1958–1962: (The Systematic Destruction of the FAd’H: The Flambeaux Brought to the Top and Then Divided, the Milice Civile with Red Sashes of Ogoun, the Acadé…

1958–1962: (The Systematic Destruction of the FAd’H: The Flambeaux Brought to the Top and Then Divided, the Milice Civile with Red Sashes of Ogoun, the Académie Militaire Closed, Colonel Deetjen Murdered, and Sonthonax’s Words Plastered on the Walls): Duvalier’s army house-cleaning at the end of 1958 brought the Flambeaux — the 1941 Académie Militaire class that had long chafed below their elders — to the top, created block vacancies in lower ranks which Duvalier infused with young noirs, and prevented the new Marine mission from attaining too effective a relationship with the FAd’H. As a deep student of Haitian history, the president was keenly aware that in all but a handful of power transfers since 1806 it had been generals who called the tune, and his determination was that the FAd’H would never end his term. In late 1959, using the Garde Présidentielle as a parent organization, Duvalier began recruiting from the slums what he first designated La Milice Civile — a blue-jeaned militia armed with old weapons from the palace basement, later redesignated Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale. Within two years the VSN would be double the size of the FAd’H; its rural platoons in every village, led by peasant gwo nèg giving orders to FAd’H opposite numbers, wore the red sashes of Ogoun and big straw hats of the old Cacos, whose latest descendants they were and were meant by Duvalier to be. In June 1961, regarding the Académie Militaire as a source of FAd’H elitism, Duvalier simply closed it, never to reopen during his presidency. The FAd’H had lost the ability to protect its own members: Colonel Max Deetjen, one of Haiti’s most popular officers, was murdered at Hinche in November 1961 by the local macoute headman. The Flambeaux were quickly divided, turned against each other, and neutralized. On August 1, 1960, the Port-au-Prince milice staged an anniversary parade during which the capital was mysteriously plastered with handbills — as the quaking elite watched the rifle-and-machete-armed, tafya-reeking, blue-jeaned bands troop past the palace to the throb of 1804, they could read on every wall the terrible words of Sonthonax in 1793 to his own noir militia: These muskets are your liberty — if you want to keep it, make good use of these arms.