The Tonton Macoutes

About the NSV
The Tonton Macoutes, also known as MVSN, or National Security Volunteers, were a Haitian secret police forcethat was created in 1959. It was lead by Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier and the Macoutes were reporting directlyto him until his death in 1971. The army was disbanded in 1986 but some of the members turned into rebelsin 2000 because of the political turmoil.The name, Tonton Macoutes, was brought up from the Haitian Creole mythology. If you translate it word for word, itmeans "Uncle Gunnysack." A Gunny Sack is a bag made of burlap and is used to transport grains. Tonton Macoute wasthe name of a boogeyman (a folkloric word for a demon creature that goes from kids to kids house's and scares them.) In the Haitian mythology, the bogeyman walked in the dark streets at night, kidnapping children who stayed out too late and stuffed them into a gunnysack, never to return again. This is when the Tonton Macoutes were born. Anyone whoopposed Papa Doc would be taken in the night and no one would ever see them again. The people were too afraid to talk about the MVSN so they adapted the name, Tonton Macoute, to reffer to them.




About their leader

Early Life

Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier was born on the 15th of April in 1907 Port au Prince, Haiti. Unlike most Haitians, Francois had the privilege to an education, after which he studied in the University of Haiti, completing a degree in medicine. He worked in several hospitals in Haiti until 1943 when he joined the active campaign in the USA, to stop the spread of diseases many of which are common in Haiti. 1946 he became the Director of Public Health of Haiti.
Following that in 1949 he served as both the Minister of Health and the Minister of Labor. After the coup d’etat of the government of Paul Magloire he was sent into exile until 1946 when he returned after an agreement.

Presidency

For the election of 1957, Duvalier ran against Louis Dejoie, an individual from the richer “whiter” part of Haiti which Duvalier used against him, telling people he had no concerns for the poor black population. Duvalier won presidency but the army and many others believed the votes were rigged.
After the attempted coup of 1958, Duvalier set up a small “group” called the National Security Volunteers, commonly known as the Tonton Macoutes or the Boogeymen. Since they were volunteers, they made their living from crime and theft against the people of Haiti.
By 1961, this group had more power than he Haitian Army, loyal only to Duvalier; they tortured, terrorized, or murdered any who stood against Duvalier’s dictating regime.
Ironic to the fact that throughout his early career, Duvalier was fixed on helping the people (or so it seemed), the Tonton Macoutes threatened the unauthorized social aid and community organization. By 1961 the world knew of Haiti’s governments’ corruption and the US cut off all economic assistance in order to press Haiti into becoming more democratic. Adversely, Duvalier rewrites the constitution to his liking, and then posed a one-candidate election showing off its corruptness, when Duvalier won 1.3 million to none. By 1964, Duvalier declares himself President for life and like monarchy; it would be passed on to his son in 1971.
With the Tonton Macoutes imposing, the strict Duvalier regime on the people killing anyone in their way, a serious drain of qualified professionals begins, hurting the country horrendously, as hundreds of doctors, lawyers, and teachers leave the country.

Tonton Macoutes

Among the 30,000 killed by Duvalier’s secret army, and many more sent into exile, this case is purely sick. In 1959, Duvalier suffered from a heart attack. During his heart attack he was unconscious for 9 hours. Many believe this is the reason for his behavior in the future as it could have affected his mental health. While recovering Duvalier left the power in the hands of the leader of the Tonton Macoutes, Clement Barbot. After recovery, Duvalier accused Barbot of trying to overthrow him as President and had him imprisoned.
In 1963 he released Barbot from prison. Barbot devised a plan to remove Duvalier from power by capturing his children. Duvalier ordered a search for Barbot. An example of one of his irrational acts, Duvalier had heard that Barbot had transformed his self into a black dog. This led him having all black dogs in Haiti put to death. The last heard of Barbot was when he was shot dead by the Tonton Macoutes in July, 1963.

Bibliography-

Tonton Macoute. (2009). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Retrieved February 13, 2009, from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonton_Macoute

François Duvalier. (2009). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Retrieved February 15, 2009, from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francois_Duvalier

Videos-

Photography Essay

A Day, or 2 Days, on my weekend.

I get ready to leave my house and head on my adventure to Kevin's house. I pack my bag with some clothes, my laptop, and a movie, and off i go! My house is about 2 minutes from Kevin's house so its walking distance. I say bye to my mom and leave the house.

This is the pathway to Kevin's house. It is pretty much made up of shrubs but there are some olive trees, lemon trees, eucalyptus trees, and various species of bushes. I walk up the hill and come across a fallen windmill. Some guy had a huge house before here and he had a big farm with a windmill. After he left, he didn't bother, so he just left it there. Also, on the way up, I find some sort of animal trap that the local Cypriot kids made earlier that day. It was for cats so I immediately destroyed it.

I finally get to Kevin's house. I walk in and I see Shaun sitting on the couch watching some Man vs. Wild on Discovery Channel. Me and Kevin go to the kitchen to see if there is something to chow down on. Oh! Guess what? There is no food, only one cookie, and some crisps left. I take the cookie and we go upstairs. As we go upstairs, Shaun rushes up the stairs at the same time and goes into his room.

We set up our gaming station in Kevin's room, and turn on the DJ set. Kevin inserts his favorite disk in, DJ Mondo's Mix, and we start gaming. About 5 minutes into our gaming session, we hear Shaun say, "Abeedoooo! HEADSHOT!" We wonder why he is shouting that loud so we go inside in his room and investigate. Shaun killed 24 people and died only once! I am amazed but Kevin is not. Kevin sits down and buys his weapons. About 10 mintues later Shaun calls it. Kevin got 5 kills and 19 deaths. Kevin says he is tired but we all know he cant play FPS's.

We play World of Warcraft throughout the night but at about 2:30 we decide to watch the movie I brought. The dvd was called "Balls Out." It was about an old tennis star who quit tennis and joined a school as a janitor. He later gets the opportunity to coach the tennis team of the school. At the end, they win the state finals but with many funny moments in the movie. The next day I wake up really early because I have training. I walk down the path and back to my house where I take a shower and head to The Hilton.

I meet up with my coach and start practicing untill my opponent comes. We practice all my shots, serves, and running excercises. About 30 minutes into the practice, she comes. Her name is Nathalie and she is from Serbia, like my coach. We usually play tennis together each Sunday for tournament practice because she is a good sparring partner.

We start our set. I serve first. My game is looking good at this point in time, and so is hers aswell. I put all my first serves in and two of them were aces strait to her body. No one i know, except my coach, can return my fully concentrated, accurate, hard-hitting serve. He says it's around 175-200 kph.

The score was now 4-1 with me winning. Nathalie was getting really nervous, always twitching and jumping and spinning her racket. So this was my chance to shine. I hit a first serve strait down the line, ace. She had some pretty good shots aswell, but I got enough time to run around them and hit much harder so she had no chance of hitting them back. The score now was 5-2, one more game for me and I won it.

It was Nathalie's turn to serve. She has a pretty decent first serve but the % of it going in, is extremely low. Let's say of about 20 balls, she would get 7 in. She serves her second serve (slice) very good on the contrary. So we have a long first rally on the first point, about 2 minutes, and then she wips this huge backhand down the line. It hit the line for about 2 centimeters. The score for this last game was now Deuce, which means 40-40.

The game ended. The score was 6-2 me. We shaked our hands and practice was over. I went home, rested, played some Call of Duty- World at War, and the usual stuff. After some World of Warcraft, Kevin and Zak came to my house, and we went to the cinema to see, I think it was The Spirit. I do not recommend this movie. It was "two thumbs down." After that we went home and slept for school the next day. This is were I end my photography essay of a Day(s) in my life.