Istwa Nou

Duvalier held foreigners at arm's length as a matter of doctrine and enjoyed showing that he was strong enough to harass white ambassadors. In fourteen years at the palace he never gave a diplomatic dinner. He expelled more foreign heads of mission than had been expelled in the whole previous history of Haiti. By 1963 the list of those thrown out or hurried away included the papal nuncio and the chiefs of mission of Great Britain, Chile, Cuba, Venezuela, the Netherlands and the Dominican Republic, along with two American ambassadors, with the resident representative of the United Nations still to come. Foreigners who managed to see anything of the country beyond Port-au-Prince tended to be asked to leave soon afterwards. The method extended to Haitians. When Senator Jean David let his criticism of the government run away with him, he was handed an economy class ticket, a diplomatic passport and a commission as ambassador to Tokyo, where Haiti had no embassy.

Duvalier knew that since 1806 almost every change of government in Haiti had been settled by generals, and he intended to leave office alive. His clear out at the end of 1958 raised the 1941 academy class over the heads of their seniors, opened blocks of junior vacancies he filled with young black officers, and kept the new American mission from getting close to anyone. In late 1959, using his palace guard as the parent body, he began enlisting men from the slums into a civil militia, later renamed the Volunteers of National Security. Within two years it was twice the size of the army. Its village platoons, led by peasant strongmen who gave orders to the local soldiers, wore the big straw hats of the old Cacos and the red sashes of Ogoun, the warrior spirit. In June 1961 he closed the military academy for good. That November the macoute chief at Hinche murdered Colonel Max Deetjen and nothing happened. On 1 August 1960 the capital woke to handbills carrying Sonthonax's words to his black militia in 1793: these muskets are your liberty, make good use of them.