Dictator of the Month: May 2002Dictator of the Month: May 2002
| François
Duvalier
Take me to the picture gallery Fact Sheet Name: François Duvalier
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Biography
François Duvalier known as "Papa Doc"
(possibly April 14, 1907 - April 21, 1971) was the President of Haiti from
1957 and later dictator from 1964 until his death. He was raised in Port-au-Prince and trained as a
doctor, serving in rural areas. There he won acclaim for helping the poor
fight typhus and other diseases. He married Simone Ovide in 1939, and
became director general of the national health service in 1946. In 1949,
he served as minister of both health and labour. After opposing the coup
of Paul Magloire, he was forced into hiding until an amnesty in 1956. Backed by the army, Duvalier won the 1957 Haitian
elections; he had campaigned as a populist leader, attacking the "noirist"
elite. Duvalier revived the traditions of vodun and later used them to
consolidate his power, claiming to be a hougan himself. Duvalier
deliberately modeled his image on that of Baron Samedi in an effort to
make himself even more imposing. He worked to consolidate his rule; after surviving a
coup in mid-1958, he purged the army. He then rewrote the constitution and
then won the 1961 election: the official count was 1.32 million votes for
Duvalier and none against. He established himself as president for life in
1964 and his rule assumed a more brutal and repressive character. Wary of
the army, he created a militia in 1959, known as the VSN (Volontaires de
la Sécurité Nationale) from 1962, to protect his power outside the
capital. The VSN became better known as the Tonton Macoute (or Makout).
Because they received no official salary, they had to make their living
through crime and extortion. To protect his person, Duvalier used the
Garde Présidentielle. Duvalier came under pressure from the government of
John F. Kennedy due to evidence of corruption over aid. Aid was officially
suspended in 1962 but the pressure eased following the death of Kennedy.
The country assumed the mantle of an anti-communist presence to balance
that of nearby Cuba. After Kennedy's assassination, Duvalier claimed that
the killing was a result of his placing a curse on Kennedy. In April 1963, Haiti was almost attacked by the
Dominican Republic. Only the lack of senior military support for Juan
Bosch y Gaviño prevented the Dominicans invading; instead, the conflict
was mediated by the OAS. By the mid-1960s it was clear that Duvalier had no
intention of stepping down. In June of 1964 he was proclaimed president
for life and began to create a personality cult around the image of
himself as the physical embodiment of the Haitian nation. Like some of his
predecessors, Duvalier was often rumored to be contemplating making
himself Emperor of Haiti, and ruling the nation as a monarch. Within the country Duvalier used both political murder and expulsion to suppress his opponents; estimates of those killed are as high as 30,000. Attacks on Duvalier from within the military were treated as especially serious; in 1967 bombs detonated near the Presidential Palace led to the execution of twenty Garde Présidentielle officers. His reign of terror kept the country in his grip until his death in early 1971, after he had set his 19-year-old son Jean-Claude Duvalier to succeed him. This article is from www.wikipedia.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%E7ois_Duvalier And is subject to the GNU-FDL license for free documentation List of authors at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fran%C3%A7ois_Duvalier&action=history
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