Word: tonton
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...elections, had arrived only a few minutes earlier at L'Ecole Nationale Argentine Bellegarde, a Port-au-Prince elementary ) school. What he saw was a polling place turned into a killing ground. Bodies lay everywhere, some riddled by bullets, others hacked to pieces by machetes. A band of 50 Tonton Macoutes, former henchmen of the Duvalier family, had slaughtered almost a score of people as they lined up to vote...
...Diederich and TIME Photographer P.F. Bentley began taking pictures, shots rang out. "The Tonton Macoutes and the army were coming back to finish the job, to kill the journalists," said Bentley. "We raced toward the back door of the school, running over bodies as we left. A British reporter in front of me was hit in the lower leg. We were totally defenseless: no guns, just cameras." Still under fire, Bentley scaled a 10-ft.-high cinder-block wall, scrambled over another wall strung with barbed wire and finally escaped down a maze of narrow passages...
...violence seemed to be coming from all sides. At least part of it was reportedly from former Tonton Macoutes, members of the disbanded secret police. But the military, which in some areas was out of control, was also apparently responsible. Finally at 8:50 a.m. Pierre Shavet, an official of the independent electoral council, issued a declaration that "the elections are canceled...
...novel The Comedians, Graham Greene described a similar time in Haiti: "No one dared move on the roads at night; it was the hour when only the zombies worked, or else the Tonton Macoutes." That infamous paramilitary force of Dr. Francois (Papa Doc") Duvalier and his son Baby Doc was disbanded by decree after Jean-Claude fell from power last year, but in spite of repeated promises, it was never disarmed. The provisional government has prosecuted only a few of the most notorious thugs. "It isn't easy to get rid of something as basic as the Macoutes," says Aubelin...
...particularly hopeful about the election's outcome. The call for a substantial change in the provisional government has been stilled in the face of continuing U.S. support for the regime. Today, Aristide is advocating instead a "historic national unity" across class lines "to prevent Duvalierists and the Tonton Macoutes from taking power...