Word: militiaization
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...Communists do not seriously fear a U.S. invasion. President Kennedy, in fact, has promised them that the U.S. will not invade. Nor do they worry much about an internal uprising; after four years of power, they feel secure behind their 50,000-man army and 250,000-man militia. The slogan "Patria o Muerte [fatherland or death]" was on every wall 17 months ago; today the dinning words are Al Trabajo, meaning "to work...
...Papa Doc. A few weeks later, Barbot's men pounced on schoolhouses where peasants had been herded in like cattle, waiting to shout Vive Papa Doc at a government rally. Seven were killed-and word of the terror started to shake Duvalier's regime. Duvalier sent militia patrols to comb Port-au-Prince's festering slums. But Barbot laid clever ambushes: in one fight alone, 30 loyal Duvalierists were reported killed. While Duvalier's men were out chasing him, Barbot raided their lightly guarded barracks for arms. He even telephoned the palace one day, warning Duvalier...
...Militia & Army. Duvalier has reason to worry. Haiti's per capita income is about $70 a year, one of the lowest in the hemisphere; unemployment averages 60%, illiteracy runs 90%, and life expectancy is only 32.6 years. When he campaigned for the presidency in 1957, Duvalier, a onetime backwoods physician who ministered to the poor, promised to change everything. Instead, he slapped on stiff new taxes and tolls, siphoned off graft to his cronies. To hold down the opposition, Duvalier set up a plainclothes gestapo of 5,000 men, called Tonton Macoute, or bogeymen, and in 1960 added...
Until recently, the only outward manifestations of revolt were a few student marches, and individual acts of defiance. But now Haiti's U.S. -trained 5,000-man army is dissatisfied with Duvalier, and embittered at being upstaged by the ragtag militia. Last month a group of army officers hatched a plot to depose Duvalier. When the dictator got wind of the coup, four of the officers involved managed to take refuge in the Brazilian embassy. A fifth, Colonel Charles Turnier, was picked up and dragged to Dessalines barracks for "questioning." Next morning machine guns rattled in the barracks...
...Duvalier's two children-Jean-Claude, 12, and Simone, 14-were being driven to Methodist Bird College two blocks from the palace, a car pulled alongside and shots rang out. Neither child was hit, but the driver and two bodyguards were killed. Duvalier called out the militia to patrol all the streets of the capital, and a heavy dread of reprisal set in. By nightfall his men had gunned down six people, including two motorists. The U.S. embassy warned the 1,000 Americans in Haiti to stay clear of Port-au-Prince, stock up on food and water...