November to 6 December 1956 · Haitianspan
Bombs go off in the market and an ambassador tells Magloire to go
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Bombs began going off in public places in Port-au-Prince in November 1956, something Haiti had not seen before. Shots fired among the women in the Marche de Fer sent the waterfront running and the iron shutters down. In April 1957 a bomb factory was found at Martissant, and the man who built the devices named Francois Duvalier and Clement Barbot and described the November and December explosions in detail. Junior officers who had been lieutenants for twelve years were meanwhile plotting around Colonel Leon Cantave and Major Pierre Armand. Magloire arrested the presidential candidates, including his own chosen successor Clement Jumelle. On 4 December the main reservoir for downtown Port-au-Prince was dynamited. The president asked the American ambassador Roy Tasco Davis whether the elections should be put off. Davis came back the next day with the papal nuncio and told him he had lost the public and should leave on schedule. On 6 December Magloire announced his resignation by radio.
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