Background
Little is known of the origins of François Duvalier. Though some of his ancestors came from Martinique, his parents were Haitians, and he was born in Petit-Goâve in southern Haiti, on April 14, 1907.
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Little is known of the origins of François Duvalier. Though some of his ancestors came from Martinique, his parents were Haitians, and he was born in Petit-Goâve in southern Haiti, on April 14, 1907.
Duvalier graduated in 1934 from the Haitian National University Medical School. He was active in the U. S. Army—directed sanitary programs initiated in Haiti during World War II. In 1944-1945 he studied at the University of Michigan.
After returning to Haiti, Duvalier became minister of health and labor in President Dumarsais Estimé's government. After opposing Paul Magloire's coup d'etat in 1950, Duvalier returned to the practice of medicine, especially the anti-yaws and malaria campaigns. In 1954 he abandoned medicine and went into hiding in the Haitian backcountry, until a Magloire amnesty granted to all political opponents in 1956 enabled him to emerge from hiding. He immediately declared his candidacy for the next elections.
Duvalier had a solid base of support in the countryside and, like the campaigns of the other candidates, his was based on national reconciliation and reconstruction. He made various tactical alliances with one or more of the other candidates, won the army to his cause, and finally overwhelmed Louis Déjoie, his main opponent, in what turned out to be the quietest and most accurate election in Haiti's history.
In spite of this auspicious start, Duvalier's government was dogged by problems. The defeated candidates refused to cooperate with him and, from hiding, encouraged violence and disobedience. After Fidel Castro came to power, Cuba began to harbor various Haitian refugees, who had escaped the increasingly harsh Duvalier regime. Furthermore, Gen. Rafael Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic and archfoe of Castro, feared a Cuban invasion through Haiti, and this concern led to Dominican meddling in Haitian affairs.
It was during this period that Duvalier created an organization directly responsible to him, the tontonmacoutes (TTM), the Haitian version of a secret police. Through the late 1950s to the middle 1960s this force continued to grow and through brutality and terrorism helped to reduce elements which might oppose Duvalier.
In the 1961 Assembly elections Duvalier had his name placed on the top of the ballots. After the "election" he interpreted this impromptu act as a further mandate of 6 years. In the words of the New York Times of May 13, 1961, "Latin America has witnessed many fraudulent elections … but none will have been more outrageous than the one which has just taken place in Haiti. "
After the 1961 elections the American government made it clear that the United States regarded those elections as fraudulent and that Duvalier's legal term should end in 1963. During 1962 the American AID Mission was withdrawn from Haiti, and by April 1963 an American fleet maneuvered close to Port-au-Prince. On May 15, to show its disapproval of Duvalier's continued presence, the United States suspended diplomatic relations. At the same time, with Haitian-Dominican relations at a low ebb, Duvalier's pledged ideological enemy, President Juan Bosch of the Dominican Republic, was threatening to invade Haiti. Even the Organization of the American States (OAS) became involved, sending a fact-finding mission to Haiti. However, Duvalier remained firmly in control, the Dominicans backed down, and a few days later the American ambassador was withdrawn.
After the election of 1961 and the "continuation" of 1963, it was only a matter of time before Duvalier moved to have himself installed for life as Haitian president. "Responding" to just such a request, Duvalier consented on April 1, 1964. Duvalier's rubber-stamp Legislative Chamber rewrote the 1957 Constitution, specifically altering Article 197 so that he could be declared president for life. A "referendum" was held, and on June 22, 1964, Duvalier was formally invested.
After that time Haitian political life was relatively anticlimactic. Having dominated his country and in the process thwarted the United States, the OAS, and the Dominican Republic, Duvalier was in complete control. During the 1960s he survived several disastrous hurricanes and several opéra-bouffe "invasions. " A small, gray-haired man, Duvalier was suffering from chronic heart disease and diabetes. In January 1971 he induced the National Assembly to change the constitution to allow his son, Jean Claude Duvalier, to succeed him. Duvalier died on April 21, 1971, and his son succeeded him without difficulty.
His 14-year regime was of unprecedented duration in that country.
Many books have been written about the Duvalier era in Haiti, the best known being Graham Greene's novel The Comedians.
The British television journalist Alan Whicker featured Duvalier in a 1969 episode of Whicker's World, which includes an interview with the president.
Duvalier's government was one of the most repressive in the hemisphere. Within the country he murdered and exiled his opponents; estimates of those killed are as high as 60, 000. 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. 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".
Haitian communists and even suspected communists bore the brunt of the government's repression. 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. On 28 April 1969, Duvalier instituted a campaign to rid Haiti of all communists. A new law declared that "Communist activities, no matter what their form, are hereby declared crimes against the security of the State. " Those convicted of Communist activity were subject to execution, and faced having their property confiscated.
Quotations:
"I accept the people's will. As a revolutionary, I have no right to disregard the will of the people. "
"God and the people are the source of all power. I have twice been given the power. I have taken it, and damn it, I will keep it forever. "
"Revolutions are not made with literature. Revolutions equal gunfire. "
"I know the Haitian people because I am the Haitian people. "
"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. "
In 1939, he married Simone Duvalier (née Ovide), with whom he had four children: Marie‑Denise, Nicole, Simone, and Jean‑Claude.
She was born Simone Ovide in about 1913 near the Haitian town of Léogâne, the daughter of a mulatto merchant and writer, Jules Faine, and Célie Ovide, one of the maids in his household.
He was the President of Haiti from 1971 until he was overthrown by a popular uprising in 1986.
