Evolution of Evil: The Story of Papa Doc and Benito Mussolini

so [Music] by the end of april 1945 allied forces have liberated almost all of italy from nazi occupation an occupation no italian ever wanted by lake coma close to the swiss border a large german ss convoy is heading north [Music] when a small patrol of italian partisans stop them at a makeshift roadblock the nazis in the lead jeep demand to be left but just as they're about to let the germans pass one of the men notices something strange [Music] at the back of the vehicle a man in nazi uniform is trying not to be noticed on closer inspection they realize who it is he stopped at the roadblock and although he's doing his best wearing a uniform to actually disguise himself he's of course instantly recognized and so is his lover at the time clara patachi italy's fascist dictator is arrested immediately it's the final fall from grace for a man who held his country under an evil spell for over two decades [Music] mussolini's evolution begins in 1883 in the village of pradapio in the romania region of northeastern italy where he is born into a family fallen on hard times the grandfather had to sell the family land and i think somewhere in mussolini's souls the desire to reclaim family success [Music] like so many in romania he is raised in a family of radical socialists who are often jailed for their political beliefs mussolini's father is a blacksmith who spends more time womanizing and drinking than working at the anvil leaving the family little money to survive mussolini grew up with a really strong resentment of people who had more than he had he knew he was much smarter than anyone else that he met and yet he wasn't the beneficiary of privileges [Music] fueled by his family's sense of injustice young benito is arrogant volatile and a bully [Music] as a child was fairly wild i think unruly and anarchic [Music] as a boy mussolini was a rebel he was intolerant and very gross awesome relationships with his peers were often violent in games with friends he hates to lose and often fights dirty to resolve disputes [Music] in a fight with a rival he used a knife and injured the other boy very seriously they expel him telling his parents he is beyond their control but there is also a warm loyal side to young benito these will be key to his rise to power brother and sister adore him [Music] he's a dreamer who recites poetry and literature mussolini was a great stage director of his own life he had a lot of charisma and charm [Music] from a young age he rehearses making speeches he practiced early on sort of posing and and and came to believe i think his own theatrical image by the age of 18 the future dictator of italy is a flamboyant attractive young man and like his father a passionate socialist women are drawn to him like a magnet but his volatile side keeps erupting between he was crazy for women he had the highly sexual personality so any woman young or old to him was just an object to be predatable um throughout his life mussolini beds hundreds of women often violently [Music] muscle many i think tended to engage in the sort of sex that is best described as nasty brutish and short rather than be ashamed of beating and raping women in later writings he boasts about it he was an egotist as a result some of his behavior was strange this strangeness got him known as the madman of pradapio and the madman of romania in 1903 he avoids national service by escaping to switzerland where he's arrested for advocating a violent revolution his mother dies shortly afterwards and he goes completely off the rails the greatest love of his life was his mother in true italian style she died when he was only 22 and for him this was an extremely dark day which he would remember for the rest of his life when his father remarries mussolini takes an unhealthy interest in his new stepsister sixteen-year-old his father fears benito will bring shame to the family by starting a relationship some might think incestuous however he will have her no matter what said that if this girl cannot be mine i will shoot myself and he made the gesture to do just that the whole thing though was just an act and at that time he had no intention of killing himself [Music] in 1910 benito and raquel start to live together but mussolini's sex mad and soon abandons his stepsister and marries another woman ida dalsa [Music] they have a son together benettino little benito it's not long before he grows tired of his new family and leaves them too at this stage there is no sign that mussolini the violent womanizing socialist can turn into one of history's most evil dictators [Music] but cataclysmic world events are about to change everything 1914 world war one erupts across europe at first italy stays neutral but many argue they should fight for a share of the spoils as an active socialist benito mussolini initially supports his nation's neutrality [Music] by now he has moved to milan and found a flair for journalism stoked by his childhood love of literature still in his twenties he is made editor of italy's biggest selling socialist newspaper [Music] avanti avanti gave him that platform from which he could influence the political direction of the party itself he was a fierce supporter of revolution in italy [Music] but then he starts to think that the war could be the spark to transform the country even start a revolution if so italy must be part of it in april 1915 he's arrested for organizing pro-war demonstrations but the socialists and avanti don't share his views he is expelled from the party and resigns from the newspaper to get back at them he starts a publication of his own he wants a platform for his ideas and so he gets together money from various sources he sets up a newspaper called popular italia the people of italy on the 24th of may 1915 mussolini gets his wish as italy finally joins the conflict having argued so passionately for war now he can fight in it when italy declares war in the spring of 1915 he volunteers he gets wounded in an accident with a mortar and there are photographs on crutches after that he goes back to his job as a newspaper editor while recovering he writes editorials on his sick bed and an idea starts to take form he began thinking that perhaps the route to a revolution in italy might be to organize the veterans of the war after they came home mussolini referred to them as the aristocracy of the trenches sure enough when the war ends in 1918 italy is in a miserable state and ripe for change despite being on the winning side the country has gained almost nothing in the peace settlement communists and socialists are causing trouble on italian streets calling for a revolution like russia's by now mussolini has completely turned his back on the left he wants to forge his own path one based on the glory of italy and its roman past mussolini had become more and more in love with his own country and dreaming about running it and thinking about how he could make it a great power he decides to put his ideas into action he calls for a radical new movement to be formed one which he will lead by the force of his personality even though he seems to be kind of this warm guy and and people saw him sometimes as almost empathic it's a veneer it's a facade and he knew that that warmth you know that he seemed to give off was manipulating in itself mussolini appeals to disillusioned war veterans who share both his anger with the old liberal parliamentary system and his fear of a communist takeover they believe that extreme nationalism and a one-party state are what will make italy great again and they adopt to the roman acts the fast show as their symbol they call themselves fascists many of them wear the black shirt of the aditi italy's fearsome commando unit in new york the fascist black shirts the street fighters believed that political debates voting all of the trappings of democracy were either foolish or weak or a fraud if you wanted something you took it [Music] and mussolini's thugs are armed to the teeth fascists were very often led by demobilized junior officers and they had access to weapons often they kept weapons themselves from the war they had revolvers but they also had more exotic weapons the manganello the heavy club was one of their characteristic weapons but knuckle dusters um sometimes even weird instruments i mean there's one fascist group for example that beat up his enemies using sticks of dried cod mussolini becomes their leader and they call him il duche the boss he organizes his fascists into fighting units instructing them to beat and humiliate his opponents the units would attack the socialist leaders capture them tie fascist slogans around them make them look ridiculous force them to bring powerful laxatives making them soil themselves to destroy their public image imagine it mocked them and took pictures which then appeared in the newspapers [Applause] mussolini's fascist movement takes off going from 20 000 to almost 200 000 members in just a few months while his thugs battle communists in the streets mussolini tries to broaden his power base the fascist movement becomes the fascist party and in 1921 he is elected to parliament campaigning reveals his supreme skill throughout his career with one masterful speech the duchess can turn crowds into screaming adoring hordes he had the ability to move people to control their emotions to get them to listen to him that he was eloquent and he was persuasive there was something almost magical that would suck people into his thinking you have these gigantic crowds shouting because he in effect kind of hypnotized them in 1922 as italy descends further into chaos mussolini seizes the moment through the power of his oratory he's going to mobilize enough fascists onto the streets to try to force the state to hand him power he urges his supporters to march on rome but their leader isn't amongst them behind the scenes the master of propaganda is working away he saw it as a kind of an act he was staging what looked like a revolution but at the same time secretly assuring the army leadership and the monarchy that this was only play acting mussolini later claims hundreds of thousands join the march in reality only sixteen thousand bedraggled mainly unarmed marchers show up the police and the army turn a blind eye it was an untypically wet october they drowned whilst waiting they didn't know what to do no orders were coming mussolini was nowhere to be seen he's actually in milan he's really sitting beside the telephone waiting for other politicians to ream up and say you want to be minister of this or would you like to be prime minister terrified of a revolution italy's head of state king victor emmanuel iii calls on mussolini to lead a new coalition government through his ability to stir up the mob the boss has bluffed and bullied his way to power it's the beginning of italy's descent into hell while mussolini attempts to be statesmanlike his black shirts are still on the streets causing mayhem violence has been his way of life and now with power in his grasp he has the means to inflict it on anyone who stands in his way socialist politician giacomo matiotti is making threats to expose the fascists violent tactics so he needs to be silenced a unit of black shirts assaults matati who suffers a heart attack and is buried in a shallow grave just outside rome when he realized that his own personal bodyguards had murdered this socialist member of parliament he tried to cover it up when matteotti's body is recovered mussolini denies any involvement and the murder does its job political opponents are terrorized into silence [Music] with italy cowed into submission he can fulfill his dream of a second roman empire spanning the globe with himself as the new emperor just like somebody else a few hundred miles away he receives a request asking for a signed photograph from an admirer in germany mussolini refuses he doesn't consider the letter writer important that will soon change because the letter is from the man who will devastate both his life and that of his country adolf hitler in 1925 the duchy declares italy a dictatorship all political parties are closed down except for fascists mussolini was completely anti-democratic in his political model there was no role for any kind of opposition [Music] with italy under his complete command mussolini can indulge his greatest passion showmanship fascism was characterized by the cult of the leader and muslim played up to this in a very big way and was always posing for the cameras he had remarkable staring eyes everything was done to present him as a kind of nietzsche type superman a man who was virile who was athletic was a great sportsman who had a great torso and he had no qualms about stripping to the waist and showing off his as you can see it is his manly torso [Music] it really is impossible to imagine adolf hitler taking off his shirt and exhibiting himself whereas mussolini does um get photographed bringing in the harvest he's a massage politician mussolini becomes a role model for every would-be dictator of the 20th century and beyond at first italy prospers under fascism a massive scheme of public works dramatically reduces unemployment mussolini reaches an almost divine status at home and abroad churchill hails him as a genius fdr says he is deeply impressed by him [Music] imagine a public mussolini foreign the public image of him outside of italy was completely positive because from the outside it was a country of rebels and mussolini had made it whole he had made the trains run on time and had united divided italy in the visa but controlling his own country isn't enough for the duchy one of the terms that sums italy up very well i think is the idea that it was the least of the great powers that it was bottom of the of the first division and you can find mussolini himself using that football metaphor he is particularly jealous of the great colonial empires of britain and france [Applause] mussolini had the ambition to restore the roman empire he wanted to send his fascist legions to where the roman legions had gone before including into libya and north africa italy had controlled libya since 1911 but after the first world war libyan tribesmen rise up against their imperial masters mussolini orders a brutal policy of pacification he orders his generals to exterminate any opposition to lock them in concentration camps the italian policy in libya was a story of utter brutality up there with the worst moments of european colonialism one hundred thousand libyan tribesmen are rounded up and forced to march across the desert most die on the journey the majority are women children and the elderly and for political leaders there's an even worse punishment there was a saying among the libyan arabs he went to rome but he never got to rome he was thrown out of the plane a couple of miles outside of the village they eradicated these people and took the leader omar al-mukhtar and hanged him in front of twenty thousand libyans in total around half of libya's population are wiped out by mussolini's crazed delusions of a new roman empire but the rest of the world pays little attention to what's happening in north africa apart from the newly elected chancellor of germany in 1934 adolf hitler finally gets to meet the man he wrote to eight years earlier mussolini remains unimpressed and describes him as a silly little clown adolf hitler looks at mussolini as someone who is providing a blueprint as to how to destroy the old order hitler learns from mussolini and he has a deep affection for him that goes beyond just admiration it's idolization of mussolini [Music] at first it's hitler who apes his great hero copying the fascist salute and many of the duchess ideas mussolini relishes his superiority at the beginning of their relationship he thinks he can bully hitler too in a move that will inspire the nazis he spends billions expanding the military his plan is to widen his empire so he sends his forces to a country that had embarrassed italy in a colonial defeat 40 years earlier [Music] in the autumn of 1935 over half a million italian troops invade ethiopia in a savage act of revenge wesley turns to ethiopia um in part because that has long been an object of italian imperial ambitions [Music] it is the largest colonial army ever put into the field and the war becomes one of the 20th century's most one-sided conflicts mussolini wanted to create a kind of copy of south africa in ethiopia in other words to turn the ethiopian population into what amounted to slaves or serfs and create a massive immigrant population of italians who would practice a kind of apartheid but they did so with such violence such cruelty such ruthlessness there was a massive revolt in the center of the country this was one of the most brutal campaigns ever waged by colonial power the ethiopia had virtually no air force and italian planes could simply fly over ethiopian villages or ethiopian armed forces and do whatever they'd like to them anna ducey instructs his bombers to fight dirty he wanted this campaign to be over quickly and by the end of the year he said we just simply got to use poison gas on a large scale we just got to get this war finished swiftly in defiance of the league of nations mussolini drops mustard gas on ethiopia something even hitler refuses to deploy emperor haile selassie desperately appeals to the league of nations to intervene but they just look the other way mussolini's invasion of ethiopia leaves the lion of judah's impoverished nation devastated the ethiopian historians think that the death toll during the war is somewhere above 350 000 people so it's a massive death toll the ethiopian war was really the beginning of the second world war muslim knew full well that invading ethiopia he was breaking the league of nations it was going to give a green light to hitler hitler could now see that you could act in defiance illegal nations and get away with it the bond between mussolini and hitler grows tighter than ever in league with the nazis the duchess sends troops to aid franco's fascists fighting the spanish civil war both countries got involved in the spanish civil war from 3639 and the verdict was completely different germany fought a very very successful campaign italy the italians were defeated in guadalajara in a very traumatic event again and the comparison between the two was traumatic for mussolini the spanish campaign is the first sign the nazi war machine is better equipped for conflict than his military but the duchy ignores all advice [Music] however mussolini's philandering has come back to haunt him the first wife he abandoned ida dalsa and their son little bonito have been causing him problems mussolini subsequently married raquel his stepsister but ida keeps surfacing tarnishing his image she wanted him all for herself and so caused several scenes with raquel mussolini found this situation intolerable as it risked putting him in a bad light the fascist dictator's ruthless side reveals itself again as he declares eder to be mad and has her locked up he decided that this woman should be completely removed from view another put in a psychiatric hospital in 1937 ida dalsa is allegedly beaten and dies of a brain hemorrhage in the asylum a few years later he orders his own son little benito to be murdered by lethal injection he is just 26. [Music] the ducey thinks his ruthlessness makes him untouchable september the 27th 1937 with his personal affairs now in order mussolini is invited to germany and hitler pulls out all the stops to impress his idol he is absolutely astounded by the progress that germany has made during those few years he is blown over by the show of military might and order he realizes that the balance of power has tipped already decisively towards hitler as a man obsessed with showmanship and military might hitler presses all of mussolini's buttons becomes enthralled the silly little clown is now the ringmaster [Applause] muslim comes back from his visit to germany with a sense that really you know the future lies with germany's really impressed by by the nazis [Music] it's not just hitler's armies that win mussolini over he is becoming captivated by his ideas too he sees the persecution of jews in germany as a model for the introduction of his own anti-jewish laws one of the greatest blots on mussolini's reputation were the anti-semitic decrees of november 1938. [Music] until the 1930s jews and catholics had lived relatively peaceably side by side in italy but now just like germany jews are stripped of citizenship and barred from holding official jobs between italians and jews is declared illegal italian racism is defined from 1938 onwards is increasingly in terms of italy being defined in spiritual terms as a racial community at the root of italian spiritual identity is catholicism and therefore the jews cannot be part of the italian spiritual community mussolini certainly plays a major role in the introduction of the anti-semitic legislation and then in its continued expansion italian anti-semitism remains essentially discriminatory rather than genocidal the italians aren't then until then imagining that they're going to kill their jews they're imagining that they're going to separate them from the rest of the population fascist and nazi ideology converge a military alliance the pact of steel is signed between italy and germany with it mussolini's and his people's fate are sealed september the 1st 1939 hitler invades poland two days later britain and france declare war on germany at first mussolini is unsure which way the war will go and tries to play the long game but when hitler conquers france he is convinced there can be only one winner on june 10 1940 he throws in his lot with the nazis he's certain now hitler is unstoppable and by following him he can fulfill his own imperial dreams he couldn't be more wrong he's been sucked into a conflict italy cannot fight italy is decidedly unprepared for a modern world war its economy remains the weakest of the competing great powers all the advice that mussolini gets in in the spring anyway of 1940 is be careful look we really can't do this [Music] as hitler's armies rampage through northern europe against all his general's advice mussolini instructs his forces to begin their own separate invasions without telling hitler he decides to go for the balkans in a big way and plans are drawn up for invasion of greece which is assumed would be fairly over fairly quickly [Music] for all mussolini's success in ethiopia the invasion of greece is a disaster the italian army is defeated and immediately retreat [Music] the nazis are forced to rescue their weaker ally and occupy greece on june the 22nd 1941 hitler independently attacks the soviet union but mussolini insists italian troops have to be involved mussolini looked at hitler with admiration but also hate hate because hitler had become the master and mussolini had become simply an ally and moreover a secondary ally in the russian campaign mussolini insisted on sending italian troops which hitler didn't want hitler because of their leader's desperation to please his master around 30 000 italians are killed on the eastern front and another 50 000 die in captivity in 1942 news filters through of further defeats to the british in north africa the war is becoming a humiliation for italy mussolini's unstable personality emerges again with violent mood swings and erratic behavior [Music] when mussolini had aligned himself with hitler he developed this kind of manic depressive kind of behavior going from one extreme to another he takes refuge in his arrogance and self-obsession he believes that he can do no wrong he's great believe his own intuition he says to his son-in-law at one stage i am the most intelligent animal that's ever existed [Music] but his bluster seems absurd given the tragedy about to engulf his people in 1943 italy is losing the war and mussolini becomes seriously ill with an ulcer that's plagued him throughout his life his grip on the country is loosening and the writing is on the wall for his regime the allies are bombing the entire peninsula and have invaded sicily air raids on italian cities take a huge toll both in terms of material damage but also on the morale of italian people there are increasing food shortages rationing comes in in a major way and people are getting increasingly desperate despite the suffering of his people the duchy is too proud to surrender his character begins to change he becomes more isolated um he won't listen to anyone's advice unable to accept any blame mussolini casts around for scapegoats he began to use propaganda in an effort to blame the war on the jews he started to blame his generals and when disaster really struck he accused the italian people of not being in control of their own dreams and objectives it was always somebody else's fault italians who had once been frightened into submission even his own political allies now turn on their leader mussolini's son-in-law count jian leads a vote on the grand council to remove him from office and end the war the king places him under house arrest he is confined under armed guard mussolini thought that he was finished he wanted to dedicate himself to his family if mussolini thinks he can spend the rest of his days in relative peace hitler has other plans in one of the most daring rescues of the war he dispatches gliders to where mussolini is being held in the mountains without a shot being fired he is rescued and installed as head of a new puppet regime in the north of italy the republic of salon under nazi control [Music] the reversal of roles is now complete mussolini the once powerful leader who wrote the book on leading by intimidation is now utterly subservient to hitler he now served nearly as a puppet in a way just repeating the words hitler had already written and hitler places conditions on mussolini's he tells him he must send what jews remain in italy to auschwitz six thousand are sent to the gas chambers making his regime complicit in the worst crime in history next hitler orders mussolini to execute the members of his government who had conspired to have him removed including his own son-in-law count jan isolated and hated by his people reviled by his own family his love of the nazis and a new roman empire brings him close to the end russolini confessed to being finished to being a walking corpse the italian population cursed the war and cursed mussolini in this period he was a broken man responsible for an italian catastrophe even worse it's all been for nothing little by little the nazis are driven out of italy the ducey tries to escape with one of his many mistresses claretta but the game is up orders come through that muslim should be executed before the allies get their hands on him that it should be italian people who make judgment over him [Music] [Music] muslims mussolini and claretta patachi's bodies are driven to the pierzale loretto in milan [Music] there the italian people shattered by a war only their leader wanted display their feelings mussolini's corpse was battered spat upon his head was kicked in and the bodies were tied around the ankles and then hoisted up so that the corpses hung upside down today there is a small minority in italy who admire mussolini and long for another fascist age when the trains run on time i think italians have still not come to terms with mussolini he still has a certain appeal to young people they are looking for direction and seem as a role model with clear ideas his ideas may have been clear but all they brought was a massacre fascists choose to forget mussolini led his country into a senseless war they were hopelessly unprepared for they forget he had become hitler's lap dog they forget he was personally responsible for the deaths of around a million people in italy and africa and participated in the holocaust a high price to pay for trains that run on time april 1963 the sixth year of haitian dictator francois duvalier's brutal reign is about to become the most bloody at the presidential palace the man they call papadoc gets shocking news someone has shot his children's bodyguard and chauffeur it absolutely outraged and sent him into overdrive blind with anger papadoc summons the head of his palace guard to whom his orders are clear find those responsible and kill them all the hunt starts with a man papadoc wrongly accuses of being behind the attack former army officer francois benoit 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 though personally safe from duvalier's goons benoit's family including his father who was a judge his wife and infant son remain in harm's way 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 run by everyone in the house is killed and then set ablaze it was a terrible day the ashes of the benoit's was there for years and years over the next few hours hundreds of people are murdered or disappeared a horrific rumor starts to spread that a different fate awaits benoit's infant son who was reportedly taken to duvalier diwali is said to have closeted himself with the boy nobody knows till this day what happened to francois benoit's little boy some people said he was sacrificed by diwali sheltered at the dominican embassy the awful news is delivered to benoit he sacrificed not only my family but my wife's family anybody who was close to me anybody who was associated with me was either arrested or killed if you talk to a psychologist they would classify him as a psychopath was he crazy no but was he evil the answer is yes papadoc the man responsible for this atrocity is born in 1907 in a beautiful caribbean state of haiti it's a proud nation the first slave colony to become independent in the 18th century it was called sandomac and belonged to the french it was the most prosperous colony in the world at the time uh turning out a huge number of crops which were keeping the perfumed elite in paris very well fed indeed it was estimated that one in eight people in metropolitan france owed their living directly or indirectly to the produce of haiti of saint-domingue it was called the pearl of the antilles in 1791 the slaves of haiti rise up in revolution against the french colonial system under the leadership of tucson louverture and jean-jacques desolene they fight against all the odds to liberate their country they actually expelled the french army when it was at its height this was an absolutely incredible situation and yet the haitian slaves rose up and defeated them expelled them the slave armies defeated not just the french plantation owners the french armies but also the spanish british the americans who've had all of the superpowers of the year in 1804 the slaves of santa man finally win their independence and the nation of haiti is born 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 fantastic achievement [Music] but when francois duvalier is just eight years old haiti loses her independence in july 1915 with america's entrance into world war one on the horizon the united states occupies the country and for black haitians like duvalier it's a catastrophe the occupation was surprisingly severe harsh profoundly racist for young duvalier the lack of respect for the haitian people molds a hatred of the united states and all it stands for he grew up in a in a very cultured articulate black middle class environment in poor past and this is precisely the class and the group that felt most aggrieved by the american occupation [Music] in 1934 the u.s military leaves haiti and the country becomes independent once again it is also the year in which duvalier completes his degree in medicine and begins a promising career serving the people of porto pras but his real passion a legacy of the u.s occupation is black nationalist politics and he throws himself into a movement called noirism [Music] essentially what nuaism was was the reaffirmation with pride of the african roots [Music] following his fascination with african heritage duvalier starts to study haiti's creole religion voodoo vuldu is an essentially animistic religion that originates in west africa people say that haiti is 70 catholic 30 protestant but 100 voodoo voodoo has a single creator deity bondier but the supreme deity does not get involved with this world instead powerful demigods and spirits called loia interact with humanity laws are the spirits or the gods that the haitians pray to just as a catholic would pray to a saint as duvalier studies voodoo rituals he gains a better understanding of how the religion dominates the lives of local people [Music] though he is never a true believer his fascination with the national religion will continuously grow on his rise to the pinnacle of power there's always been an association in haiti between vuldu and power most haitians believe to this day that to have become president of the first place you must have made some kind of pact with the devil or with a dark side of vodou [Music] duvalier is a man full of contradictions he is fascinated by haitian mysticism but he is also a modern medical man of science in 1944 he gets a scholarship to study public health medicine at the university of michigan he will return as head of a program bringing modern medicine to the haitian peasants afflicted by a crippling skin disease called yours upper dog came in and said i'm going to change that and using penicillin he changed that duvalier becomes widely known traveling the country bringing his penicillin cure to remote villages across haiti that devalue actually set out walking great distances on foot he had to subject himself to hardship to actually deliver his medical expertise to these people he established a reputation as a kind man a good man a man who could literally come into the community and make people well [Music] that's how he got the name papadoc because throughout the country of haiti papadop's penicillin remedies wiped out yours to the largely illiterate and superstitious population papadoc isn't curing them with medicine alone they think he must have mysterious voodoo abilities people couldn't believe it was just the medicine doing it they believed that papa dog had this special power in him it's a turning point for duvalier he realizes that he can use his newly won reputation to gain total power [Music] in 1946 dr francois duvalier known affectionately as papadoc begins to climb the haitian political ladder [Music] he becomes minister for health under a fellow noirist president dumasseh estimate [Music] but just four years later the army overthrows president estimates regime and papadoc leaves political office [Music] colonel paul maglois is installed as the new president duvalier goes into hiding where he secretly begins plotting his own path to power in a country where few are literate he takes the opportunity to study political writings from marx to machiavelli machiavelli told him it's better to be feared than to be loved he learned that he practiced it it's a lesson that will reshape the peasant doctor's identity transforming him into a force of evil primed to take power by any means necessary [Music] in 1956 francois duvalier's nemesis haitian president colonel maguire is himself overthrown by the army and flees the country under an interim government the country trembles on the brink of civil war while elections for president are called duvalier emerges from hiding and goes to the newspaper office of bernard diedrich he was very quiet he was gentle and away he announced that he was a candidate for the presidency [Music] his initial objectives were entirely honorable and he probably was an idealist and he probably felt that he could do good things in power duvalier is standing as a champion of the impoverished black majority against louis de join considered to be a representative of the country's lightest-skinned elite he made it a fight of black versus mulatto in a country where 90 percent of the people are black doc was a shoe-in [Music] [Applause] on september 22nd 1957 the kindly doctor duvalier who cured so many sick people wins a landslide victory [Music] i had no idea that there was two sides to this man i mean he really fooled us all it's the beginning of decades of dictatorship for haiti [Music] oh god we had no idea what it was going to be like but it was murder as he takes his seat as president of haiti duvalier knows that it's not a secure position if you look at the track record of of presidents in haiti it's not very good i mean most of them were short-term at least two of them were actually chopped pieces by the populace out of 22 heads of state between 1843 and 1915 only one completes his full term in office even the hero of the haitian revolution general jean-jacques de saleem met a hideous fate desolene himself after two or three years in power was actually dismembered in the streets of port-au-prince and fed to the pigs papadoc is determined to be different it was very quick the transition from from bumbling country doctor to ruthless dictator [Music] de valier came to realize that the only way to exercise power in haiti was to be utterly ruthless so i think that was a kind of pragmatic decision that he reached duvalier quickly sets out to remove the obvious threats to his power first up the army he knew that the army were the king makers and he needed to make sure that the people in the key position the army were his appointees he sacks the top officers but for now at least they get away with their lives [Music] 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 favors just months after papadoc's inauguration shots ring out near the palace it looks like his insecurity is justified de vallee was under threat almost from the start former army officers seized the barracks next to the palace and attempt a coup it happened early in the morning so i went down to the palace and there was all house breaking boots it was 50 caliber machine gun fire the word spread around that there were 200 rebels fortunately for the valley most of the coup attempts if you like were comic opera affairs it turns out the coup is not being launched by 200 rebels but only eight duvalier crushes them easily it's a pivotal moment he decides that he just cannot trust the army and needs a new force of his own to secure his power he felt extremely vulnerable and he felt he was in need of a praetorian guard duvalier decides that he needs his own gang and that gang has to be meaner and bigger and tougher than the army papadoc orders the creation of the volunteers for national security the force will become better known by the name of an ogre from haitian folklore the taunton makut the first group of makruts was taken out of the national penitentiary there were murderers thieves people who had were serving time and they were recruited from there and given weapons and a blank check to do whatever the body asked them to do the signature emblem of the tonton makut were the shades they they always walked which gave them a particularly sinister veneer the tonton makuta become a key pillar of duvalier's regime in time they will outnumber the regular army but running his militia is expensive now duvalier needs money and he needs weapons but the best source of cash is the country he hates most america the united states has no love for his regime [Music] but then duvalier gets a lucky break [Music] in january 1959 fidel castro wins his revolution cuba just 50 miles across the windward streets from haiti shores becomes communist the rise of castro and the cuban revolution was an absolute boom for duvalier because it took the heat off him in terms of the state department worrying about the caribbean duvalier tells the americans that he is staunchly anti-communist but he might not always stay that way we use it as constant threat hanging over the americans to say oh well you know if you don't give me another sort of 50 million dollars in aid i might just have to look elsewhere maybe east you know or maybe to our friends over the windward streets papadoc's blackmail works the united states sends millions in financial aid and a detachment of marines to train his forces with the country he hates now bolstering his regime it seems that duvalier is secure [Music] but he has an achilles heel papadoc is a diabetic may 24 1959 he collapses and falls into a coma it lasts for some nine hours eventually duvalier's right-hand man clemon babo administers a glucose injection papadoc regains consciousness his life was saved in terms of the initial first aid by and then by the americans who treated him i believe at guantanamo but the president wakes up a changed man he was in a coma for quite a long period and there is some evidence that this may have created some brain damage or some long lasting change in his behavior papadoc is about to go from ruthless to madly evil after that illness he became a different person papadoc begins to behave as a powerful voodoo demigod baron samedi [Music] bao samji is the head of the cemetery he's one of the most powerful voodoo gods baron samedi in haitian folklore is the ultimate terrifying figure he he is the person who stalks the graveyard at night he's in the haitian grim reaper papadoc used to dress himself in black all the time officially and with a big humbug hat in his head just like baro sanji is portrayed darwin somebody himself was meant to speak in a particular way it was a particular low-pitched lisping sort of voice duvali himself started to affect precisely that voice [Music] in it becomes clear to some near him that duvalier has gone mad he was clearly unbalanced i think he becomes paranoid about everything and everyone [Music] the first sign of his change comes when duvalier decides to overturn the constitution which allows him only one term in office [Music] he calls elections in 1961 and there is only one name on the ballot for president francois duvalier well elections it's a farce it was a ritual to celebrate francois duvalier's regime papadoc wins the election by an incredible 1.3 million votes to zero the new york times reports that latin america has witnessed many fraudulent elections throughout its history but none more outrageous than the one which has just taken place in haiti it's a victory that sets up his second term to be far more evil than the first that's when the regime becomes totally brutal absolutely paranoid that is the beginning of utter violence using the army and his private militia papadoc establishes a reign of terror brutality became institutionalized and pervasive throughout the island duvalier's tonton makut infiltrate every stratum of haitian society it was a system that probably similar in terms of silencing the population as the stasi in east germany [Music] the main purpose of this terror is simple greed even though haiti is desperately poor papadoc and his cronies set about milking it dry millions of dollars in taxes and aid vanish into the pockets of his regime it was all about money i think it would be wrong to dignify duvalierism with the name of an ideology it wasn't really an ideology it was generalized kleptocracy it was the mob running a country the people who suffer suffered most were really the poorest nations there were thousands of anonymous victims of diwali people being tortured to death and shot and murdered because they wouldn't give their daughter to the local makutsu because they wouldn't give their business to the local mackerel nobody knows how many people that the the makuts killed the dictator is now increasingly paranoid lurking most of the time in his heavily fortified palace when he does venture out it is under heavy guard to show that he cares for his people he hands out petty cash it's his way of proving to himself how much his people love him i mean i remember duvalier in his car throwing money at people and people running to get you know a dollar something like that to me that was utter indignity washington has been providing millions of dollars a year in aid to haiti but it's clear that the money is being siphoned off president kennedy decides he has had enough of the mad dictator papadoc kennedy was really auntie duvalier and was doing everything possible to get rid of him kennedy cuts financial aid and looks for ways to reintroduce democracy it seems that papadoc's time in office may be running out but then the unthinkable happens when kennedy was assassinated on the 22nd of november papa dog duvalier had champagne at his palace with his psycho fence incredibly papadoc claims the assassination is all down to him [Music] he explains that he put a voodoo curse on kennedy and that it's no coincidence the president was killed on november the 22nd he did everything on the 22nd the 22nd was his lucky day he got elected on september 22nd he was inaugurated october 22nd and he purported to have killed kennedy on november 22 1963. boasting is designed to reinforce the idea that no matter how powerful they may be the fate of anyone who opposes papadoc is death if your president is in some sense synonymous with this supernatural taker of lives then he is not to be messed with with kennedy gone the pressure from the united states is off papaduck but duvalier soon realizes he has other problems 13 young haitians based in new york decide that now they have to take matters into their own hands calling themselves the gerund haiti or young haiti they set sail for their homeland in summer 1964 when kennedy was assassinated the gen iic movement felt that they had lost a great supporter and they didn't feel that the johnson administration would push through with programs that can be had for hate most of the journey have lost family to papadoc's brutal regime inspired by castro's success in cuba they land in haiti and attempt to start a revolution 13 of them left new york and went to haiti to carry out guerrilla movement just like castro did in the sierra maestra they were going through that in the mountains of haiti but the rebels quickly discover that the geography of haiti is not well suited to guerrilla warfare but the mountains of haiti were not as wounded as sierra maestra and papadoc who had his goals throughout haiti tracked them down one by one the members of the jhon haiti are killed the first to die is ivan larak his body is returned to papadoc he actually left the stinking body in an armchair outside the arrivals hall of port-au-prince international airport so the few tourists that haiti got at the time went through passport control went out to get their taxi only to be confronted by this decaying rotting body for months the journey struggle on in the mountains eventually 11 of the group are killed and the remaining two captured they are returned to porter press where the execution is set for november 12th 1964. [Music] duvalier declared a public holiday told school children's school teachers that they had to bring their school children to watch the executions this is how we deal with the enemies of haiti the executions were filmed and were played on television for weeks afterwards marcel numa a graduate of the bronx merchant marine academy and louis drewer a finance graduate and bank worker in new york are defiant to the bitter end the executioners was typical of duvalier's sense rather macabre sense of theatre that if you could if you could stage an execution then televise it and to make it even more grotesque bring in a group of school children to witness it because then the impact throughout haiti would have been immense i remember watching on tv the live execution of marcel nima and gustave i mean here you have two guys who are standing you know with their hands in their back and then all of a sudden they they shoot at them and then they fall that that that has never been able to be erased from my mind it's like yesterday i was seeing it the tyrant discovers that most of the revolutionaries come from the town of jeremy a stronghold of opposition papadoc unleashes his horrific vengeance on the town dugalia was someone who relished revenge he wasn't one to enjoy it cold i mean he preferred it hot families were taken children and wives killed first with their husbands watching and then their husbands killed not clear how many people died but it's probably in the thousands it tells you something about dively and that is that he wanted punishment to be exemplary and therefore the more blood curdling the more violent the more indiscriminate the more effective it was by the end of 1964 duvalier has killed thousands of people and has got what he always wanted total power inside haiti there is simply no opposition left there is nothing that can stop his evil regime i think i think by this period due valley could be defined as a megalomaniac power is is everything there is no alternative he can't leave he can't retire he's got to stay there so whatever it takes he will do yet total power is not enough for papadoc he wants to be more than a president he wants to become a god [Music] in june 1964 the tyrannical president francois papadoc duvalier moves to take total and perpetual control of the country he's used brutal violence to hold on to power for almost seven years already even overturning the constitution to allow himself a second term in office now he goes further holding a constitutional referendum to make himself president for life unsurprisingly he wins with 99.9 of the vote i have been elected for president for life it is not a my desire but it is iron will of the haitian people papadoc's madness now goes to new and truly extreme levels addressing the nation he delivers a bombshell [Music] he declares that he is more than human he is an immaterial being bullets cannot hurt him he was essentially saying that he was eternal he was some sort of of spirit hovering over haiti papadoc is now stating openly what many haitians already believe that he is an incarnation of the dreaded voodoo loire baron samedi guardian of the graveyard violence may have won him his position as president for life [Music] but what will keep him there is voodoo duvalier had more power in haiti than the arms the weapons the men here they ran papadoc used voodoo to control the nation ever since the yours campaign and dressing up as baron samedi papadoc has played on the perception that he has supernatural powers the vision he had for himself was full control of the society through mystical power papadoc starts creating myths about himself rumors circulate that duvalier makes a journey into the hills he goes to a cave known as the true fubong it's a sacred voodoo site where he is believed to have found something terrifyingly useful they brought back from a bunch of demons called baka and he had them installed they lived don't know what they did there but they lived in the in the cellars of the national palace the idea that he's got these demons ready to unleash is quite a disincentive to revolt or rebellion papadoc needs to demonstrate to his people that he really does have voodoo powers so he orders his men to hijack a funeral and steals the casket of his former friend and sometime political rival clermont sooner story starts circulating about how he closets himself in a room with jumel's corpse and appears to communicate with it papadoc is letting people think he has power to even talk to the dead death in haiti for many people is not natural so people think that diwali had made a zombie out of him [Music] for his voodoo rituals papadoc often does not need the whole body sometimes he demands that the decapitated heads of his enemies are brought to him again bizarre rumors circulate about what he does with them de vallee became convinced that he could actually extract intelligence from the heads of political enemies he would actually sit in the bath sometimes complete with top hat and consult the head of this opponent the purpose of these rituals is to scare his uneducated and superstitious nation is duvalier so mad that he actually believes in them too some who knew him say he does not but what is beyond doubt is that he knows how to use voodoo duvet used to smile because he was an atheist he didn't believe in voodoo he didn't believe in anything just power to have peace and stability you you shouldn't have a strong man in every country by the end of the 1960s papadoc is more than president for life he has his people thinking he is almost a god but there is one force he cannot evade his own mortality he has so terrified murdered um cowed the opposition that the only enemy really left is is the grim reaper and his own failing health unlike most dictators duvalier may get to rule until the end of his natural life the trouble is he's now in his early 60s riven with diabetes congestive heart failure and brain damage from his coma in 1959 so now he sets about securing a legacy for himself and his brutally corrupt regime [Music] by the beginning of the 1970s papadoc's voodoo persona dominates haiti people believe that he really is baron the whole of duvalierism was about the establishment of terror and it was a terror that was inside people's heads people were even afraid to think bad thoughts about valiant [Music] papadoc's brutal regime may have killed thirty thousand haitians but the official line is that duvalier is a living god across haiti are monuments to the ego of the tyrant his name is spelled out in lights of the national palace after the president for life move comes the cult of personality where duvalier wants to project himself as almost synonymous with the country no praise is too great for the supreme papadoc they fell over each other to invent new superlatives to describe him master of the crossroads [Music] the haitian flag floating and the man who sees forever the lord's prayer is rewritten as a prayer to papadoc so our doc who art in the national palace all the while the people are being made to worship him the tyrant is sucking the nation dry stealing millions of dollars a year from the haitian people this basically took the form of extortion of taxes on everybody businessmen on peanut vendors anybody who get money even a few cents it all mounted up one of the most grandiose excuses for extra taxation is a whole new town du valleville it's intended to be a show of modernity and hope for haiti but never gets finished this money went pretty much directly into the pockets of diwali and his family and his and his cronies but duvalier is still a trained doctor he knows that his own death is around the corner so he sets about securing his legacy it was something that happened fairly quickly but systematically papadoc's eldest son jean-claude is still a teenager brought up in the palace living a life of luxury and cut off from the concerns of normal haitians nevertheless his father decides that he will inherit the presidency prior to that jean-claude was known simply as a kind of a fat playboy he appears in public with his son and anoints him officially as the next president for life on april 21st 1971 the tyrant papadoc dies peacefully in his bed his son jean-claude becomes baby doc and will continue the corrupt duvalier regime for another 15 years ultimately he is overthrown and dies of a heart attack age 63 while awaiting trial for his crimes papadoc's true legacy is that he destroyed a dream and unleashed a nightmare his crimes haunt haiti to this day i think haiti was was permanently scarred and disfigured by divani haiti is now the poorest country in the western hemisphere crippled by a lack of education and wracked by political chaos the institutions were destroyed the families were destroyed the country in the hole was destroyed the only one for to benefit from those atrocities was himself how evil was papadoc i think duvalier was evil incarnate so you

Channel: criminals and crime fighters

Views: 112,390

Rating: 4.7374101 out of 5

Keywords: Evolution of Evil, Evolution of Evil Series, Evolution of Evil Full Episode, Evolution of Evil Documentary, Evolution of Evil Mussolini, Evolution of Evil italy, Evolution of Evil Dictator Documentary, Evolution of Evil Benito Mussolini, Evolution of Evil Papa Doc Documentary, Evolution of Evil Dictatorship Documentary, Evolution of Evil War Documentary, Evolution of Evil History Documentary, Evolution of Evil Haiti

Id: 22aSyj1f1z8

Length: 96min 44sec (5804 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 29 2021