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Tonton Macoute

The Tonton Macoute (Haitian Creole: Tonton Makout)[1][2][3] or simply the Macoute,[4][5] 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.[6][7] The Macoute were known for their brutality, state terrorism, and assassinations.[8][9] In 1970, the militia was renamed the Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale (VSN, English: National Security Volunteers).[10] Though formally disbanded in 1986, its members continued to terrorize the country.[11]

History

"Papa Doc" Duvalier created the Tontons Macoutes because he perceived the regular military to be a threat to his power.

After the July 1958 Haitian coup d'état 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 a military force that bore several names. In 1959, his paramilitary force was called the Cagoulards ("Hooded Men").[12][13] They were renamed to Milice Civile (Civilian Militia) and, after 1962, Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale (Volunteers of the National Security, or VSN).[12][14] They began to be called the Tonton Macoute when people started to disappear or were found killed for no apparent reason.[15] This group answered to him only.

Duvalier authorized 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 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 the source of profit for corrupt officials and even President Duvalier). The Tontons Macoutes murdered between 30,000 and 60,000 Haitians.[16]

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 the Hospital could not supply bodies, he used local funeral homes.[17]

In 1971, after Duvalier died,[18] 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.[19]

When François Duvalier came to power in 1957, Vodou was becoming celebrated as authentic Haitian culture by intellectuals and the griots, after it had been dropped for years by those with education.[20] 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.[21][22]

Some of the most important members of the Tontons Macoute were Vodou leaders. This religious affiliation gave 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 the common people, including any opposition actors.[6][23][24] Their title of Tonton Macoute was embedded in Haitian lore of a bogeyman who took children away in his sack, or Makoute.[20]

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.[25] They appeared in force again at the polls in 1964, when Duvalier held a constitutional referendum that declared him president for life.[citation needed]

Legacy

In 1985, the United States began to shut down funds to Haitian aid, cutting nearly a million dollars from it 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 and amongst festivities, the group 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.[26]

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 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.[27]

The Tonton Macoute remained active even after the presidency of Baby Doc ended in 1986,[28] at the height of the Anti-Duvalier protest movement.[24] Massacres led by paramilitary groups spawned from the r-Macoutes continued during the following decade. The most feared paramilitary group during 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.[10]

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.[29] FRAPH extended its reach far outside that of the Haitian state and had offices present in New York City, Montreal and Miami until its disarmament and disbandment in 1994.[30]

Representation in other media

See also

References

  1. ^ Taylor, Patrick (1992). "Anthropology and Theology in Pursuit of Justice". Callaloo. 15 (3): 811–823. doi:10.2307/2932023. ISSN 0161-2492. JSTOR 2932023. After François Duvalier was elected president with popular support in 1957, he created his own security force because he did not trust the army. (Its popular name, tonton makout, is taken from a tale about an uncle who carries off children in a bag on his shoulder.)
  2. ^ Bernat, J. Christopher (1999). "Children and the Politics of Violence in Haitian Context: Statist violence, scarcity and street child agency in Port-au-Prince" (PDF). Critique of Anthropology. 19 (2): 121–122. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.623.758. doi:10.1177/0308275X9901900202. ISSN 0308-275X. S2CID 145185450. Archived (PDF) from the original on 3 December 2013. Assisted by contemporary factions of the notorious tonton makout – the rightist, army-supported civilian death squads – Cedras completed what would turn out to be the bloodiest coup d'etat in recent Haitian history.
  3. ^ Fouron, Georges E. (2009). "2. Leaving Home § 4. 'I, Too, Want to Be a Big Man': The Making of a Haitian 'Boat People'". In Okpewho, Isidore; Nzegwu, Nkiru (eds.). The New African Diaspora. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. p. 78. ISBN 978-0-253-35337-5. LCCN 2009005961. OCLC 503473672. OL 23165011M. The strength of his government was invested in a non-salaried paramilitary civilian militia known as the Tonton Makout (Uncle Knapsack). Staffed by informers, spies, bullies, neighbourhood bosses and extortionists, the Makout freely used extreme violence, terror, and intimidation to cow the population out of all illusions of destabilising the regime.
  4. ^ Fass, Simon M. (1988). "Schooling". Political Economy in Haiti: The Drama of Survival. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers. p. 250. ISBN 978-0-88738-158-4. LCCN 87-25532. OCLC 16804468. OL 4977156W. Retrieved 22 September 2015.
  5. ^ Danticat, Edwidge (1994). Breath, Eyes, Memory (in English and Haitian Creole). Vol. 16. New York: Soho Press. ISBN 978-1-56947-142-5. LCCN 94-38568. OCLC 29254512. OL 1806978W. Retrieved 22 September 2015.
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External links