Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies
In his first speech on October 22, 1957, President Duvalier
promised government unity, reconciliation, and financial redistribution.
However, within weeks, he began to destroy all past
or potential opposition in order to centralize power in himself
and remain in power.
Duvalier's apparent lack of political ambition was a sham. In
October 1961, he extended his presidency another six years
and replaced the bicameral legislature with a unicameral body.
In June 1964, unwary voters in a plebiscite discovered that they
had approved a constitutional change making Francois Duvalier
president for life.
President Duvalier reigned supreme for fourteen years. Even
in Haiti, where dictators had been the norm, Francois 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. Duvalier also used other techniques to eliminate opposition,
including imprisonment, intimidation, and exile. Many
left in what became the first wave of Haitian emigration.
To protect himself against the military, Duvalier repeatedly
reshuffled the high command and promoted junior black officers.
In July 1958, when a coup attempt occurred, Duvalier created
a separate Presidential Guard within the army for one
purpose only, to enable him to remain in power. In 1959 Duvalier
created the Volunteers for National Security (Volontaires
de la Securite Nationale—VSN), or makout, as they were
dubbed, in reference to mythical Haitian bogeymen who carry
off sleeping children in sacks. The VSN was a secret, private,
armed paramilitary group reporting directly to the palace,
whose members used terror and blackmail to get patronage for
the regime and themselves (see The Duvalier Era, 1957-86, ch.
10). Duvalier used religion as a form of control. He co-opted
voodoo priests as spies in the countryside, and for added protection,
he himself dressed as a well-known voodoo figure.
Finally, the president created a new elite, who owed its wealth
and status to him.
President Duvalier weathered a series of foreign political crises
early in his tenure, which enhanced his power and contributed
to his view of himself as the "personification of the Haitian
fatherland." By 1961 Duvalier had received US$40.4 million in
foreign assistance, mainly as gifts from the United States. However,
in mid-1962, President John F. Kennedy cut aid to Haiti
after Duvalier arrogantly refused to account for its disburse-
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