1963, April 26–30: (The Benoît Family Massacre, the Dominican Embassy Violated, Bosch’s Ultimatum, Fourcand’s Himalaya of Corpses, and the OAS Confrontation …

1963, April 26–30: (The Benoît Family Massacre, the Dominican Embassy Violated, Bosch’s Ultimatum, Fourcand’s Himalaya of Corpses, and the OAS Confrontation with Bawon Samdi): The spasm that seized Duvalier can be compared only with the insensate rages of Hyppolite. Soldiers and TTMs combed Port-au-Prince arresting at random, firing weapons in savage panic — under shoot-to-kill orders regarding retired officers, they gunned down Captain Albert Poitevien on his doorstep. Not yet aware that Barbot was involved, Duvalier conceived that the marksman must be Lieutenant François Benoît, a former rifle-team star then in asylum inside the Dominican embassy. Commanded by Major Romain, macoutes dashed to the Benoît home in Bois-Verna, opening fire as they deployed — the first bursts gunned down Benoît’s aged father, a retired judge, and his mother and a friend on the front porch. The servants and even the family dogs were killed; the house, battered by hundreds of rounds, was doused with kerosene and set on fire; Benoît’s baby son Gérard died in his crib as flames consumed the old gingerbread house. An elderly lawyer, Maître Benoît Armand, was killed because his first name was Benoît. The Garde Présidentielle then moved against the Dominican chancery — this was the first occasion since 1915 that Haitians had violated a foreign diplomatic mission. Juan Bosch put the Dominican Armed Forces on war footing, massed 3,000 troops at Dajabón, sent Duvalier an ultimatum, and invoked the Rio Treaty; the U.S. Caribbean Ready Amphibious Squadron with the 4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade was ordered at forced draft to the Gulf of La Gonâve. Duvalier never blinked — on April 28 he broke relations with Bosch while welcoming the Trujillo family and their secret policemen to Port-au-Prince that afternoon. Dr. Fourcand, in a memorable Month of Gratitude oration, called America a democracy of sluts and warned the world: blood will flow in Haiti like a river, the land will burn from the North to the South, there will be no sunrise and no sunset, just one great flame licking the sky, there will be a Himalaya of corpses, it will be the greatest slaughter in history. When the OAS commission reached Port-au-Prince on April 30, Duvalier had filled the city with 150,000 kleren-soaked peasants, drums throbbing and vaksin hooting. For a quarter hour Duvalier sat silent and motionless, unblinking as Bawon Samdi, behind every ambassador a macoute with cocked weapon — then he addressed them in furious Creole, answering their French only in Creole, and herded them onto a balcony from which they could see the seething masses packing every place named for the founders of the revolution.