Haiti shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, which occupies the east. To the west, a mere fifty kilometres across the Windward Passage, lies the island of Cuba. In January 1959 Fidel Castro and his guerrilla fighters entered Havana. It was yet another stroke of luck for Duvalier, as the United States began courting him with financial assistance and military advice. The following month US$6 million was extended in aid, refloating a regime that was experiencing a severe economic crisis. In an interview with Peter Kihss in the New York Times Duvalier proclaimed that he was no dictator, but merely a doctor concerned about rebuilding his country.22
Still, the Voodoo spirits can be fickle. On 24 May 1959 Duvalier suffered a heart attack. Illness implied weakness, and rumours spread about his declining powers. His father’s tomb was desecrated, the coffin destroyed and the remains scattered. His enemies were emboldened. Bombs exploded in the capital. Several politicians questioned his use of state funds. One senator even launched into a tirade against the regime. But even in this moment of extreme vulnerability Duvalier appeared to thrive, with the American ambassador visiting the palace on 2 June to demonstrate his support.23
A month later Duvalier signalled his resumption of power with a dramatic gesture, appearing with his family and advisers on the front steps of the National Palace to review a military parade. Thousands of enthusiastic supporters, carefully assembled by the macoutes, gave him a vociferous welcome. The president toured the streets of the capital the following day, accompanied by his director of public relations, Herbert Morrison, who took photographs of the event.24
Two months later Duvalier announced that a vast communist plot to overthrow the government had been uncovered. He demanded the power to rule by decree and suspend parliamentary immunity. He used his new prerogatives almost immediately, impeaching six senators who had taken advantage of his illness over the summer to criticise his rule.25
Duvalier now lived in self-isolation, surrounded by sycophants. His advisers assumed several official roles simultaneously, even though their authority was never specified, creating great confusion throughout the administration. Competence aroused his suspicion, even when it came from a loyal subordinate. As a result, he was involved in every decision, even though he seemed hardly interested in governance. He ‘spends all of his time on the political manipulation of persons’, wrote one American adviser.26
Tyrants trust no one, least of all their allies. Duvalier disposed of friends and foes alike, striking down anyone he thought was too ambitious or might develop a separate power base. No one was indispensable. During his illness his confidant and henchman Clément Barbot had maintained order. But as chief of the macoutes he was potentially dangerous. After Barbot held secret negotiations with the United States, on 15 July Duvalier summarily placed him and ten associates under arrest. Haiti’s Number Two, like so many other close collaborators of dictators, had failed to gauge the full extent of his master’s gift for dissimulation. Morrison, the president’s publicity director, then fell under suspicion for his friendship with Barbot, but managed to escape to Miami. Two weeks later the president reviewed the macoutes in front of the palace, flanked by his high command. For the first time since their creation two years earlier the militia were officially recognised. Duvalier asked them to ‘keep their eyes open’.27
One last bastion of resistance remained, namely the Church. They supported the students, who still had the courage to organise strikes, despite ferocious repression from the macoutes. In January 1961 Duvalier expelled the French bishop and four priests, earning him excommunication from the Vatican. His grip on the country was now almost complete.
The constitution imposed a six-year limit on the presidency. Two years before his term expired, Duvalier began preparing for his second mandate. As he turned fifty-four on 14 April 1961 newspapers hailed him as ‘Supreme Leader’, ‘Spiritual Leader of the Nation’, ‘Venerated Leader’, ‘Apostle of the Collective Good’ and ‘Greatest Man in Our Modern History’. It set the tone for elections to a newly created legislative body two weeks later. Every candidate took pains to proclaim their fealty to Duvalier. The president’s name appeared on every ballot. In Cap-Haïtien the macoutes rounded up people as they left church on Sunday morning, herding them into the polling stations. A seven-year-old child was made to vote. The following day the papers announced that the people had not only voted for the legislative candidates, but had also spontaneously approved a second term for President Duvalier.28
On Flag Day, when the creation of the Haitian flag by Jean-Jacques Dessalines was traditionally celebrated in the city of Arcahaie, Duvalier was welcomed by crowds of cheering villagers, watched over by the security forces with their guns in hand. In one extravagant speech after another the president was acclaimed by his underlings. The most extreme declamation came from Father Hubert Papailler, minister of national education, who explained that the people had taken the ballot boxes by assault in the hope that the present chief would reign not merely for six new years but ‘perhaps as long as God, from Whom he holds his power’. Duvalier watched, inscrutable behind his dark glasses.29
Duvalier’s inauguration took place on 22 May, an auspicious date containing the number twenty-two. For days on end the macoutes had scoured the countryside for volunteers, forcing men, women and children into a fleet of lorries. Those who resisted were whipped. No food was offered, even if the journey often took a full day. They were quartered in schools and warehouses, made to wait for the occasion. Every road out of the capital was barricaded. On the day some 50,000 people were escorted to the palace, where they dutifully showed their support, carrying banners, holding high portraits, cheering on command. ‘You are Me, and I am You,’ proclaimed Duvalier.30
The United States, with John F. Kennedy now in the White House, was repelled by the surprise elections. In mid-1962 economic aid was quietly suspended. Foreigners left in droves. As the economy deteriorated Duvalier used the United States as a scapegoat for all the ills that beset Haiti.
In April 1963, Duvalier released Clément Barbot from prison, even offering him a brand new car as a sign of reconciliation. Rather than display gratitude, his former henchman tried to kidnap Jean-Claude and Simone Duvalier, the president’s two children. The president unleashed a reign of terror with the macoutes, who used the opportunity to settle accounts and eliminate their own enemies. Hundreds of suspects were killed, and many more vanished. In the capital bodies were left to rot by the roadside. In less than a week, the United States issued five formal protests over incidents involving US citizens.31
A few weeks later the United States increased pressure by declining official invitations to attend the first anniversary of Duvalier’s re-election. The embassy began to evacuate its employees. Diplomatic relations were suspended. But Duvalier did not flinch, calculating that Washington needed an ally in its fight against Cuba. The celebrations went ahead on 22 May, with tens of thousands of assembled villagers dutifully dancing and singing his praises in front of the palace. Papa Doc appeared on the balcony, ‘in a calm so complete that it seemed narcotic’, according to one witness. ‘Bullets and machine guns capable of frightening Duvalier do not exist,’ he explained. ‘I am already an immaterial being.’ In New York, Newsweek declared him ‘utterly, irretrievably mad’. But on 3 June the United States asked to resume normal diplomatic relations. In Haiti the radio crowed over Duvalier’s ‘triumph of statesmanship’.32
A further victory came in mid-July, when Barbot and his brother were finally hunted down in the countryside and shot. Photographs of their mangled bodies were published in the newspapers.
Every crisis seemed to make Duvalier stronger. After yet another ill-fated invasion attempt by one of his exiled enemies in August he suspended all civil rights for six months, including the right of assembly. It was a symbolic gesture, since there were no liberties left to suspend. On 17 September 1963 Haiti officially became a one-party state, as all political activities had to be carried out under the
aegis of the ‘Party of National Unity’. The party had never loomed very large, but a separate party machine provided another device for protecting the revolution. It also linked more people to Duvalier, reaching beyond the houngans and macoutes.33
‘I am the revolution and the flag,’ Duvalier declared over the following months. Neon lights in the centre of Port-au-Prince blinked the same message: ‘I am the Haitian Flag, United and Indivisible. François Duvalier’. The square nearby was renamed ‘Place de la Révolution Duvalier’. Plastic busts and portraits of the dictator, already prominently displayed in shops and offices, appeared in private homes. On radio, where his voice was heard regularly, Duvalier portrayed himself as the personification of God, exclaiming ‘and the word was made flesh’. But there were no statues. Duvalier modestly declined after legislators passed a law to approve the building of monuments memorialising their leader. Like Hitler, he believed that statues were for the dead.34
The adulation had a goal. Duvalier wished to become president for life. In March 1964 leaders of the Church, commerce and industry were successively summoned to the palace to demonstrate their loyalty. After waiting for hours in stifling heat they were made to read prepared scripts in public, imploring the president to stay on forever. Duvalier was unfailingly gracious. He thanked all of them effusively, especially those known to be critical of him. For days on end the press published telegrams demanding a change in the constitution. Psalms were read and hymns sung. On 1 April the president himself appeared in public, declaring: ‘I am an exceptional man, the kind the country could produce only once every 50 to 75 years.’35
Endless parades were held in the following months, as thousands of people were transported to the capital to beg their leader to stay on. A poster appeared, showing Christ with his hands on the shoulder of a seated Duvalier: ‘I have chosen him.’ The campaign culminated in a referendum held on 14 June. The ballot came with a printed ‘Yes’. Out of a total population of four million, some 2,800,000 voted in favour and 3,234 against, representing a 99.89 per cent victory. A new constitution was drafted to conform to popular demand. On 22 June the president took a solemn oath before the entire diplomatic corps. He was an hour late and began reading a ninety-minute speech. His audience had to stand, but after a while a German diplomat, through sheer fatigue, took his seat. Duvalier stopped, turned around and instructed a protocol officer to ask him to rise again.36
A few weeks later, in honour of the President for Life, the state press released a booklet entitled Catechism of the Revolution. It contained catchy phrases designed to be committed to memory. Chapter One set the tone:
Q – Who is Duvalier?
A – Duvalier is the Greatest Patriot of all time, the Emancipator of the Masses, the Renovator of the Haitian Nation, the Champion of National Dignity, Chief of the Revolution and President for Life of Haiti.
Q – By which name can Duvalier also be identified?
A – Duvalier is also the worthy heir of blood of the Dessalinien ideal, made President for Life to save us.37
Like the great independence fighter Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who had declared himself emperor in 1804, François Duvalier now had a life term. In September a decree ordered portraits of Duvalier and his hero Dessalines to be displayed in every classroom in every school, private, public or clerical.38
Haiti, by 1965, was in dire straits. American financial assistance, which in 1960 had amounted to slightly less than half of the country’s public expenditures, had come to a complete halt. The country was an exporter of coffee and sisal, but prices on the international market had collapsed. Tourism had dwindled, largely as a result of the reign of terror imposed by the macoutes. Commerce and industry suffered from endless demands for contributions to austerity funds, national bonds or government lotteries.39
None of the electoral promises to campaign against hunger, poverty, illiteracy and injustice were fulfilled. Unemployment was increasing, while illiteracy was higher than before. With 65 per cent of all funds devoted to state security, most public services were neglected. Abandoned cars lay rusting in the streets. Once-beautiful parks were overgrown with brush and weeds. Deaths from starvation were reported from Cayes and Jeremie, two areas in the southern peninsula where the harvest was usually abundant.40
Despite a climate of fear and insecurity, however, the death toll was relatively low. As in North Korea, roughly 7 to 8 per cent of the population were able to vote with their feet. Poor people illegally crossed the border into the Dominican Republic or sailed across the Windward Passage to Cuba. Those who were better off fled to the Bahamas, hoping to enter the United States. By the middle of the 1960s four out of five of the country’s best lawyers, doctors, engineers, teachers and other professionals lived in exile. Those who remained in Haiti were crushed into apathy.41
Duvalier himself lived like a recluse, rarely seen, occasionally heard, a prisoner in his own palace. He alone made all the decisions. Like Mussolini he occupied himself with every detail of government. He decided not only who was to be killed and who was to be spared, but also what kind of material should be used for a new road, who should be granted a university degree and which spelling should be used in Creole.42
But enthusiasm, even enforced at the barrel of a gun, was waning. The country was peaceful but prostrate. For the first time in many years the celebrations to mark 22 June, a date which replaced 22 May as the high point in the dictator’s calendar, were toned down.43
In November 1965 Duvalier showed himself in broad daylight, visiting several shops in the capital. It was apparently a reaction to hostile broadcasts from New York, taunting him for being too afraid to leave the palace. His bullet-proof Mercedes-Benz was followed by half a dozen sedans packed with bodyguards to ensure his safety. A few days later the president visited several orphanages. His appearance, according to the official release published in the newspapers, provoked ‘delirious enthusiasm’.44
On 2 January 1966 Duvalier struck a new tone in his New Year speech to the nation. It was time, he announced, to put an end to the explosive phase of the Duvalierist Revolution. Having swept away the ‘political, social and economic superstructure of the former regime’, the moment had come to begin rebuilding the economy. The curfew was ended. Roadblocks were removed, the streets cleaned up. The presidential palace received a fresh coat of paint. The macoutes were reined in.45
Duvalier refurbished his image, projecting himself as a benign and elderly statesman, the spiritual leader of the black world. In April the President for Life welcomed the King of Kings, Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia. Before he landed the airport was hastily renamed Aéroport François Duvalier. Its new access road was christened Avenue Haile Selassie. Coverage from the local press, radio and television was lavish and adulatory. Duvalier was unusually open with the international press that was invited to Haiti by the regime’s new public-relations firm. In a series of interviews, he appeared cordial and self-assured, candidly admitting that there was indeed censorship in the media, which he deemed necessary to protect the people from false reporting. One correspondent described him as ‘charming, cooperative and thoroughly relaxed’.46
More public appearances followed. In June he attended a football tournament with his son Jean-Claude. A few days later he took his daughter Marie-Denise to the opening ceremony of the annual congress of the Caribbean Travel Association. For the first time since 1963 he showed himself at a diplomatic function, toasting the British ambassador at a reception organised to mark the birthday of Queen Elizabeth II.47
Duvalier, his people were told, was a great statesman acclaimed by international figures. A local newspaper published a statement attributed to Haile Selassie. ‘You must remain president, so that this people may continue to benefit from your goodness. I have understood, from visiting you, from having seen, why this people and this nation love you so much.’ The quotation was a fabrication concocted by one of the president’s ghost writers.48
Duvalier created the impression t
hat he was a leader of international stature, a statesman with direct access to Washington and the Vatican. In June he gave a CBS interview to Martin Agronsky. Seated in his gold and blue throne at the National Palace, he intimated that he was in ‘close touch’ with President Johnson to discuss the renewal of American aid. But his contacts with the White House were ‘privileged matter not to be discussed publicly’. Later that year the Vatican restored links with Haiti and granted Duvalier the right to appoint his own bishops. The President for Life appeared on radio and television to make the agreement appear the result of close collaboration between him and Pope Paul VI.49
Duvalier also worked on his image as a great writer, historian, ethnologist, poet and philosopher. Most of all, Duvalier was the father of Duvalierism, which found expression in the publication of his Essential Works. As he put it, ‘when one is a leader one must have a doctrine. Without a doctrine you cannot direct a people.’ The two first volumes appeared in May 1966, to much acclaim, greeted with glowing newspaper reviews, as well as endless laudatory letters written by prominent members of the community. Excerpts were read on radio in a five-hour programme, subsequently retransmitted by all stations in the capital. Duvalier, listeners were told, was a giant in the same category as Kipling, Valéry, Plato, St Augustine and de Gaulle. ‘He is the greatest doctrine-giver of the century.’50
Gift sets were presented to schools and other educational institutions. The two hefty tomes were also awarded to outstanding students, who, apparently on command, wrote more adulatory letters, all published in the newspapers.51
How to Be a Dictator Page 19