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1959

1959: Duvalier formally establishes the VSN (Tontons Macoutes) to suppress political opposition and bypass the regular army.

1959: Duvalier formally establishes the VSN (Tontons Macoutes) to suppress political opposition and bypass the regular army. This paramilitary force became the primary instrument of state-sponsored violence and social control.

Source Girard, Haiti: The Tumultuous History, 116; Trouillot, Haiti: State Against Nation, 155; Nicholls, From Dessalines to Duvalier, xvii