulatsk elity a armdnch piek legln zvolenho prezidenta Duvaliera svrhnout. The vast majority of the victims belonged to the social and intellectual elites of the capital. Available at:http://www.alterpresse.org/spip.php?article1374#.XMLOZJMzbUI. After the country's first free elections in 1991, the new president, Jean Bertrand Aristide, was forced to flee after a coup by corrupt military figures keen to control lucrative cocaine smuggling routes. Both their allusions to the supernatural and their physical presentations were a tool to instill fear. Most of the victims were from the military, social and intellectual elites of the country. The latest chapter began in 1991 when . Army soldiers, former macoutes, and groups of armed men chased and killed members and alleged members of the pro-democracy movement, including supporters of President Aristide, during the coup perpetrated by a group of military officers led by Colonel Raoul Cdras. Their unrestrained state terrorism was accompanied by corruption, extortion and personal aggrandizement among the leadership. ", The hunt was indeed on for Duvalier's adversaries, army and civilian alike. 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. [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. The killings were part of dchoukajagainst macoutes, who were attempting to interrupt the democratic process at the time. She recalls the particular case of one of her fellow plaintiffs who was forced to travel from northern Haiti with her husband's severed head in a bucket during the father's reign and was only released from Fort Dimanche during the son's reign, as part of a prisoner exchange with the United States. tonton macoute Add phonetic spelling Translations of tonton macoute Russian : - French : tontons macoutes Korean : Spanish : los tonton macoute Chinese : macoute Show more Translation Translate this word/phrase Add tonton macoute details Meanings for tonton macoute Add a meaning Synonyms for tonton macoute Add synonyms Fuller, Anne, La tuerie de la Scierie, Le Nouvelliste, Port-au-Prince, April 2005. It was that of the sleeve designer. 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. 1993 (December 27): The FRAPH killed 37 people, while 26 others from the Cit Soleil shantytown were victims of forced disappearance. Over 1,000 houses were set on fire and destroyed by paramilitaries attempting to avenge the death of a FRAPH member in the area. 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. 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]. 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. 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. 589-636. Others, who slowed down their pace of work, were killed with machetes (Gaillard, 1982). 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. Tonton Macoute | Facts, Information, and Mythology Tonton Macoute "Uncle Gunnysack." A bogeyman of Haitian Creole folklore. In the northeastern region alone, up to 15,000 individuals were killed, most of them with machetes, between the 2nd and the 8th of October. But the torment did not end with the Duvaliers. 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. The force was created in 1959, only two years after Franois Duvalier became president, due to the threat the dictator perceived from the regular armed forces. He would also go on to sell cadavers to medical schools after buying them from Haitian hospitals for $3 per corpse. _ *** (Turits, 2002; Turits, 2003: 161-180; Roorda, 1998: 127-139; Saez, 1988, vol I: 60-70; Castor, 1988; Garcia, 1983; Cuello, 1985). Duvalier created the militia, because he felt threatened by the Haitian army. During the trial, the court heard that during the 28 years they ruled Haiti, the Duvaliers. Search instead in Creative? The MVSN were responsible for systematic rape, torture, disappearances and executions in Haiti during Duvalier and his sons reign of power. Other individuals were killed in the street or while driving their car. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. He has since published numerous books, Papa Doc: The Truth About Haiti Today (1969) and, most recently, Seeds of Fiction: Graham Greene's Adventures in Haiti and Central America, 1954-1983 (2012). [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. 1963 (April 26): In Port-au-Prince, macoutescarried out a series of assassinations of the families of alleged opponents to the government after a failed attempt to kidnap Papa Docs son Jean-Claude. [4] Aristide, who had survived at least six attempts on his life after a fiery 1985 Mass had helped spark the unrest which eventually led to the 1986 overthrow of the dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier,[5] was evacuated from the church into a residence inside the church compound. As with the notorious Lasalin massacre on November 13th, 2018- perpetrated by G-9 leader Cherizier along with paramilitary affiliates and police officers of the regime- these more recent. Tontons Macoutes stoned and burned people alive. Leaving Home 4. "1.2. Tonton Macoutes byly ozbrojen jednotky, kter zdil haitsk dikttor Franois Duvalier jako svoji soukromou armdu a tajnou policii. Hundreds were rounded up or disappeared into the bowels of Fort Dimanche, the notorious dungeon prison where many of Papa Doc's victims lost their lives. Macoutes) A member of the Tonton Macoutes in Haiti; by extension, a thug or criminal. According to Trouillot (1990: 106), 5,500 people died in forced labor camps. To counteract this threat, he created a military force that bore several names. (No subsequent reports from international human rights organizations mention this killing). This was the name given to the members of the Volontaires de la Scurit Nationale (National Security Volunteers), Franois and Jean-Claude Duvaliers militia force, created because Papa Doc did not trust the military to guarantee his safety. The lynching of Vilbrun Sam provided the pretext for the United States to intervene and occupy Haiti until 1934. 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. '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. 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. Benoit's parents were killed.

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