François Duvalier, Jean-Claude DuvalierAKA 'Papa Doc' (François); AKA 'Baby Doc' (Jean-Claude).
Country: Haiti.
Kill tally: 20,000-60,000.
Background: Haiti gains its independent on 1 January 1804, becoming the world's first black republic. Its history then follows a pattern of violence and political instability, with a succession of rulers being overthrown by revolution or assassinated.
At the start of the 20th Century the United States becomes involved in Haiti's internal affairs. US marines occupy Haiti from 1915-1934. Indirect US influence lasts to 1947. More background.
Mini biography: François Duvalier is born on 14 April 1907 in Port-au-Prince,
the capital of Haiti. His father is a teacher and journalist. His mother works in
a bakery.
Duvalier studies medicine at the University of Haiti. He graduates in 1934. Working as a doctor he is given the nickname 'Papa Doc' by his patients.
While recognised as a humanitarian and intellectual, Duvalier also develops a deep interest in the African roots of Haitian culture, helping to found 'Le Groupe des Griots', a group of writers committed to black nationalism and voodoo mysticism, in 1938.
Among the poor and the superstitious Duvalier will gain a reputation as a practitioner of voodoo sorcery.
1939 - Duvalier marries Simone Ovide Faine, a nurse, on 27 December. The couple will have four children, three daughters (Marie Denise, Simone and Nicole) and a son (Jean-Claude).
1943 - He participates in a US-sponsored campaign to control the contagious tropical disease yaws, an infection of the skin, bones and joints.
1946 - Duvalier joins the government of President Dumarsais Estimé, becoming director general of the national public health service. In 1948 he is appointed as minister of public health and labour.
1950 - President Estimé is overthrown in a military coup on 10 May. Duvalier returns to his medical career. Behind the scenes, however, he begins organising against the military regime. By 1954 he is the central opposition figure and goes underground, hiding in the interior.
1951 - Jean-Claude Duvalier is born on 3 July in Port-au-Prince.
1956 - The military relinquishes power in December. A general political amnesty allows Duvalier to come out of hiding. Six governments are formed in the following 10 months.
1957 - With army backing, Duvalier is elected president for a six year term on 22 September. He promises to end the privileges of the mulatto elite and bring political and economic power to the black masses. However, the political climate remains unstable.
1958 - After an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow him in June, Duvalier takes steps to consolidate his position. Senior officers in the military are replaced with younger men, the size of the army is reduced, the military academy is closed, political parties are banned and curfews are introduced.
Duvalier also takes control of the Presidential Guard, turning it into the army's elite unit.
With chief aide Clément Barbot, he organises the Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale (Volunteers for National Security), or Tonton Macoutes (Bogeymen), a private militia estimated to number 9,000-15,000 that will be used to terrorise and murder opponents.
Recruits are drawn initially from the slums of Port-au-Prince. They receive no salary, relying instead on protection rackets and crime to support themselves. The Tonton Macoutes act as Duvalier's front-line security force and as a balance to the political power of the armed forces. Their chain of command reaches directly to the Presidential Palace.
1959 - Duvalier suffers a heart attack in May. Barbot acts in his place but is promptly imprisoned when Duvalier recovers.
On 12 August a group of Cuban guerrillas and Haitian exiles lands on the southern most tip of the country in another attempt to remove Duvalier. They are defeated by the Haitian Army, with the aid of US marines.
1961 - Duvalier manipulates elections to have his term extended to 1967, winning the vote with an official tally of 1,320,748 votes to zero.
"Latin America has witnessed many fraudulent elections," the 'New York Times' reports on 13 May, "But none will have been more outrageous than the one which has just taken place in Haiti."
Following the election, the US raises concerns about the misappropriation of aid money by Duvalier. In 1962 US aid is suspended. The following year diplomatic relations are also suspended and the US ambassador withdrawn.
Meanwhile, Barbot is released from prison. He begins plotting to overthrow Duvalier but the attempt, which is to take place in July 1963, is uncovered at the last moment and Barbot is killed.
1963 - Attempts to remove Duvalier continue, reportedly with backing from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Duvalier's leadership becomes more extreme. He fosters a personality cult, exploiting his reputation as a sorcerer and portraying himself as semidivine, the embodiment of the Haitian nation, a voodoo Jesus Christ.
"I am the Haitian flag," Duvalier proclaims, "He who is my enemy is the enemy of the fatherland."
With corruption endemic, the elite gets richer and the poor suffer badly. The per capita annual income sinks to US$80, the lowest in the western hemisphere. The illiteracy rate remains at about 90%.
1964 - Duvalier has himself elected president for life in April. Haiti is now almost completely isolated. Duvalier's isolation is more profound. He is excommunicated by the Vatican for harassing the clergy and will not be readmitted to the Church until 1966.
Discontent with the regime continues to grow, despite the tight security imposed by the Tonton Macoutes. Conspiracies and dissent proliferate. Duvalier responds with a reign of terror and is able to stay in power longer than any of his predecessors.
1971 - The constitution is amended in January to permit Duvalier to name his son, Jean-Claude, as his successor. Jean-Claude comes to be known as 'Baby Doc', echoing his father's nickname.
François Duvalier dies on 21 April in Port-au-Prince. Power is transferred to Jean-Claude, who, at the age of 19, becomes the youngest president in the world.
However, Jean-Claude is not interested in the details of government and leaves much of the running of the country to his mother, Simone Ovid Duvalier, and his dead father's cronies.
Bending to pressure from the US, and at home, Jean-Claude agrees to economic and judicial reforms, the reopening of the military academy, the release of some political prisoners and the easing of media censorship. But no political opposition is tolerated and the president retains the power to appoint officials and judges.
Though US aid is restored, Haiti remains diplomatically isolated. Corruption reaches new heights. The US Commerce Department reports misappropriation of 64% of Haiti's government revenues. Tens of millions of dollars are diverted from public funds for "extra-budgetary expenses," including deposits to Jean-Claude's Swiss bank accounts.
1980 - In May Jean-Claude marries Michéle Bennett. The lavish wedding, estimated to cost US$3 million, and marriage alienate much of the population. Bennett is considered to be an elite mulatto and her family is implicated in corrupt business ventures, including drug running.
1983 - On a visit to Haiti in March Pope John Paul II declares that "something must change here."
1985 - Jean-Claude gets 99% of the vote in a fraudulent election. Popular demonstrations against high unemployment, poor living conditions and the lack of political freedom break out late in the year and early in 1986, beginning in the provincial capital of Gonaives.
On 28 November 1985 soldiers in Gonaives chase demonstrators into a schoolyard and shoot and kill three schoolboys who were not involved in the protest. The incident leads to more demonstrations and riots.
1986 - With the Tonton Macoutes unable to repress the mounting social unrest and the military pressing for his resignation, Jean-Claude and his wife accept assistance from the US and flee the country for France on 7 February. The couple take up residence in a villa in Mougins, near Cannes. They will later divorce.
Jean-Claude leaves behind an impoverished and ruined country. Well over half of Haiti's workers are unemployed. Over 80% of Haitians are illiterate. Almost a third of Haitian children die before their fifth birthday. Life expectancy is 53 years. Per capita income is US$300 a year.
2002 - In a television interview broadcast in the US on 17 December Jean-Claude reveals that he would like to return to Haiti. "It is my firm intention as soon as conditions allow," he says, adding that he wants to take part in "rebuilding" Haiti.
According to Jean-Claude, there are no legal reasons for him not to return. He claims that Haiti has "gone backward by 50 years" since he fled the country and calls on the current president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to retire.
"(Aristide) does not have the possibility of ruling Haiti any more," Jean-Claude says, "He has been rejected by the vast majority of the population. He should, according to me, retire. ...
"People are suffering a lot. It is not bearable. It is revolting. I know parents who can't have their children go to school any more. Some families eat every other day."
When questioned about his alleged misappropriation of tens of millions of dollars of Haiti's state funds, Jean-Claude challenges his accusers to provide the evidence.
2003 - Jean-Claude tells the 'Wall Street Journal' that he neither stole state funds nor organised the murder of opponents. "If I were dictator, I would have done everything in my power to stay in power," he says.
"I laugh when I hear the amounts: $400 million, $800 million. It's a lot of blah, blah, blah. ... There were the children to care for, school expenses, other bills. ... We were not perfect. Perhaps I was too tolerant."
2004 - On 29 April President Aristide is forced out of office by an armed rebellion. Jean-Claude quickly restates his wish to return to Haiti, telling a French journalist on 1 March that he wants to put himself "at the disposal of the Haitian people."
"I think I'm getting close and that I will soon have the opportunity to go back to my country," Jean-Claude says, revealing that he had requested a diplomatic passport several weeks earlier.
According to Duvalier, while he is in constant communication with contacts in Haiti, he is not involved with the rebel movement and is not planning to run for president if he returns.
Meanwhile, on 25 March the international anticorruption organisation Transparency International (TI) places Jean-Claude at number six on a list of the world's most corrupt political leaders of the past two decades.
According to TI, Jean-Claude is alleged to have embezzled between US$300 million and US$800 million from Haiti.
2007 - In September the Transparency International estimates are quoted in a report by the Stolen Assets Recovery Initiative, a joint venture of the World Bank and the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime.
"According to the numbers ... Jean-Claude Duvalier allegedly stole the equivalent of 1.7 to 4.5 percent of Haitian GDP for every year he was in power," the report says. "The only other two kleptocrats to come close as a percentage of GDP were Ferdinand Marcos (of the Philippines) and Sani Abacha (of Nigeria)."
Comment: François Duvalier's story mirrors the history of Haiti - a promising beginning completely despoiled by ambition and greed. On the one hand a humanitarian apparently committed to social justice metamorphoses into a corrupt dictator. On the other the world's first black republic turns on itself in an ongoing cycle of political and economic impoverishment that not even world superpowers seem able to halt. Ultimately the solutions to Haiti's problems will have to be born from within, and it is unlikely that Baby Doc Duvalier would make a suitable parent.
More information
Links are to external sites.
Haiti - A Country Study (Library of Congress Country Studies Series)
Bob Corbett's Haiti Page
other killer files
Idi Amin
Ion Antonescu
Yasuhiko Asaka
Rifaat Assad
Théoneste Bagosora
Bhopal Industrial Incident
Nicolae Ceausescu
The Duvaliers
Francisco Franco
Joseph Goebbels
Hermann Göring
Heinrich Himmler
Adolf Hitler
Elie Hobeika
Enver Hoxha
Saddam Hussein
Shiro Ishii
Radovan Karadzic
Kim Il Sung
King Léopold II
Mao Tse-Tung
Ferdinand Marcos
Josef Mengele
Slobodan Milosevic
Ratko Mladic
Efraín Ríos Montt
Benito Mussolini
Ante Pavelic
Augusto Pinochet
Pol Pot
Anastasio Somoza
Joseph Stalin
Suharto
The Three Pashas
Rafael Trujillo
United States Presidents
Jorge Rafaél Videla
Ne Win
Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan
Duvalier studies medicine at the University of Haiti. He graduates in 1934. Working as a doctor he is given the nickname 'Papa Doc' by his patients.
While recognised as a humanitarian and intellectual, Duvalier also develops a deep interest in the African roots of Haitian culture, helping to found 'Le Groupe des Griots', a group of writers committed to black nationalism and voodoo mysticism, in 1938.
Among the poor and the superstitious Duvalier will gain a reputation as a practitioner of voodoo sorcery.
1939 - Duvalier marries Simone Ovide Faine, a nurse, on 27 December. The couple will have four children, three daughters (Marie Denise, Simone and Nicole) and a son (Jean-Claude).
1943 - He participates in a US-sponsored campaign to control the contagious tropical disease yaws, an infection of the skin, bones and joints.
1946 - Duvalier joins the government of President Dumarsais Estimé, becoming director general of the national public health service. In 1948 he is appointed as minister of public health and labour.
1950 - President Estimé is overthrown in a military coup on 10 May. Duvalier returns to his medical career. Behind the scenes, however, he begins organising against the military regime. By 1954 he is the central opposition figure and goes underground, hiding in the interior.
1951 - Jean-Claude Duvalier is born on 3 July in Port-au-Prince.
1956 - The military relinquishes power in December. A general political amnesty allows Duvalier to come out of hiding. Six governments are formed in the following 10 months.
1957 - With army backing, Duvalier is elected president for a six year term on 22 September. He promises to end the privileges of the mulatto elite and bring political and economic power to the black masses. However, the political climate remains unstable.
1958 - After an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow him in June, Duvalier takes steps to consolidate his position. Senior officers in the military are replaced with younger men, the size of the army is reduced, the military academy is closed, political parties are banned and curfews are introduced.
Duvalier also takes control of the Presidential Guard, turning it into the army's elite unit.
With chief aide Clément Barbot, he organises the Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale (Volunteers for National Security), or Tonton Macoutes (Bogeymen), a private militia estimated to number 9,000-15,000 that will be used to terrorise and murder opponents.
Recruits are drawn initially from the slums of Port-au-Prince. They receive no salary, relying instead on protection rackets and crime to support themselves. The Tonton Macoutes act as Duvalier's front-line security force and as a balance to the political power of the armed forces. Their chain of command reaches directly to the Presidential Palace.
1959 - Duvalier suffers a heart attack in May. Barbot acts in his place but is promptly imprisoned when Duvalier recovers.
On 12 August a group of Cuban guerrillas and Haitian exiles lands on the southern most tip of the country in another attempt to remove Duvalier. They are defeated by the Haitian Army, with the aid of US marines.
1961 - Duvalier manipulates elections to have his term extended to 1967, winning the vote with an official tally of 1,320,748 votes to zero.
"Latin America has witnessed many fraudulent elections," the 'New York Times' reports on 13 May, "But none will have been more outrageous than the one which has just taken place in Haiti."
Following the election, the US raises concerns about the misappropriation of aid money by Duvalier. In 1962 US aid is suspended. The following year diplomatic relations are also suspended and the US ambassador withdrawn.
Meanwhile, Barbot is released from prison. He begins plotting to overthrow Duvalier but the attempt, which is to take place in July 1963, is uncovered at the last moment and Barbot is killed.
1963 - Attempts to remove Duvalier continue, reportedly with backing from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Duvalier's leadership becomes more extreme. He fosters a personality cult, exploiting his reputation as a sorcerer and portraying himself as semidivine, the embodiment of the Haitian nation, a voodoo Jesus Christ.
"I am the Haitian flag," Duvalier proclaims, "He who is my enemy is the enemy of the fatherland."
With corruption endemic, the elite gets richer and the poor suffer badly. The per capita annual income sinks to US$80, the lowest in the western hemisphere. The illiteracy rate remains at about 90%.
1964 - Duvalier has himself elected president for life in April. Haiti is now almost completely isolated. Duvalier's isolation is more profound. He is excommunicated by the Vatican for harassing the clergy and will not be readmitted to the Church until 1966.
Discontent with the regime continues to grow, despite the tight security imposed by the Tonton Macoutes. Conspiracies and dissent proliferate. Duvalier responds with a reign of terror and is able to stay in power longer than any of his predecessors.
1971 - The constitution is amended in January to permit Duvalier to name his son, Jean-Claude, as his successor. Jean-Claude comes to be known as 'Baby Doc', echoing his father's nickname.
François Duvalier dies on 21 April in Port-au-Prince. Power is transferred to Jean-Claude, who, at the age of 19, becomes the youngest president in the world.
However, Jean-Claude is not interested in the details of government and leaves much of the running of the country to his mother, Simone Ovid Duvalier, and his dead father's cronies.
Bending to pressure from the US, and at home, Jean-Claude agrees to economic and judicial reforms, the reopening of the military academy, the release of some political prisoners and the easing of media censorship. But no political opposition is tolerated and the president retains the power to appoint officials and judges.
Though US aid is restored, Haiti remains diplomatically isolated. Corruption reaches new heights. The US Commerce Department reports misappropriation of 64% of Haiti's government revenues. Tens of millions of dollars are diverted from public funds for "extra-budgetary expenses," including deposits to Jean-Claude's Swiss bank accounts.
1980 - In May Jean-Claude marries Michéle Bennett. The lavish wedding, estimated to cost US$3 million, and marriage alienate much of the population. Bennett is considered to be an elite mulatto and her family is implicated in corrupt business ventures, including drug running.
1983 - On a visit to Haiti in March Pope John Paul II declares that "something must change here."
1985 - Jean-Claude gets 99% of the vote in a fraudulent election. Popular demonstrations against high unemployment, poor living conditions and the lack of political freedom break out late in the year and early in 1986, beginning in the provincial capital of Gonaives.
On 28 November 1985 soldiers in Gonaives chase demonstrators into a schoolyard and shoot and kill three schoolboys who were not involved in the protest. The incident leads to more demonstrations and riots.
1986 - With the Tonton Macoutes unable to repress the mounting social unrest and the military pressing for his resignation, Jean-Claude and his wife accept assistance from the US and flee the country for France on 7 February. The couple take up residence in a villa in Mougins, near Cannes. They will later divorce.
Jean-Claude leaves behind an impoverished and ruined country. Well over half of Haiti's workers are unemployed. Over 80% of Haitians are illiterate. Almost a third of Haitian children die before their fifth birthday. Life expectancy is 53 years. Per capita income is US$300 a year.
2002 - In a television interview broadcast in the US on 17 December Jean-Claude reveals that he would like to return to Haiti. "It is my firm intention as soon as conditions allow," he says, adding that he wants to take part in "rebuilding" Haiti.
According to Jean-Claude, there are no legal reasons for him not to return. He claims that Haiti has "gone backward by 50 years" since he fled the country and calls on the current president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to retire.
"(Aristide) does not have the possibility of ruling Haiti any more," Jean-Claude says, "He has been rejected by the vast majority of the population. He should, according to me, retire. ...
"People are suffering a lot. It is not bearable. It is revolting. I know parents who can't have their children go to school any more. Some families eat every other day."
When questioned about his alleged misappropriation of tens of millions of dollars of Haiti's state funds, Jean-Claude challenges his accusers to provide the evidence.
2003 - Jean-Claude tells the 'Wall Street Journal' that he neither stole state funds nor organised the murder of opponents. "If I were dictator, I would have done everything in my power to stay in power," he says.
"I laugh when I hear the amounts: $400 million, $800 million. It's a lot of blah, blah, blah. ... There were the children to care for, school expenses, other bills. ... We were not perfect. Perhaps I was too tolerant."
2004 - On 29 April President Aristide is forced out of office by an armed rebellion. Jean-Claude quickly restates his wish to return to Haiti, telling a French journalist on 1 March that he wants to put himself "at the disposal of the Haitian people."
"I think I'm getting close and that I will soon have the opportunity to go back to my country," Jean-Claude says, revealing that he had requested a diplomatic passport several weeks earlier.
According to Duvalier, while he is in constant communication with contacts in Haiti, he is not involved with the rebel movement and is not planning to run for president if he returns.
Meanwhile, on 25 March the international anticorruption organisation Transparency International (TI) places Jean-Claude at number six on a list of the world's most corrupt political leaders of the past two decades.
According to TI, Jean-Claude is alleged to have embezzled between US$300 million and US$800 million from Haiti.
2007 - In September the Transparency International estimates are quoted in a report by the Stolen Assets Recovery Initiative, a joint venture of the World Bank and the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime.
"According to the numbers ... Jean-Claude Duvalier allegedly stole the equivalent of 1.7 to 4.5 percent of Haitian GDP for every year he was in power," the report says. "The only other two kleptocrats to come close as a percentage of GDP were Ferdinand Marcos (of the Philippines) and Sani Abacha (of Nigeria)."
Comment: François Duvalier's story mirrors the history of Haiti - a promising beginning completely despoiled by ambition and greed. On the one hand a humanitarian apparently committed to social justice metamorphoses into a corrupt dictator. On the other the world's first black republic turns on itself in an ongoing cycle of political and economic impoverishment that not even world superpowers seem able to halt. Ultimately the solutions to Haiti's problems will have to be born from within, and it is unlikely that Baby Doc Duvalier would make a suitable parent.
More information
Links are to external sites.
Haiti - A Country Study (Library of Congress Country Studies Series)
Bob Corbett's Haiti Page
other killer files
Idi Amin
Ion Antonescu
Yasuhiko Asaka
Rifaat Assad
Théoneste Bagosora
Bhopal Industrial Incident
Nicolae Ceausescu
The Duvaliers
Francisco Franco
Joseph Goebbels
Hermann Göring
Heinrich Himmler
Adolf Hitler
Elie Hobeika
Enver Hoxha
Saddam Hussein
Shiro Ishii
Radovan Karadzic
Kim Il Sung
King Léopold II
Mao Tse-Tung
Ferdinand Marcos
Josef Mengele
Slobodan Milosevic
Ratko Mladic
Efraín Ríos Montt
Benito Mussolini
Ante Pavelic
Augusto Pinochet
Pol Pot
Anastasio Somoza
Joseph Stalin
Suharto
The Three Pashas
Rafael Trujillo
United States Presidents
Jorge Rafaél Videla
Ne Win
Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan
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