Who is papa doc duvalier

Politically active from an early age, Duvalier wrote articles for the nationalist and anti-American occupation newspaper, Action Nationale under the name Abderrahman.

In , he attended medical school at the University of Haiti and subsequently worked at various hospitals and clinics around the city. Despite his earlier opposition to U. Continuing his political activism, Duvalier co-founded the journal Les Griots. When a bloodless coup in elevated Colonel Paul Magloire to the Presidency, Duvalier went into hiding. He won the election, though some claimed that the Forces Armee de Haiti rigged the results.

But it in turn triggered an avalanche of smaller parties motivated more by self-interest than broad ideas or constituencies. Today there are certainly more than political parties," Hurbon said. The end effect is little democratic participation by the general public, with just 21 percent voting in the last elections in Haiti's High Court of Auditors responded by producing three voluminous reports on rampant mismanagement of the money but Moise, named in one of them, clipped the wings of the court in November through a presidential decree.

Amid the political and economic vacuum, armed gangs have become a force to themselves in the poorest parts of the capital Port-au-Prince, contributing to the sharp rise in kidnappings for ransom. The political standoff lets the governing class avoid any trial over Petrocaribe corruption, the goal of the protests, Buteau said. In the face of insecurity, they are afraid. The content you requested does not exist or is not available anymore.

He spent a year at the University of Michigan studying public health. In , he 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 ravaged Haiti for years.

His patients affectionately called him "Papa Doc", a moniker that he used throughout his life. Parlaying his modest involvement into tales of his single handed eradication of the disease, Doctor Duvalier became more and more involved in the negritude black pride movement of Haitian author Dr. Jean Price Mars, and began an ethnological study of voudou, Haiti's native religion, that would later pay enormous political dividends.

When FDR withdrew the Marines, the puppet governments left in power by the Americans were quickly chased out of office as years of resentment from the populace exploded. The reigns of power shifted with dizzying speed, with the average President holding power for less than two years.

Military brasshats came and went, as did senators and populist rabble rousers, but through it all, the "quiet country doctor" held his cards to his chest, seeking his foothold in Haitian politics.

No sooner had Duvalier assumed power when he made immediate moves to consolidate it. The formerly timid and passive appearing Doctor Duvalier who had affectionately nicknamed himself Papa Doc, noting that "the peasants love their doctor, and I am their Papa Doc" transformed himself, to everyone's amazement, into a firebrand.

He reformed the loosely controlled gang of thugs he'd utilised to annoy his opponents in the election into a tightly controlled secret police, nicknamed the Tontons Macoute after a mythical Haitian boogeyman that grabs people and makes them the disappear forever. Papa Doc's opposition was fractured and jockeying for their own share of government kickbacks and fraud.

Papa Doc wasted no time in sending his enemies to the ghastly Fort Dimanche to be tortured to death. The country's leading newspaper editors and radio station owners were jailed for specious sedition charges, and it soon became clear that the good doctor would not simply be a transitory authority figure as his predecessors had been. And being a friend of Papa Doc was not much safer than being an enemy, as Papa Doc quickly learned to dispose of his allies when he thought them too ambitious, including his dear friend and Tonton Macoute chief Clement Barbot.

Within the space of two years, Papa Doc had politically castrated the Haitian Army, which had traditionally been the largest threat to the power of the Haitian presidency, with his Tonton Macoutes and his draconian "Palace Guard", his own personal army.

He also survived scattered invasions from exiled opponents, including the one that came closest to toppling his regime, an eight man invasion team half composed of Haitian exiles and sheriff's deputies from Dade County, Florida.

He'd also deliberately terrified the uneducated peasantry by posing as Baron Samedi - the vodou loa spirit of the dead. And indeed, when wearing his top hat and tails, Papa Doc was the spitting image of the Baron, and wasted little time printing posters that suggested quite straightforwardly that Papa Doc was one with the loas, Jesus Christ, and God himself.

His son lacked the aspects that are fascinating in retrospect while also not being any substantial upgrade. Aside from some minor reforms, the releasing of a few political prisoners and the lapsing of the more religious side to the cult of personality, little changed about the character of the Duvalier-led Haitian state.

Tempered, it seems, by himself who wished for his older sister to take charge. Without such an ability, responsibility was instead delegated to various ministers and his mother Mama Doc, naturally while the man himself gorged himself on stolen national wealth and a hedonistic lifestyle. Much of the moderate development seen under his father stagnated as finances became increasingly allocated to cronies, in some measures becoming worse than his father through a simple lack of national ambition.

Baby Doc could not command the public support his father had. Through both genuine support and fear, Duvalier consolidated a strong support base in the Afro-Haitian populace, while Baby Doc increasingly squandered the image of the dynastic regime. A lavish wedding between himself and a notably mixed-race woman ran into the millions of dollars and further cemented a rift between himself and the support base his father had established.

The outright hedonism on display in the presidential palace soon tricked down to the populace, who were by this point struggling from a series of disasters plaguing the country. An outbreak of African swine fever had decimated food sources for many, while the growing corruption, ineptitude and stagnation had exacerbated problems, leading to malnutrition and borderline famine in much of the country.

In March , the doomed state of the nation seemed secured by a visit from the Pope, who rather openly called for regime change. By relaxing censorship but not the character of the state apparatus, Baby Doc had opened wide the doors for himself to be ousted by a popular uprising. Between late and early , these issues culminated in localized uprisings that soon spread through Haiti, with a disorganized and half-hearted response only emboldening the resistance.

Living in exile in Paris, the continued lavish lifestyle of Baby Doc and his wife further angered the native Haitian populace who declared that he would be arrested upon arrival if he was to return. In the years that followed, he soon separated from his wife and lost a substantial portion of his wealth.

With decades passing, much of the true hatred faded and a small portion of Haitians became nostalgic for the Duvalier era. Two days later, Baby Doc was arrested and charged with a litany of crimes , with corruption and misappropriation of funds being the main charges. Surprisingly, he was merely kept under loose house-arrest while court proceedings continued, living in relative luxury while the slow legal process drew out.

At last by October of , Baby Doc died of a heart attack without ever seeing the inside of a prison cell. Despite the corruption and brutality, Baby Doc and even Papa Doc were fondly remembered by some, particularly notable as Baby Doc touched down in Haiti to cheering crowds. Well, considering the extremely unstable post-Duvalier governments and the catastrophic Haitian earthquake of the previous year that killed between hundred thousand people and devastated infrastructure, many Afro-Haitians in particular likely missed a sense of stability and gradual economic growth, even if much of their natural wealth was being robbed from them.

This honeymoon period appears to have not lasted long, with the former Duvalier political party collapsing entirely in elections, shifting from total national domination during the Duvalier rule to a measly 0. If you find the history of Haiti and its modern existence as interesting as we do, you should consider coming along on our July tour! See author's posts. Graffiti depicting Baron Samedi. Note the dark glasses in particular.

The end of Baby Doc Funeral of Baby Doc Living in exile in Paris, the continued lavish lifestyle of Baby Doc and his wife further angered the native Haitian populace who declared that he would be arrested upon arrival if he was to return.

About Post Author. Dominic Perry. North Korean Military.