Real Dictators - Papa Doc Part 1: The Voodoo Tyrant

Episode Date: August 26, 2020

Just a few hundred miles south of Florida, across the Caribbean Sea, lies Haiti. From 1957 to 1971, this tropical island nation was ruled by a would-be demigod. François Duvalier - better known as ��Papa Doc” - wielded the twin powers of state violence and voodoo. Real Dictators takes you behind the scenes of Papa Doc’s maniacal regime. His victims and adversaries tell the story of the medical doctor who became the butcher of his people. For ad-free listening, exclusive content and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Now available for Apple and Android users. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How evil was Papa Doc? Evil incarnate. In a country where mysticism is so well entrenched, Papa Doc used voodoo to control the nation. He sacrificed not only my family but my wife's family. Shot children, babies, mothers babies mothers grandmothers it was a deliberate massacre i had no idea that there was two sides to this man i mean he really fooled us all oh god we had no idea what it was going to be like but it was murder in 1945 a young American trained doctor touches down on the tarmac. His home, Haiti, is where he was born and bred. His name is François Duvalier. He'll become better known by his nickname, Papa Doc.

He'll become the bloodiest dictator the country has ever seen, and a constant thorn in the side of the United States and its allies. It was a brutal dictatorship, there is no doubt about that. It was not just a notori-tarian regime, it was a capricious dictatorship. You did not need to be in the opposition to be killed. Torture was pervasive. There were public executions, public hangings. Sometimes their bodies would be left in the street for days to decompose so that people would see what opposition entailed. There's always been an association in Haiti between vaudl and power.

Most Haitians believe to this day that to have become president in the first place, you must have made some kind of pact with the devil or with a dark side of voodoo. And Haitians say you can serve with the right hand or you can serve with the left hand. If you serve with the right hand, that's using voodoo for good. If you serve with the left hand, that's using it for sinister purposes. He was referred to as papadoc primarily because he was seen, first of all, as a paternal figure, but also as an effective doctor. And it's interesting that he came to view the Haitian people themselves as essentially children. And he saw himself as their papadoc, in other words, their medical man, and also their father, their national father.

And he was once quoted as saying the Haitian people are born to suffer. And unfortunately, that's proved to be the case, and they've suffered greatly. My name is Paul McGann, and welcome to Real Dictators, the series that explores the hidden lives of tyrants such as Adolf Hitler, Chairman Mao, and Kim Jong-il. You'll be right there in their meeting rooms and private quarters, on the battlefields and in their bunkers, up close and personal with some of history's most evil leaders, watching on as they make the decisions that shape the world as we know it.

We'll take you behind the curtain, beyond the propaganda and the myth-making, to hear the real stories of their totalitarian regimes. In this episode, we travel to the tropical Caribbean nation of Haiti to tell the story of the man of medicine who convinced his people that he was a voodoo god. This is Real Dictators. Just a few hundred miles south of Florida, across the Caribbean Sea, lies Haiti. across the Caribbean Sea lies Haiti. In the capital city of Port-au-Prince, two children are shown into the back of a car by their chauffeur. It's a peaceful spring day like any other. April the 26th 1963. Accompanying the children are two tall stockily built men, their eyes concealed behind aviator sunglasses. As bodyguards, they must remain vigilant.

But what they fail to recognize is that a lone sniper has the group in his crosshairs. A crack rings through the air. The chauffeur collapses, dead, bleeding onto the sand that coats the road. Another crack. One of the bodyguards is hit. The other guard throws himself onto the front seat and hits the accelerator, driving the children to safety. A thousand meters from the seafront, Haiti's National Palace looms over the bay.

Twice the size of the White House, its vast domes sit framed against a mountain range. One day this palace will be leveled by a cataclysmic earthquake, but right now, in 1963, it seems indestructible, as does the man who lives here. In 1963, it seems indestructible, as does the man who lives here. Inside the building, at the end of a long corridor, the president's office. An arched high ceiling and long bay windows. A shiny mahogany desk. On it, a crystal vase full of imported flowers.

An inkwell, a pen, a rotary dial telephone, and a.45 caliber handgun, just within reach. The president sits at his desk. Duvalier is a black man of African descent, with short, graying hair and dark, emotionless eyes. They peer through a pair of square, thick-lensed glasses. On Duvalier's head is perched his trademark Homburg felt hat. Clean-shaven, he's immaculately turned out in a tailored suit, white shirt and bow tie. His cufflinks clank on the wooden desk, hands shaking with anger. Because the man they call Papa Doc has just received the news that someone has attempted to kidnap his children.

Andrew Leake is a professor at University College London and an expert on Haitian history. Duvalier's children were almost kidnapped. Now, their guard and their driver were killed, were shot in an ambush. It absolutely outraged Duvalier and sent him into overdrive. Duvalier has a vice-like grip over the island nation of Haiti. His mind is consumed with finding and punishing the perpetrator. And he personally decided that because of the marksmanship that would have been required to pick off the driver and the guard, it must have been a top marksman who had carried out the attack.

So he said, oh, who are the best marksmen in the Haitian army? And his aides gave him the names, and one of those names was François Benoit. Duvalier is convinced that a former army officer, an elite sniper called François Benoit, is behind the attack. Benoit is a known critic of Duvalier's regime. He is part of a group of army officers that the president is certain are trying to topple him. Blind with anger, Papadoc summons the head of his palace guard. He demands the perpetrator be brought to justice at the barrel of a gun. In reality, Benoit has nothing to do with the attempted abduction of the President's

children. The failed kidnapping was actually the brainchild of an entirely different military clique. But Papadoc doesn't operate based on facts. He rules on instinct, fomenting chaos. He's racked with paranoia. If Benoit isn't responsible, that hardly matters anyway. Teaching him a lesson will warn off other plotters. Benoit is about to discover this firsthand, in the most gruesome possible way.

Hearing that the President is after him, Benoit hunkers down in the most gruesome possible way. Hearing that the president is after him, Benoit hunkers down in the Dominican embassy. Benoit remembers the events as they unfolded. So the event started at 8 o'clock on April 26, 1963. At that time, I had already been granted political asylum at the Dominican embassy. The next morning when those events took place, At that time, I had already been granted political asylum at the Dominican embassy. The next morning when those events took place, Duvalier sent his henchmen to the embassy

and entered, penetrated the grounds of the embassy and searched every single room of that embassy in trying to find me. By sending troops into a foreign embassy, Duvalier has thrown diplomatic protocol out of the window. As the president's men storm the building, François Benoit manages to slip out of the compound before he can be arrested. From there, he's taken to the house of the Dominican ambassador. Here, Benoit is personally safe from Duvalier's goons. Here, Benoit is personally safe from Duvalier's goons. But his family, including his father, a retired judge, and his wife and infant son, remain in harm's way.

Bernard Diederich was a journalist and Time magazine bureau chief, and author of the book Haiti and its Dictator. Back in 1963, he's editor of the Haiti Sun newspaper. He heads to the Benoit's house. So Judge Benoit and his wife had just come back from church. They were at the house with the baby and with the maid and with the visitors. I saw the truck full of presidential guard, and they went right before the house, and anybody in the vicinity was in trouble. The presidential guards storm into the grounds of the Benoit abode. They kick down the doors. Inside, rapid gunfire rings out. It's a massacre.

Everyone inside the house is killed, and then the house is set ablaze. Watching on, Diederik is shell-shocked. The couple came forward to the door and the machine gunned them. So the machine gunned them, then they set fire to the place. It was a terrible day. Benoit himself is nowhere to be seen. It hardly matters to Duvalier's men.

And Rulique. It doesn't stop the Makrouts from killing everybody in the house. The family that are there, including a baby who was reportedly burnt to death in its cot. They burnt down that house, they burnt down the house next door. They went on a killing spree, they killed everyone they could lay their hands on. At one point, a black dog emerges from this conflagration and takes flight, a family pet. In most societies, the sight of a scurrying dog would be unremarkable. But in local Haitian mythology, the black dog carries profound significance.

In Haiti, there's a kind of folkloric belief in things called loup-garou. It's the French word for a werewolf, but they're not werewolves. They're shapeshifters. So it's people that can transform themselves into different animals and fly around at night and do mischief. It's decided that this black dog was in fact Benoît. Whether or not, again, this is true, whether it was myth, urban myth, you know, there was a cull of black dogs.

But that moment from the attempted bungled kidnap of the children, that was the period of unleashing a great deal of violence. 1963 was probably the culmination of public violence of the Duvalier regime. Duvalier has annihilated Benoit's family. But the bloodbath doesn't stop

there. Over the next few hours, hundreds of people across Haiti are murdered or disappear. The violence isn't targeted. It's a demonic free-for-all. It sends the message that if anyone tries to take out the president, the whole of Haiti will be punished.

Roadblocks are set up. Death squads roam freely through the streets. Corpses are left to rot on the roadsides. The stench fills the nostrils of the locals for weeks to come Raymond Joseph is the former Haitian ambassador to the USA For years he campaigned against Duvalier He ran for president in 2010 And now runs a Haitian newspaper out of Brooklyn, New York

He also happens to be the uncle of rapper Wycliffe Jean Back in April 1963, in the chaos, rumors start to spread that Benoit's infant son actually survived the blaze and has been taken to Duvalier himself. Duvalier's son-in-law was seen coming out with that boy, little boy about two years old, and they took him to Duvalier. And Duvalier is said to have closeted himself with the boy to query him about what he knew about his father. Nobody knows till this day what happened to François Benoit's little boy.

Some people said he was sacrificed by Duvalier. Other people said they don't know. Sheltered at the Dominican ambassador's residence, the awful news is delivered to the boy's father. Emotionally, that was a very, very big, big blow to me. I think I tried to regain control of my emotions. And I was very calm. And I would not either cry or complain.

Anybody who was close to me, anybody who was associated with me, was either arrested or killed. He sacrificed the people whom, for any reason, he suspected of not being lawful or faithful to him. He would, in the blink of an eye, just send them to death. That was his way of creating fear amongst the whole population. He sacrificed not only my family, but my wife's family. Shot children, babies, mothers, grandmothers.

It was a deliberate massacre. Benoit is under no doubt as to the character of the man who would do this A man whose seemingly random violence is in fact calculated to inspire the utmost fear in his people Well if you talk to a psychologist they would classify him as a psychopath When somebody is so turned to evil, somebody is so unrespectful of human rights, of human life, when somebody enjoys inflicting pain and suffering to other people and enjoying it, apparently something is wrong with that personality. So was he crazy? No. But was he evil? The answer is yes.

So who is the man they call Papa Doc? And how did he rise to this position of terrible supremacy? Let's find out. Francois Duvalier is born into a modest middle-class Haitian family in 1907. The beautiful Caribbean state of Haiti occupies the western half of the island of Hispaniola. Back in the 1700s, it was called Saint-Domingue and belonged to the French. John Marquis is author of Papa Doc, Portrait of a Haitian Tyrant.

Hispaniola was, of course, the most prosperous colony in the world at the time, turning out a huge number of crops which were keeping the perfumed elite in Paris very well fed indeed. But in 1791, the slaves of Haiti rose up in revolution against the French colonial system. Under the leadership of Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, they fought against all the odds to liberate their country.

You had a situation where the French were determined to hold on to this colony at all costs, but where the slaves quite rightly felt that they were not sharing in the revolutionary ideals which had been set down in 1789 during the French Revolution. And it's interesting that the fraternity and equality that was very much part and parcel of the French Revolution was never intended to extend to the slaves because, of course, the slaves were the bedrock of the colonial economy. In 1804, the slaves of Saint-Domingue finally won their independence and the nation of Haiti was born.

They actually expelled the French army when it was at its height. This was an absolutely incredible situation because they pretty well set the land on fire and defeated the French army. France was a highly significant power at the time, and yet the Haitian slaves rose up and defeated them, expelled them. So in 1804, Saint-Domingue changed its name to Haiti and became the first free black republic in the world, and only the second republic in the New World, of course, in the Western Hemisphere, America being the first. Haiti became the first slave colony to win independence.

From its inception, Haiti was a beacon of progress and possibility for civil rights activists in America. It's a very proud nation because, of course, it was the first slave republic. And of course, this became a signature event for later movements, civil rights movement, for instance. I mean, Toussaint Louverture was cited all the time as being one of the original heroes. I mean, even people like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King referred repeatedly back to the Haitian Revolution as being a kind of an ideal. And it was. It was a fantastic achievement by people who'd come from extremely humble backgrounds.

But despite the real optimism, this fledgling nation was not without its own internal divisions. The divisions that were present when Haiti became independent in 1804 were crucial. So you had essentially three sections of Haitian society that were important. You had the, what are called in Haiti, the mulattoes, so the light-skinned elites. So they were the most educated sector of the population. They spoke French, which was really important. Then you had the generals from the successful slave armies. There were a lot of generals in that army. And they were rewarded during the revolution and also after 1804 with land. Those were the groups with power. And then you had the mass of the population. So 95% of the population, 90% of the

population upwards, who were peasants. The peasants wanted nothing to do, nothing more than just be peasants and become subsistence farmers. And that didn't fit in with the economic plans of the new elites, because they needed to earn foreign currency. Therefore, they needed to convert the economy into an export economy. And to do that, the best way was to reinstate plantations. So large-scale farming of one sort or another. And to the peasants, that looked too much like slavery under another name. In fact, they were forced back by successive leaders after 1804 onto these lands.

In fact, they were forced back by successive leaders after 1804 onto these lands. Despite these profound rifts, Haiti is unified by its independence and its escape from colonial rule. It's into this country that François Duvalier, the future voodoo tyrant, is born. But when Duvalier is just eight years old. Haiti loses its treasured autonomy. In July 1915, with the First World War underway, the United States occupies the country. There are rumours Germany is eyeing up the Caribbean as a potential sphere of influence. America is making sure to get in there first.

For black Haitians like Duvalier, this is a catastrophe. James Ferguson is author of the book Papa Doc, Baby Doc. Well, Duvalier would have been, I think, about eight years old when the Marines arrived in Port-au-Prince. The occupation was surprisingly severe, harsh, profoundly racist. The American occupying forces immediately allied themselves with the very small, prosperous, pale-skinned elite that ran Haiti at that point. But for the majority of Black Haitians, the occupation was very unpleasant indeed. They were taxed, they were made to do unpaid labor, they were routinely abused. But psychologically and culturally, I think that's where the impact was. But they felt that this was an alien, racist occupying force. Duvalier, as an aspiring intellectual, was profoundly affected by this. And what

he saw as the authentic Haiti had been crushed, colonized, and humiliated. For the young Duvalier, this lack of respect for the Haitian people fosters a hatred of the United States and all it stands for. In years to come, de Waalje will delight in tormenting successive US administrations. His hatred for the American way of life is born right here, in the years under the US occupation. He grew up in a very cultured, articulate, black middle-class environment in Port-au-Prince, and this is precisely the class and the group

that felt most aggrieved by the American occupation. It's a long occupation, it's nearly 20 years. The Marines were very present, especially in Port-au-Prince, in the capital where Duvalier was growing up. They ruled the roost, and their contempt wasn't veiled in any way. If you're growing up in Port-au-Prince under a white occupation, then you know, you're going to get, certain of your prejudices are going to be confirmed, shall we say, at the very least.

It was said that the Marines that were chosen for the occupying force were chosen specifically from the southern states of the USA to be as racist as possible. But I don't think there were necessarily any more racists than your average Marine in 1915. And that was really important because the group, the social group that dominated Haiti at that time were the light-skinned elite, the mulattoes. And they thought when the Americans arrived that they'd be in a privileged position vis-a-vis the Americans because they were lighter skinned, because they were less barbaric as they like to put it than their black compatriots. But for the marines, they were just as black. And that

was a big blow to their prestige. And it was the first time really that the rest of the Haitians saw the mulattos dealt such a blow to their prestige, to their pride, to their arrogance and the rest of it. Finally, in 1934, the US military leaves Haiti and the country becomes independent once again. 1934 is also the year in which the young Duvalier completes his degree in medicine. He begins a promising career as a doctor, serving the people of Port-au-Prince. Becoming a doctor in Haiti is actually quite a big thing. You have to realise that the term intellectuel in Haiti often refers to anybody who can read. Already to have an education of any kind is a huge thing in Haiti,

and it's even more so at that period than now. But to become a doctor, to be one of the professions, doctor, a lawyer, essentially you had it made because of the prestige that accrues to it, even more than the money that you might earn from practicing the profession. Education was and still is a lottery in Haiti, who gets education and who doesn't. So it was a big thing. But Duvalier's real passion, a legacy of the US occupation, is black nationalist politics. He throws himself into a movement called Noirism. Essentially what Noirism was, was the reaffirmation with pride of the African roots.

The racial origins of the Haitian people were African. Noirism really took off after the end of the American occupation in 1934, reaffirming Africanity, if you like, the dignity of the African roots. Duvalier himself, like probably most young, educated blacks of that period, that was the thing to be. This was, politically, where it was at. It was the reaffirmation of your own class, of your own people.

Duvalier is fascinated by his and Haiti's African heritage. When slaves were shipped in their millions from Africa to the New World, they brought with them cultural practices and spiritual beliefs from their homelands. Some of these beliefs fell by the wayside

on the long crossing. Others survived. Those fragments of home that made it to the plantations changed. Ancient African religion fused with Christianity and with the beliefs of the indigenous populations of the Caribbean. They morphed into what is called Creole. As a young doctor, They morphed into what is called Creole. As a young doctor, François Duvalier is fascinated by Haiti's own Creole religion, voodoo. John Markey. Voodoo is a belief system which does have a central god, but is heavily based on the spiritual life.

And it's the spirits that are really the motivating force within the voodoo belief system and it's said that in Haiti the French brought Catholicism of course and there was an element of Protestants there as well and people say that Haiti is 70% Catholic, 30% Protestant but 100% voodoo. So even those who go to the cathedral and practice in the conventional sense still have strong beliefs in the whole business of voodoo. So you've got varieties of voodoo across the Caribbean and the differences between those kinds of voodoo are to do with where the people originally came from in Africa but it didn't come as a piece from Africa. It was adapted when it got to the New World.

That's why it's referred to as a Creole religion, because it was born in the New World. Voodoo was obviously something that was deeply entrenched in the African civilisation, and it was transported across the Atlantic Ocean on the slave ships. In Haiti, probably because of the social and political circumstances in Haiti,

voodoo retained its power, if you like, much more than it did elsewhere in the Caribbean. At its heart, voodoo belief has a single creator deity called Bondieu. The word comes from the French for good God. Bondieu is all-powerful, but does not get involved with this world. As a human being, you can't communicate with Bondieu is all-powerful, but does not get involved with this world. As a human being, you can't communicate with Bondieu. Instead, powerful demigods and spirits called Loa interact with humanity on Bondieu's behalf. It's these Loa that voodoo worshippers pray to. Former Haitian ambassador to the United States, Raymond Joseph, explains.

Lois are the spirits or the gods that the Haitians pray to, just as a Catholic would pray to a saint. That has passed on from generation to generation, still exists in Haiti. The superstitions that go with voodoo is very strong. It is strong even among some intellectuals. It is strong even among some officials. So you've got the Africans coming over from Africa, brought over as slaves, with their religion and with their folklore,

with their gods, and prevented on the plantations from worshipping openly those gods. However, they were often forced into conversion to Catholicism. So what you deal with in Vodou are the intermediaries. And these intermediaries, the Vodou spirits or semi-divinities, are called Lua. And there are hundreds of them, even thousands of them. It must have seemed to the slaves that the Catholic saints were something rather similar. So you go into a Catholic church, you see the iconography of St. Christopher or St. Patrick. In their minds, these are sort of semi-divinities as well. And very often when they were prevented from practicing their own religion,

they would outwardly be worshipping one or other saint. But that saint secretly for them was one of their lua. So for each of the lua, there's a corresponding Catholic saint. For example, there's a snake lua called Damballa in Vodou, and he's represented as Saint Patrick because of the iconography of Saint Patrick casting the snakes out of Ireland. So it was what you could call a syncretic religion. It took different belief systems and melded them into something new, hence a Creole religion. Fresh from medical school, Duvalier studies voodoo rituals. He gains a better understanding of how the religion dominates the lives of his countryfolk,

especially in the rural interior. On an island where many people cannot read or write, and scientific knowledge is confined to universities and elite institutions, magic and superstition are powerful forces indeed. On one hand, Duvalier is fascinated by Haiti's mystical spiritual past. On the other, he's a man of science, engaged in medicine and politics. These two halves to his character, the mystical and the modern, might seem opposed.

But in the Haiti of the 1940s, there is no contradiction here. On the contrary. There's always been an association in Haiti between vaudl and power. Most Haitians believe to this day that to have become president in the first place, you must have made some kind of pact with the devil or with the dark side of voodoo.

Voodoo itself is morally neutral, and Haitians say you can serve with the right hand or you can serve with the left hand. If you serve with the right hand, that's using voodoo for good. If you serve with the left hand, that's using it for sinister purposes. Duvalier's fascination with voodoo is growing, and will continue to grow as he ascends to the pinnacle of power. In 1944, Duvalier leaves Haiti for the United States. He wins a scholarship to study public health medicine at the University of Michigan. There's little hint of his tyrannical future, as the dictator-to-be spends a year in Ann Arbor mixing with other postgraduate students. His time in the US puts Duvalier into a position of extreme privilege.

When he returns home to Haiti, he has a head full of knowledge as well as medical skills that are far beyond the comprehension of many of his countrymen and women. skills that are far beyond the comprehension of many of his countrymen and women. His American studies also set him up with a job that will ultimately lead him into the world of politics. Duvalier is appointed the head of a US-sponsored public health program, bringing modern medicine to the Haitian peasants. Thousands of rural Haitians are suffering from a crippling skin disease called YORS. It's a chronic bacterial infection that manifests in painful lesions all over the body. Untreated, it leads to permanent disability and disfigurement.

In the developed world, it's pretty straightforward to treat. But you need antibiotics. YORS was a disease of the skin. It was really contagious and was throughout the country. People were suffering from it. And Papa Doc came in and said, I'm going to change that. And using penicillin, he changed that. Duvalier travels from village to village.

This well-turned-out young man bearing miraculous cures. It's a striking image, an inspiring one. It was a devastating disease that took its toll on the rural people in particular and it was a life-threatening disease and I think also a deforming disease. So it was one that needed to be tackled because it was taking a heavy toll in the rural communities. And Duvalier actually set out walking great distances on foot because a lot of these people lived in mountainous regions where there was no road to get to them. So he had to walk over rough tracks and through forests. He had to subject himself to hardship to actually deliver his medical expertise to these people. to subject himself to hardship to actually deliver his medical expertise to these people.

Duvalier becomes widely known as he tours the island, bringing his penicillin cure to the remotest parts of Haiti. Rates of infection from yours begin to decline. It's win-win. James Ferguson. I think the Yours campaign introduced Duvalier, who you must remember was a poor prince. He was an urban intellectual, really, from a fairly modest background, but he was certainly an urban Haitian. Introduced him to the reality of the Haitian countryside, which for him was a complete eye-opener. Out in the Haitian countryside, life was entirely different. And in treating people with Yours, this very unpleasant but highly treatable tropical disease, this very unpleasant but highly treatable tropical disease, he not only established a reputation as a kind man, a good man,

a man who could literally come into the community and make people well, but he was also introduced himself to the everyday life of the Haitian peasants, and that included voodoo, it included the poverty, the extreme poverty in which they lived, and it included a real understanding of their political culture. Now, whether or not he did this out of humanistic or out of pure benevolence is another matter. No, I mean, he was getting paid for this, and contact with the Americans was also a good thing to have. It certainly was extremely useful to him in the future.

In the course of the medical campaign, not only did he meet a whole series of village elders, important local power brokers, but he learnt something about the mentality, I think, of the Haitian majority, which was very different from the mentality of the minority who lived in the capital. To the largely illiterate population, steeped in magical superstitions, with no knowledge of bacteria and antibiotics, Papadoc isn't curing them with medicine alone.

Many believe he must have mysterious voodoo abilities. It's a little god that has come into their community because they see that his medicine heals and heals quickly. The people couldn't believe it was just the medicine doing it. They believed that Papadog had a special power in him. Duvalier's national medicine tour is a transformative moment. He realizes that he can use his newly earned reputation as a doctor to pursue a much larger long-term ambition for total political power. His efforts in the countryside and his effectiveness as a doctor did contribute to the aura that he eventually created for himself. He was referred to as Papadoc primarily because he was seen,

first of all, as a paternal figure, but also as an effective doctor. And it's interesting that he came to view the Haitian people themselves as essentially children. And he saw himself as their papadoc, in other words, their medical man, and also their father, their national father. And he was once quoted as saying the Haitian people are born to suffer. And unfortunately, that's proved to be the case. And they've suffered greatly. It's time to fully focus his energies on politics.

In 1946, Papadop begins to climb the political ladder in Port-au-Prince. Charismatic, sharp, and with an inspiring backstory. It's not long before he becomes Minister for Health under a fellow Noirist President Dumas Se Estime At this stage Papadoc still seems to be a force for good But the cracks are beginning to show in his kindly public image One of the really interesting things about Papadoc is how this transformation took place from the seemingly benign country doctor into the rampaging dictator he ultimately became. The first sign of it was when he was giving a public speech and he started yelling racist

abuse at the mulattoes. His jacket was hitched up on one side and there was a revolver in his belt, which was the first indicator that I'm aware of that the benign father figure was not all that he seemed to be. His hell-raising speeches, castigating the light-skinned elite, see Duvalier gather real momentum. But Haitian politics is pretty turbulent, and you can't take anything for granted. Just four years later, the army overthrows

President Estimé's regime, forcing Papadoc out of political office. For now, he'll have to watch from the sidelines. Duvalier goes into hiding. He takes the opportunity to study political writings, from Marx to Machiavelli. He took this time to study the great masters. And the great masters for him was Machiavelli, was Karl Marx, was Mao Zedong. In reading Machiavelli, Papa Doc learned one thing. He said, in politics, gratefulness is weakness.

It's better to be feared than to be loved. In 1956, Duvalier's enemies in the government are themselves overthrown by the army. Now Haiti is on the brink of civil war. An interim government struggles to maintain law and order. There's only one thing for it. Amidst the chaos, elections for president are called. Duvalier knows this is a golden opportunity to make his name. The young doctor emerges from hiding.

He wants to throw his fur felt hat in the ring in a way that gets him maximum publicity. So one day, he turns up at the newspaper office of journalist and editor Bernard Diederich. He arrived at my office in an old Buick. He said to me, I took him into my office and he kept his hat on. He said to me, I took him into my office and he kept his hat on.

He told me he liked my newspaper. And then he said, could I ask you a question? I said, well, I have a lot of questions. Can I interview you? He said, no, this is just to announce my candidate seat in the forthcoming election. In Diedrich's office, Duvalier announces he will be standing as a champion

of the impoverished black majority. At this stage, Papadoc is an opportunist, keen to advance himself. But he also believes he can turn the country around. I think Duvalier became corrupted by power. I think he went in as the quietly spoken country doctor who had done good things for the people of Haiti in the past. And he probably was an idealist. And he probably felt that he could do good things in power. For years, Haiti has been governed by a tiny minority of career politicians. They tend to be drawn from the country's mixed-race professional

class. On his medical tours around the island nation, Papadoc has grasped that there's a lot of resentment out there. People want change. He's a relative novice when it comes to politics, but Papadoc has a gripping election message and a votership that he's ready to mobilize. election message and a votership that he's ready to mobilize. Papa Doc from the underground came out and he led the fight for power. He made it

a fight of black versus mulatto. In a country where 90% of the people are black, Papa Doc was a shoo-in. On September the 22nd, 1957, François Duvalier wins a landslide victory. Across Haiti, Papa Doc has won the endorsement of influential voodoo priests.

They even allowed their temples to be used as party offices during the campaign. Now these priests are invited to Port-au-Prince to celebrate victory. There are high hopes for this good doctor. He's turning over a fresh page of Haitian history. But in fact, this is the beginning of decades of dictatorship. Certainly the meek persona that he presented during the 1957 election was certainly a facade. It was a very carefully prepared facade.

It was designed to lull the opposition into a state of false security. He didn't want to put anybody's back up. He certainly didn't want to give the idea, an inkling, of what kind of person he could be when he achieved power. He knew that the army didn't want a strongman as president. They wanted somebody they could manipulate to retain their own hold on power. So I think that was very much a facade, very much a projection. At the time, Duvalier's facade works a treat. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, as Bernard Diederich appreciates, decades on from covering the election as a reporter.

I had no idea that there was two sides to this man. I mean, he really fooled us all. He fooled the army. He fooled some of his partisans who ran his election for him. Oh God, we had no idea what it was going to be like, but it was murder. On October the 22nd, 1957, Duvalier takes his seat as President of Haiti. In just a few short years, he's climbed to the top of the tree. But he knows that his is by no means a secure position.

Haiti is an unpredictable country with politics that are frequently explosive. Public unrest can erupt at any time, bringing leaders down in a pile of rubble. Between 1843 and 1915, there were 22 heads of state of Haiti. Only one of them completed his full term in office. Going right back, even the hero of the Haitian Revolution,

General Jean-Jacques Dessalines, met an unspeakably hideous fate. John Marquis. Even Dessalines himself, after two or three years in power, was actually dismembered in the streets of Port-au-Prince and fed to the pigs. Another one was impaled on the palace railings. You know, the Haitians don't mess about when they become rebellious. And so Duvalier was faced with this reality, this appalling actuality. You know, how would he cope with the Haitian people? And the way to cope with the Haitian people was to be absolutely ruthless and to leave them in no doubt at all who was in control. And he did that very, very effectively.

When Duvalier was four years old, a revolution ousted the sitting president. The next year, the new president was blown to bits by a bomb. The year after that, the next man in charge was poisoned. Papa Doc has done his research. He's determined to be the leader who lasts. It's time to put his theory of power, taken from the works of Machiavelli, into practice. There's no time to lose.

It was very quick, the transition from bumbling country doctor to ruthless dictator. He must obviously have been planning the whole time how to keep himself in power by neutralising the influence of the armed forces. But he moved so quickly, I think that they were almost surprised. Real power in Haiti has always lain with the army. Elected leaders come and go. A cabal of generals is always waiting to pull the trigger and seize power in a coup. It's happened time and again, not least to the country's last two leaders.

On Duvalier's list of obvious threats, the army comes top. Almost immediately that he gets elected, the first thing he does is to purge the army. So those officers, again, officers that had helped him, found themselves exiled to some godforsaken hole in the middle of nowhere, or arrested or threatened. That was the start of the way that he was going to operate throughout his presidency, to have successive and unpredictable purges of those who thought they were secure,

who thought they were in his favours, but absolutely weren't. So he knew that the army were the kingmakers, and he needed to make sure that the people in the key position of the army were his appointees. But even those appointees didn't last very long, so there was a very quick turnover in the top ranks of the army in Haiti. He kept people constantly off balance. That was his tactic. The top officers are sacked. For now, at least, they get away with their lives.

Papadok has fired a warning shot across the bows of anyone who'd cross him. Despite this show of strength, there are still some army officers who haven't got the memo. They still believe that if it comes to it, they'll be able to remove Papadoc from power. Their naivety is about to become painfully clear. Next time on Real Dictators A band of exiled soldiers attempts to topple the president just months into his rule. Duvalier grapples with US President Kennedy as state-sponsored violence erupts across the picturesque Caribbean island.

Papadoc builds a vast private army, inspired by a terrifying bogeyman from Haitian mythology. And in the eyes of his cowed and brutalized people, the dictator begins to turn from political strongman into all-powerful voodoo god. That's next time on Real Dictators. That's next time on Real Dictators. The music was composed or assembled by Oliver Baines from Flight Brigade. The strings were recorded by Dory McCauley. The sound mixer is Tom Pink. The sound recordist is Robbie Stamm.

Real Dictators is a Noiser and World Media Rights co-production. If you haven't already, we'd love you to follow us wherever you listen to your favourite shows, or check us out at realdictators.com. Thanks for watching.