Word: tonton
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...time a country doctor, Duvalier came to power in 1957, emerging as president after months of political upheaval, rioting, executions, and military rule. He modeled his regime after that of Trujillo in the Dominican Republic and enforced it with his secret police, the famed Tonton Macoute...
Stories of executions by the Tonton Macoute are common. Recently, after a Haitian citizen had been murdered in broad daylight, a judge ruled that he had died a natural death. As one of the characters in Graham Greene's novel The Comedians remarks, "Violent deaths are natural deaths in Haiti...
...Tonton Macoute themselves are veiled in mystery. They do not wear uniforms, but move among the people--who don't talk about politics, because anyone could be an informer. One university student admitted that his father was in jail...
Their loyalty, of course, has a basis in fear, the political fear of the vicious Tonton Macoute and the mystic fear that Duvalier's own voodoo practice has generated. He takes the name "Baron Samedi"--one of the manifestations of the voodoo deity--and in 1963, when he popularized the story that he had engineered Kennedy's assassination through voodoo, many Haitians believed...
...hospital is a monument to what man can do, but it stands alone, dwarfed by the stunning poverty of the land, the fascism of Papa Doc, and the terrorism of the Tonton Macoute--more sobering monuments to what man actually does.Stories of executions by the TONTON MACOUTE are common. Recently, after a Haitian citizen had been murdered on broad daylight, a judge ruled that he had died a natural death...