Word: tonton
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...obtained endorsements from 120 leading sports figures, including Cycling Champion Jeannie Longo, and appeared at rallies with rock stars like Johnny Hallyday. He even publicized an endorsement from Actor Gregory Peck. Not to be outdone, Mitterrand supporters persuaded Veteran Crooner Charles Trenet to record a ditty called Vas-Y Tonton ("Go to It, Uncle," a play on Mitterrand's nickname, "Tonton"). Though campaign advertising is not permitted on television, the growth of privately owned channels in recent years enabled candidates to saturate the tube with appearances on news and feature shows. Even candidates' wives, who in the past played little...
...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...
There was much confusion as to who was behind the violence. Eyewitness reports cited the dreaded Tonton Macoutes, the paramilitary force employed by the Duvaliers and officially disbanded by the Namphy junta, though never disarmed. Last week several well-known henchmen had come out of hiding, and were walking the streets again in broad daylight. "The return of the Tonton Macoutes is total," said a Haitian journalist...
...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...