François Duvalier

François Duvalier
President of Haiti
In office 22 October 1957 – 21 April 1971
Preceded by	Antonio Thrasybule Kébreau (Chairman of the Military Council)
Succeeded by	Jean-Claude Duvalier
Minister of Public Health and Labor
In office 14 October 1949 – 10 May 1950
President	Dumarsais Estimé
Preceded by	Antonio Vieux (Public Health) Louis Bazin (Labor)
Succeeded by	Joseph Loubeau (Public Health) Emile Saint-Lot (Labor)
Undersecretary of Labor
In office 26 November 1948 – 14 October 1949
President	Dumarsais Estimé
Personal details
Born	14 April 1907 Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Died	21 April 1971 (aged 64) Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Nationality	Haitian
Political party	National Unity Party[1][2]
Spouse(s)	Simone Duvalier
Relations	Francesca Foucard Saint-Victor
Children	Marie‑Denise Duvalier Nicole Duvalier Simone Duvalier Jean-Claude Duvalier
Alma mater	University of Haiti (MD)
Occupation	Physician
Religion	Vodou, excommunicated Catholic

François Duvalier (French pronunciation: ​[fʁɑ̃swa dyvalje]; 14 April 1907 – 21 April 1971), also known as Papa Doc, was the President of Haiti from 1957 to 1971.^[3] He was elected president in 1957 on a populist and black nationalist platform and successfully thwarted a coup d’état in 1958. His rule, based on a purged military, a rural militia known as the Tonton Macoute, and the use of cult of personality, resulted in the murder of 30,000 to 60,000 Haitians and the exile of many more.^[3]

Prior to his rule, Duvalier, who was a physician by profession, was known for successfully fighting diseases and acquired the nickname “Papa Doc”. He took the title of President for Life in 1964 and remained in power until he died in 1971. He was succeeded by his son, Jean‑Claude, who was nicknamed “Baby Doc”.^[4]

Early life and career

Duvalier was born in Port-au-Prince in 1907, son of Duval Duvalier, a justice of the peace, and baker Ulyssia Abraham.^[5] His aunt, Madame Florestal, raised him.^[7]:51 He completed a degree in medicine from the University of Haiti in 1934,^[9] and served as staff physician at several local hospitals. He spent a year at the University of Michigan studying public health^[7]:53 and in 1943, became active in a United States-sponsored campaign to control the spread of contagious tropical diseases, helping the poor to fight typhus, yaws, malaria and other tropical diseases that had ravaged Haiti for years.^[9] His patients affectionately called him “Papa Doc”, a moniker that he used throughout his life.^[10]

The United States occupation of Haiti, which began in 1915, left a powerful impression on the young Duvalier. He was also aware of the latent political power of the poor black majority and their resentment against the tiny mulatto elite.^[11] Duvalier supported Pan-African ideals,^[12] and became involved in the négritude movement of Haitian author Jean Price-Mars, both of which led to his advocacy of Haitian Vodou,^[13] an ethnological study of which later paid enormous political dividends for him.^[11][14] In 1938, Duvalier co-founded the journal Les Griots. In 1939, he married Simone Duvalier (née Ovide), with whom he had four children: Marie‑Denise, Nicole, Simone, and Jean‑Claude.^[15]

Political rise

In 1946, Duvalier aligned himself with President Dumarsais Estimé and was appointed Director General of the National Public Health Service. In 1949, he served as Minister of Health and Labor, but when Duvalier opposed Paul Magloire’s 1950 coup d’état, he left the government and resumed practicing medicine. His practice included taking part in campaigns to prevent yaws and other diseases. In 1954, Duvalier abandoned medicine, hiding out in Haiti’s countryside from the Magloire regime. In 1956, the Magloire government was failing, and although still in hiding, Duvalier announced his candidacy to replace him as president.^[7]:57 By December 1956, an amnesty was issued and Duvalier emerged from hiding,^[16] and on 12 December 1956, Magloire conceded defeat.^[7]:58

The two frontrunners in the 1957 campaign for the presidency were Duvalier and Louis Déjoie, a landowner and industrialist from the north. During their campaigning, Haiti was ruled by five temporary administrations, none lasting longer than a few months. Duvalier promised to rebuild and renew the country and rural Haiti solidly supported him as did the military. He resorted to noiriste populism, stoking the majority Afro-Haitians’ irritation by being governed by the few mulatto elite, which is how he described his opponent, Déjoie.^[6]

François Duvalier was elected president on 22 September 1957 in the quietest and fairest election in Haiti’s history. Duvalier received 679,884 votes to Déjoie’s 266,992.^[17] Even in this election, however, there are multiple first-person accounts of voter fraud and voter intimidation.^[7]:64

Presidency

Consolidation of power

After being elected president in 1957, Duvalier exiled most of the major supporters of Déjoie^[18] and had a new constitution adopted that year.^[10]

Duvalier promoted and installed members of the black majority in the civil service and the army.^[12] In July 1958, three exiled Haitian army officers and five American mercenaries landed in Haiti and tried to overthrow Duvalier; all were killed.^[19] Although the army and its leaders had quashed the coup attempt, the incident deepened Duvalier's distrust of the army, an important Haitian institution over which he did not have firm control. He replaced the chief-of-staff with a more reliable officer and then proceeded to create his own power base within the army by turning the Presidential Guard into an elite corps aimed at maintaining Duvalier’s power. After this, Duvalier dismissed the entire general staff and replaced it with officers who owed their positions, and their loyalty, to him.^[10]

In 1959, Duvalier created a rural militia, the Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale (VSN, English: National Security Volunteer [Militia])—commonly referred to as the Tonton Macoute after a Haitian Creole term for bogeyman—to extend and bolster support for the regime in the countryside. The Macoute, which by 1961, was twice as big as the army, never developed into a real military force but was more than just a mere secret police.^[20]

In the early years of his rule, Duvalier was able to take advantage of the strategic weaknesses of his powerful opponents, mostly from the mulatto elite. These weaknesses included their inability to coordinate their actions against the regime, whose power had grown increasingly stronger.^[21]

In the name of nationalism, Duvalier expelled almost all of Haiti’s foreign-born bishops, an act that earned him excommunication from the Catholic Church.^[11] In 1966, he persuaded the Holy See to allow him permission to nominate the Catholic hierarchy for Haiti.^[22] No longer was Haiti under the grip of the minority rich mulattoes, protected by the military and supported by the church; Duvalier now exercised more power in Haiti than ever.

Heart attack and Barbot affair

On 24 May 1959, Duvalier suffered a massive heart attack, possibly due to an insulin overdose; he had been a diabetic since early adulthood and also suffered from heart disease and associated circulatory problems. During the heart attack, he was comatose for nine hours.^[7]:81–82 His physician believed that he suffered neurological damage during these events, which harmed his mental health.^[7]:82

While recovering, Duvalier left power in the hands of Clément Barbot, leader of the Tonton Macoute. Upon his return to work, Duvalier accused Barbot of trying to supplant him as president and had him imprisoned. In April 1963, Barbot was released and began plotting to remove Duvalier from office by kidnapping his children. The plot failed and Duvalier subsequently ordered a nationwide search for Barbot and his fellow conspirators. During the search, Duvalier was told that Barbot had transformed himself into a black dog, which prompted Duvalier to order that all black dogs in Haiti be put to death. The Tonton Macoute captured then killed Barbot in July 1963. In other incidents, Duvalier ordered the head of an executed rebel packed in ice and brought to him so he could commune with the dead man’s spirit.^[23] Peepholes were carved into the walls of the interrogation chambers, through which Duvalier watched Haitian detainees being tortured and submerged in baths of sulfuric acid; sometimes, he was in the room during the tortures.^[24]

Constitutional changes

In 1961, Duvalier began violating the provisions of the 1957 constitution: first he replaced the bicameral legislature with a unicameral body. Then he called a new presidential election in which he was the sole candidate, though his term was to expire in 1963 and the constitution prohibited re-election. The election was flagrantly rigged; the official tally showed 1,320,748 “yes” votes for another term for Duvalier, with none opposed.^[10] Upon hearing the results, he proclaimed, “I accept the people’s will. . . . As a revolutionary, I have no right to disregard the will of the people.^[16][7]:85 The New York Times commented, “Latin America has witnessed many fraudulent elections throughout its history but none has been more outrageous than the one which has just taken place in Haiti”.^[7]:85 On 14 June 1964, a constitutional referendum made Duvalier “President for Life”, a title previously held by seven Haitian presidents. This referendum was also blatantly rigged; an implausible 99.9% voted in favor, which should have come as no surprise since all the ballots were premarked “yes”.^{[10][7]:96–97} The new document granted Duvalier—or Le Souverain, as he was called—absolute powers as well as the right to name his successor.

Foreign relations

His relationship with the United States proved difficult. In his early years, Duvalier rebuked the United States for its friendly relations with Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo (assassinated in 1961) while ignoring Haiti. The Kennedy administration (1961–1963) was particularly disturbed by Duvalier’s repressive and authoritarian rule and allegations that he misappropriated aid money—at the time a substantial part of the Haitian budget—and a U.S. Marine Corps mission to train the Tonton Macoute. The U.S. thus halted most of its economic assistance in mid-1962, pending stricter accounting procedures, with which Duvalier refused to comply. Duvalier publicly renounced all aid from Washington on nationalist grounds, portraying himself as a “principled and lonely opponent of domination by a great power”.^[10]:234

Duvalier misappropriated millions of dollars of international aid, including US$ 15 million annually from the United States.^[25]:50–51 He transferred this money to personal accounts. Another of Duvalier’s methods of obtaining foreign money was to gain foreign loans, including US$ 4 million from Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.^[25]:47–48

After the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, which Duvalier later claimed resulted from a curse that he had placed on Kennedy,^[26] the U.S. eased its pressure on Duvalier, grudgingly accepting him as a bulwark against communism.^[10][27] Duvalier attempted to exploit tensions between the U.S. and Cuba, emphasizing his anti-communist credentials and Haiti’s strategic location as a means of winning U.S. support:

Communism has established centres of infection . . . No area in the world is as vital to American security as the Caribbean . . . We need a massive injection of money to reset the country on its feet, and this injection can come only from our great, capable friend and neighbor the United States.^[18]:101

After Fulgencio Batista (a friend of Duvalier)^[18]:92 was overthrown in the Cuban Revolution, Duvalier worried that new Cuban leader Fidel Castro would provide a safe haven for Haitian dissidents. Duvalier attempted to win Cuba over by recognizing Castro’s government by sending medicine and pardoning several political prisoners, but to no avail; from the very start of his regime, Castro gave anti-Duvalier dissidents his full support.^[18]:93

Duvalier enraged Castro by voting against the country in an Organization of American States (OAS) meeting and subsequently at the United Nations, where a trade embargo was imposed on Cuba. Cuba answered by breaking off diplomatic relations and Duvalier subsequently instituted a campaign to rid Haiti of communists.^[28]

Duvalier’s relationship with the neighboring Dominican Republic was always tense: in his early years, Duvalier emphasized the differences between the two countries. In April 1963, relations were brought to the edge of war by the political enmity between Duvalier and Dominican president Juan Bosch. Bosch, a leftist, provided asylum and support to Haitian exiles who had plotted against the Duvalier regime. Duvalier ordered his Presidential Guard to occupy the Dominican Embassy in Pétionville, with the goal of arresting a Haitian army officer believed to have been involved in Barbot’s plot to kidnap Duvalier’s children. The Dominican president reacted with outrage, publicly threatened to invade Haiti, and ordered army units to the border. However, as Dominican military commanders expressed little support for an invasion of Haiti, Bosch refrained from the invasion and sought mediation through the OAS.^[3]:289

In 1966, Duvalier hosted the emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie I, in what would be Haiti’s only visit by a head of state under Duvalier.^[18]:139 During the visit, Duvalier awarded Haile Selassie the Necklace of the Order of Jean-Jacques Dessalines the Great, and the emperor, in turn, bestowed upon Duvalier the Great Necklace of the Order of the Queen of Sheba.^[18]:139

Internal policies

Repression

1971 newsreel film about Duvalier’s rule

Duvalier’s government was one of the most repressive in the hemisphere.^[29] Within the country he used both political murder and expulsion to suppress his opponents; estimates of those killed are as high as 60,000.^[3] Attacks on Duvalier from within the military were treated as especially serious. When bombs were detonated near the Presidential Palace in 1967, Duvalier had nineteen officers of the Presidential Guard executed in Fort Dimanche.^[10]:357 A few days later Duvalier had a public speech during which he read the attendance sheet with names of all 19 officers killed. After each name, he said “absent”. After reading the whole list, Duvalier remarked that “all were shot”.^[25]:10–11

Haitian communists and even suspected communists bore the brunt of the government’s repression.^[18]:148 Duvalier targeted them as a means to secure U.S. support in addition to the principle: Duvalier was exposed to communist and leftist ideas early in his life and rejected them.^[18]:148 On 28 April 1969, Duvalier instituted a campaign to rid Haiti of all communists. The new law stipulated that “Communist activities, no matter what their form, are hereby declared crimes against the security of the State”, and he prescribed the death penalty for individuals prosecuted under this law.^[30]

Social and economic policies

Duvalier employed intimidation, repression, and patronage to supplant the old mulatto elites with a new elite of his own making. Corruption—in the form of government rake-offs of industries, bribery, extortion of domestic businesses, and stolen government funds—enriched the dictator’s closest supporters. Most of them held sufficient power to intimidate the members of the old elite, who were gradually co-opted or eliminated.^[10]

Many educated professionals fled Haiti for New York City, Miami, Montreal, Paris and several French-speaking African countries, exacerbating an already serious lack of doctors and teachers. Some of the highly skilled professionals joined the ranks of several UN agencies to work in development in newly independent nations such as Ivory Coast, and Congo.

The government confiscated peasant landholdings and allotted them to members of the militia,^[11] who had no official salary and made their living through crime and extortion.^[10]:464 The dispossessed fled to the slums of the capital where they would find only meager incomes to feed themselves. Malnutrition and famine became endemic.^[11]

Nonetheless, Duvalier enjoyed significant support among Haiti’s majority black rural population, who saw in him a champion of their claims against the historically dominant mulatto elite. During his 14 years in power, he created a substantial black middle class, chiefly through government patronage.^[10]:330 Duvalier also initiated the development of François Duvalier Airport, now known as Toussaint Louverture International Airport.

Personality cult and Vodou

Duvalier fostered his cult of personality and claimed he was the physical embodiment of the island nation. He also revived the traditions of Vodou, later using them to consolidate his power with his claim of being a Vodou priest, himself. In an effort to make himself even more imposing, Duvalier deliberately modeled his image on that of Baron Samedi, one of the loa, or spirits, of Haitian Vodou. He often donned sunglasses to hide his eyes and talked with the strong nasal tone associated with the loa. The regime’s propaganda stated that “Papa Doc was one with the [loa], Jesus Christ and God himself”.^[11] The most celebrated image from the time shows a standing Jesus Christ with a hand on the shoulder of a seated Papa Doc, captioned, “I have chosen him”.^[31] Duvalier declared himself an “immaterial being” as well as “the Haitian flag” soon after his first election.^[32] In 1964, he published a catechism in which the Lord’s Prayer was reworded to pay tribute to Duvalier instead of God.^[33][32]

Duvalier also held in his closet the head of former opponent Blucher Philogenes, who tried to overthrow him in 1963.^[25]:132 He believed another political enemy was able to change into a black dog at will and had the militia begin killing black dogs on sight in the capital.^[34]

Death and succession

Duvalier held Haiti in his grip until his death in early 1971. His 19-year-old son Jean-Claude Duvalier, nicknamed “Baby Doc”, succeeded him as president.

Books and films

Many books have been written about the Duvalier era in Haiti, the best known being Graham Greene’s novel, The Comedians.^[35] Duvalier, however, dismissed the piece and referred to its author as “a cretin, a stool pigeon, sadistic, unbalanced, perverted, a perfect ignoramous [sic], lying to his heart’s content, the shame of proud and noble England, a spy, a drug addict, and a torturer”.^[36] It was later made into a movie. Greene himself was declared persona non grata and barred from entering Haiti. The British television journalist Alan Whicker featured Duvalier in a 1969 episode of Whicker’s World, which includes an interview with the president.^[37]

The first authoritative book on the subject was Papa Doc: Haiti and its Dictator by Al Burt and Bernard Diederich, published in 1969,^[38] though several others by Haitian scholars and historians have appeared since Duvalier’s death in 1971. One of the most informative, Patrick Lemoine’s Fort‑Dimanche: Dungeon of Death,^[39] dealt specifically with victims of Fort-Dimanche, the prison Duvalier used for the torture and murder of his political opponents.

In 2007, British newspaper editor John Marquis published Papa Doc: Portrait of a Haitian Tyrant,^[40] which relied in part on records from a 1968 espionage trial in Haiti to detail numerous attempts on Duvalier’s life. The trial’s defendant, David Knox, was a Bahamian director of information. Knox lost and was sentenced to death, but was later granted amnesty.

References

1. Fatton, Robert, Jr. (2013). "Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s State Against Nation: A Critique of the Totalitarian Paradigm". Small Axe (Duke University Press) 17 (3 42): 208. doi:10.1215/07990537-2379009. ISSN 1534-6714. (subscription required (help)). In 1963, Duvalier created the Parti de l’unité nationale—PUN (National Unity Party)—to constitute a single-party system. . . . the existence of a single party as one of the defining characteristics of the totalitarian nature of Duvalierism . . . the party had a thoroughly inconsequential role in the Duvalierist system.
2. Lacey, Marc (23 March 2008). "Haiti’s Poverty Stirs Nostalgia for Old Ghosts". New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 13 September 2015.
3. Greene, Anne (2001). "Haiti: Historical Setting § François Duvalier, 1957–71". In Metz, Helen Chapin. Dominican Republic and Haiti. Country Studies. Research completed December 1999 (3rd ed.). Washington, D.C.: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress. pp. 288–289. ISBN 978-0-8444-1044-9. ISSN 1057-5294. LCCN 2001023524. OCLC 46321054. President Duvalier reigned supreme for fourteen years. Even in Haiti, where dictators had been the norm, François Duvalier gave new meaning to the term. Duvalier and his henchmen killed between 30,000 and 60,000 Haitians. The victims were not only political opponents, but women, whole families, whole towns. . . . In April 1963, when an army officer suspected of trying to kidnap two of Duvalier’s children took refuge in the Dominican chancery, Duvalier ordered the Presidential Guard to occupy the building. The Dominicans were incensed; President Juan Bosch Gaviño ordered troops to the border and threatened to invade. However, the Dominican commanders were reluctant to enter Haiti, and Bosch was obliged to turn to the [Organization of American States] to settle the matter.
4. "Real-Life Baron Samedi: Francois ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier". Life. Archived from the original on 27 June 2009.
5. Her name is recorded variously as “Ulyssia”,^[6] “Uritia”,^[7]:51 and “Irutia”.^[8]
6. Joseph, Romel (2010). The Miracle of Music. Friends of Music Education for Haiti. pp. 2–3. ISBN 978-0-9769847-0-2. OCLC 704908603.
7. Abbott, Elizabeth (2011). Haiti: A Shattered Nation. Rev. and updated from Haiti: The Duvaliers and Their Legacy (1988). New York: The Overlook Press. ASIN B013JQLXKW. ISBN 978-1-59020-989-9. LCCN 2013496344. OCLC 859201061. OL 25772018M.
8. Péan, Leslie (24 July 2014). "Métaspora de Joël Des Rosiers ou l’art comme dépassement de la vie quotidienne". Le Nouvelliste (in French) (Port‑au‑Prince). Archived from the original on 9 November 2015. Dans un mélange de subtilité allusive et de rigueur architecturale, Joël Des Rosiers décrit ainsi la détresse psychique du dictateur: « François Duvalier chasse Joseph Dunès Olivier de la magistrature. Il fut ostracisé pour avoir notarié l’acte de candidature à l’élection présidentielle du sénateur Louis Déjoie, opposant politique et véritable vainqueur des élections. Ce fut le premier acte illégal du dictateur. Oh ! Il en fut d’autres. Oh ! Par bassesse, le dictateur vengeait la mémoire de son vrai père Florestal Duvalier, citoyen français du Morne des Esses, commune de la Martinique, tailleur de son métier à la rue de l’Enterrement, dont le fils aîné Duval Duvalier fut fait officiellement le père adoptif de François Duvalier alors qu’il en était le demi‑frère. Pour maquiller sa paternité tardive, Florestal Duvalier, vieillard cacochyme, poussa son fils adulte Duval à reconnaître l’enfant, né de ses amours ancillaires avec une jeune domestique, Irutia Abraham, originaire de Maniche, commune des Cayes. La mère de Duvalier en devint folle. Son fils lui fut retiré si bien que l’enfant ne la connut jamais et fut élevé par une tante, madame Florestal .»
9. Harris, Bruce (12 October 2014). "Heroes & killers of the 20th century: The Duvaliers". moreorless (Sydney, Australia). Archived from the original on 10 September 2015.
10. Haggerty, Richard A. (1991). "Haiti: Historical Setting § François Duvalier, 1957–71" (PDF). In Haggerty, Richard A. Dominican Republic and Haiti (PDF). Country Studies (2nd ed.). Washington, D.C.: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress. pp. 232–235. ISBN 978-0-8444-0728-9. ISSN 1057-5294. LCCN 91-9495. OCLC 23179347. OL 1531915M. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 September 2015.
11. Wright, Giles. "François ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier". TheDictatorship.com. Archived from the original on 18 September 2015.
12. Bryan, Patrick E. (1984). The Haitian Revolution and its Effects. Heinemann CXC history (1st ed.). Oxford, England: Heinemann Educational Publishers. ISBN 978-0-435-98301-7. LCCN 83239673. OCLC 15655540. OL 3809991W.
13. Jenkins, Everett, Jr. (2011) [1st pub. 1998]. Pan-African Chronology II: A Comprehensive Reference to the Black Quest for Freedom in Africa, the Americas, Europe and Asia, 1865–1915. Pan-African Chronologies. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. p. 394. ISBN 978-0-7864-4506-6. LCCN 95008294. OCLC 913828919. During the 1930s, Duvalier joined a group of black intellectuals, the Griots. The Griots had begun to study and sanctify Haiti’s African heritage. The group’s work marked the beginning of a new campaign against the [child of two worlds] elite and an emerging ideology of black power, Haitian style. It was on this ideology that Duvalier later based his political leadership. His pro‑black led to his advocacy of [Vodou].
14. Juang, Richard M.; Morrissette, Noelle Anne (2008). "François Duvalier". Africa and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History 1. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. pp. 391–393. ISBN 978-1-85109-441-7. LCCN 2007035154. OCLC 168716701.
15. Hall, Michael R. (2012). Woronoff, Jon, ed. Historical Dictionary of Haiti. Historical Dictionaries of the Americas. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. p. 92. ASIN B007P5WH5O. ISBN 978-0-8108-7549-4. LCCN 2011035933. OCLC 751922123. OL 25025684M. While working in a hospital during the 1930s, [Simone Duvalier] met [François] Duvalier, and the couple married on 27 December 1939. They had four children: Marie‑Denise, Nicole, Simone, and Jean‑Claude Duvalier.
16. "François Duvalier: Haitian President". HaitianMedia.com. Archived from the original on 20 March 2012.
17. Maingot, Anthony P. (1996). "Haiti: Four Old and Two New Hypotheses". In Domínguez, Jorge I.; Lowenthal, Abraham F. Constructing Democratic Governance: Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean in the 1990s. Inter-American Dialogue 3. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 136. ISBN 978-0-8018-5404-0. LCCN 96-12421. OCLC 36288579. OL 7870247M. The vote, however, was for Papa Doc: Duvalier 679,884; [Déjoie] 266,993.
18. Abbott, Elizabeth (1988). Haiti: The Duvaliers and Their Legacy (1st ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-046029-4. LCCN 88016918. OCLC 18069022. OL 2040347M.
19. "A Weird, Fatal Dash into Turbulent Haiti". Life (Time). Vol. 45 no. 6. 11 August 1958. pp. 22–23. ISSN 0024-3019.
20. Tartter, Jean (2001). "Haiti: National Security § The Duvalier Era, 1957–86". In Metz, Helen Chapin. Dominican Republic and Haiti. Country Studies. Research completed December 1999 (3rd ed.). Washington, D.C.: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress. p. 464. ISBN 978-0-8444-1044-9. ISSN 1057-5294. LCCN 2001023524. OCLC 46321054. Although referred to as a militia, the VSN in fact became the Duvaliers’ front-line security force. As of early 1986, the organization included more than 9,000 members and an informal circle of thousands more. The VSN acted as a political cadre, secret police, and instrument of terror. It played a crucial political role for the regime, countering the influence of the armed forces, historically the regime’s primary source of power. The VSN gained its deadly reputation in part because members received no salary, although they took orders from the Presidential Palace. They made their living, instead, through extortion and petty crime. Rural members of the VSN, who wore blue denim uniforms, had received some training from the army, while the plainclothes members, identified by their trademark dark glasses, served as Haiti’s criminal investigation force.
21. Peschanski, João Alexandre (2013). "Papa Doc’s Feint: the misled opposition and the consolidation of Duvalier’s rule in Haiti". Teoria e Pesquisa 22 (2): 1–10. doi:10.4322/tp.2013.016. ISSN 0104-0103. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 July 2015.
22. "Haiti: Papa Doc’s concordat (1966)". Concordat Watch. Archived from the original on 16 January 2015. This concordat let Dr. François Duvalier (‘Papa Doc’) nominate seven key clerics, thus ensuring their personal loyalty to him. It also stipulates that future appointments should be ‘preferentially to members of the indigenous clergy’. Both these measures helped bring the Haitian church under Papa Doc’s control.
23. Lentz, Harris M. (2014) [1st pub. 1994]. "Haiti". Heads of States and Governments. Abingdon, England: Routledge. p. 357. ISBN 978-1-884964-44-2. OCLC 870226851. OL 14865945W. He once ordered the head of an executed rebel packed in ice and brought to the presidential palace so he could commune with his spirit.
24. Von Tunzelmann, Alex (2011). "Cuba Libre § ‘Our Real Friends’". Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean (1st ed.). New York: Henry Holt and Company. p. 236. ISBN 978-0-8050-9067-3. LCCN 2010037585. OCLC 648922964. OL 25022986M. Peepholes were made in his torture chambers, to allow him to observe discreetly. Sometimes, he was in the room itself, while men and women were beaten, tortured, and plunged into baths of sulfuric acid.
25. Shaw, Karl (2005). Šílenství mocných [Power Mad!] (in Czech). Prague: Metafora. ISBN 978-80-7359-002-4. OCLC 85144913.
26. Murray, Rolland (2008). "Black Crisis Shuffle: Fiction, Race, and Simulation". African American Review (Saint Louis University) 42 (2): 222. JSTOR 40301207 – via Questia. (registration required (help)). Haitian president François “Papa Doc” Duvalier infamously claimed that his [Vodou] curse on John F. Kennedy brought about the President’s 1963 assassination.
27. Smucker, Glenn R. (1991). "Haiti: Government and Politics § Foreign Relations" (PDF). In Haggerty, Richard A. Dominican Republic and Haiti (PDF). Country Studies (2nd ed.). Washington, D.C.: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress. pp. 346–349. ISBN 978-0-8444-0728-9. ISSN 1057-5294. LCCN 91-9495. OCLC 23179347. OL 1531915M. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 September 2015.
28. Štraus, Stane. "Biographies: François Duvalier (1907–1971)". PolymerNotes.org. Archived from the original on 11 July 2015.
29. Inskeep, Steve; Green, Nadege (6 October 2014). "Duvalier’s Death Causes Mixed Reactions In Miami’s Little Haiti". Morning Edition (Washington, D.C.: NPR). Archived from the original on 30 November 2014. People with ties to Haiti are remembering one of that country’s former dictators. Jean‑Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier died over the weekend. The old saying goes, speak nothing but good of the dead, but that is hard for Patrick Gaspard to do. He’s a U.S. diplomat and a Haitian‑American. And after Duvalier’s death, he tweeted, I’m thinking of the look in my mother’s eyes when she talks about her brother Joel, who was disappeared by that dictator. Duvalier and his father before him ran one of the most repressive regimes in the western hemisphere.
30. "Report on the situation of human rights in Haiti". Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Washington, D.C.: Organization of American States). 1979. ISBN 978-0-8270-1094-9. OCLC 8344995. Archived from the original on 21 March 2012. Current Haitian legislation contains a number of legal provisions that place considerable restrictions on the freedom of speech. The most important of these is the law of April 28, 1969:
    Article 1. Communist activities, no matter what their form, are hereby declared crimes against the security of the State . . . The authors of an accomplices in crimes listed above shall receive the death penalty, and their goods and chattels shall be confiscated and sold for the benefit of the State
31. Nicholls, David (1996) [1st pub. 1979]. From Dessalines to Duvalier: Race, Colour, and National Independence in Haiti (Revised ed.). New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. pp. xvi. ISBN 978-0-8135-2240-1. LCCN 95-8893. OCLC 32396546. OL 8025482M. Thousands of posters appeared as the Péligre dam was about to be opened proclaiming that ‘Duvalier alone is able to harness the energy of Péligre and give it to his people’. Others had Jesus with his hand on Duvalier proclaiming ‘I have chosen him’.
32. Kofele-Kale, Ndiva (2006). "The Cult of State Sovereignty". The International Law of Responsibility for Economic Crimes (2nd ed.). Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing. p. 261. ASIN B00B5QULLQ. ISBN 978-1-4094-9609-0. LCCN 2006006433. OCLC 64289359. OL 7991049M. Not satisfied with being the Haitian flag, . . . Duvalier also declared himself ‘an immaterial being’ shortly after he became ‘President-for-Life’, and issued a Catechisme de la Révolution to the faithful containing the following version of the Lord’s Prayer: ‘Our Doc, who art in the National Palace for Life, hallowed be Thy name by present and future generations. Thy will be done in Port-au-Prince as it is in the provinces. Give us this day our new Haiti and forgive not the trespasses of those antipatriots who daily spit on our country; lead them into temptation, and, poisoned by their own venom, deliver them from no evil . . .’
33. Fourcand, Jean M. (1964). Catechisme de la révolution [Catechism of the Revolution] (PDF) (in French). Port‑au‑Prince: Edition imprimerie de l’état. p. 37. Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 September 2015. Notre Doc qui êtes au Palais National pour la Vie, que Votre nom soit béni par les générations présentes et futures, que Votre Volonté soit faite à Port‑au‑Prince et en Province. Donnez‑nous aujourd’hui notre nouvelle Haïti, ne pardonnez jamais les offenses des apatrides qui bavent chaque jour sur notre Patrie, laissez‑les succomber à la tentation et sous le poids de leurs baves malfaisantes: ne les délivrez d’aucun mal. Amen.
34. "Haiti: The Living Dead". Time 82 (4). 26 July 1963: 20–21. Archived from the original on 27 September 2011.
35. Greene, Graham (1966). The Comedians. New York: The Viking Press. ASIN B0078EPH2C. LCCN 66012636. OCLC 365953. OL 106070W.
36. French, Howard W. (27 April 1991). "Haiti Recalls Greene With Gratitude". New York Times. Associated Press. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 25 May 2015.
37. Whicker, Alan (17 June 1969). Papa Doc: The Black Sheep. Whicker’s World. Archived from the original on 31 October 2015.
38. Diederich, Bernard; Burt, Al (1969). Papa Doc: Haiti and Its Dictator. London: The Bodley Head. ISBN 978-0-370-01326-8. LCCN 76532183. OCLC 221276122. OL 5009670M.
39. Lemoine, Patrick (2011) [1st pub. 1996 as Fort‑Dimanche, Fort‑la‑Mort ]. Prézeau, Maryse, ed. Fort-Dimanche, Dungeon of Death. Translated by Haspil, Frantz. Bloomington, Indiana: Trafford Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4269-6624-8. LCCN 2011906135. OCLC 45461011.
40. Marquis, John (2007). Papa Doc: Portrait of a Haitian Tyrant. Kingston, Jamaica: LMH Publishing. ISBN 978-976-8202-49-9. OCLC 692302388.